Attempts to address racial disproportionality in child welfare must include a focus on the benefits and challenges facing children in kinship care. African American children not only are overrepresented in the child welfare system, but also are placed disproportionately in kinship foster care. Using a sample of 18 African American adolescents ages 11 to 14, this article explores how the relatio...

Family therapy has traditionally centered on the nuclear family and thus has been typically oriented toward urban white middle-class families. A variety of modifications in therapeutic technique has evolved for work with the many modern families whose structure consists of a functional psychosocial family kinship. The authors have developed a formal theoretical framework and model for family th...

The persistence of biological systems requires evolved mechanisms which promote stability. Cohesive primate social groups are one example of stable biological systems, which persist in spite of regular conflict. We suggest that genetic relatedness and its associated kinship structure are a potential source of stability in primate social groups as kinship structure is an important organizing pri...

Intergenerational kinship and multigenerational families (three or more generations) have been a source of strength for African Americans. This article presents a culturally responsive intergenerational practice model for working with African American families that draws on this legacy. The model looks at intergenerational kinship and multigenerational families through an Afrocentric, intergene...

Article history: Received 24 January 2016 Received in revised form 20 May 2016 Accepted 23 May 2016 Available online 25 May 2016 Informal kinship care is themost common form of care of related children and it occurs without the oversight or assistance of the childwelfare system. This study examinedwhether and how social support, family competence, and family resources were related to parenting ...

As many as 3% of children in the United States live in kinship care arrangements with caregivers who are relatives but not the biological parents of the child. A growing body of evidence suggests that children who cannot live with their biological parents fare better, overall, when living with extended family than with nonrelated foster parents. Acknowledging this, federal laws and public polic...

There is a vast amount of literature that considers the importance of the family as an institution. Little attention, however, has been given to the impact of family structures on institutions, their dynamics, and the ability to change them. This limits our ability to understand distinct institutional developments B and hence growth B in the past and the present. This paper illustrates this by ...