National training and development curriculum training program impact on placement, permanency, and stability.

BACKGROUND

Resource parent trainings are an important factor in caregiver readiness and retention, which can improve placement stability and permanency achievement for children and youth, especially those who are marginalized.

OBJECTIVE

Resource parents need access to evidence-based training programs attentive to caring for children and youth from a variety of diverse backgrounds. This study evaluates placement, permanency, and stability outcomes of children whose resource parents were trained in one such program: the National Training and Development Curriculum (NTDC).

PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING

Participants include adults who completed a resource parent training program (N = 3822) and children in their care (N = 2565) in the U.S. states of Florida, Georgia, Illinois, and Missouri.

METHODS

This quasi-experimental study involved statistical testing of caregivers and children using AFCARS data. Propensity-score matching was used to control for differences in the child permanency analysis.

RESULTS

With a better understanding of the realities of fostering, NTDC participants were slightly less likely to foster after training (OR = 0.6; p < .001), self-selecting out before taking a child into the home. Those who did foster were more likely to foster a child who is a teen (OR = 1.4; p = .004), Asian/Asian American (OR = 3.8; p = .02), Black/African American (OR = 1.6; p < .001), or Hispanic/Latinx (OR = 1.7; p = .002). Children of NTDC caregivers entered legal adoptions (OR = 2.0; p = .003) and guardianships (OR = 2.9; p = .03) at higher rates than children of comparison caregivers, while rates of reunification (OR = 1.3; p = .11) were not statistically different.

CONCLUSIONS

Evidence points to the effectiveness of NTDC in preparing resource parents to provide care for a diverse range of children by age, race, and ethnicity, and for those children to achieve permanency.