Abused children who are removed from their homes are likely to be placed voluntarily in the homes of other family members instead of other placement arrangements, according to new research from the Carsey Institute at UNH.
The new research is presented in the Carsey Institute brief “Informal Kinship Care Most Common Out-of- Home Placement After an Investigation of Child Maltreatment” conducted by Wendy Walsh, research associate professor of sociology at the UNH Crimes against Children Research Center and research associate at the Carsey Institute.
Walsh looked at placement patterns nationally in both rural and urban areas. She evaluated whether abused children were placed in foster care, formal kinship care (state has legal custody and places the child with a family member), informal kinship care (a parent voluntarily places a child with a family member), or group homes or other out-of-home settings, such as emergency...



