A Study on the Role of Foster Care in African American Kinship and Non-kinship Foster Parents

“Role perceptions of foster care in African American kinship and non-kinship foster parents:

A quantitative analysis” is precise and short clearly outlining the purpose of the study hence meeting the requirement of research articles titles that they should be brief and precise. This allows the reader to clearly understand what the research is about avoiding possible confusion. Abstract In the abstract the author studied a group of kinship (n=57) and non-kinship African Americans (n=53) foster parents as care givers and their perception of their role responsibility. In the study the foster parent role perception was used as the scale for measuring the perception of care givers on their responsibilities of taking care of the children (Warde, 2008).

The study found out that foster parent from the kinship and non-kinship African American considered looking after the foster children and providing for their needs as their primary responsibility. However they considered working with the child’s biological family or with a partnering agency a much less role responsibility. Even though the author includes the study population, sample size, material used and the results, the document failed to mention the purpose of the study, the selection criteria for the participants, conclusions and recommendations in the abstract. The reader should be able to get an insight into what the study is about and decide if the study is interesting to him or not just by reading the abstract. The abstract is what motivates the reader to read or not to read the paper.

Literature review

In the literature review the author is expected to identify research gaps associated with the problem of interest and give suggestions on how the gap can be addressed. It should cover an appropriate breadth and depth information related to the study topic. In this article, the author did a comprehensive coverage of the topic in the research. In the theoretical framework, the author discussed role theory as playing a role in enabling people to understand the relationship that exist between the agencies concerned with the child’s welfare foster parent role expectations and perceptions towards their role as care providers. Regarding the foster parent care, the care providers should work closely with representatives from the relevant agencies to promote the overall health of the foster child (Warde, 2008). It further notes that the perception of the care providers on their role responsibilities should be in tandem with the expectations of the agency to avoid conflicts. This provides an insight in to what the findings of the study would mean

regarding the perception of the foster parents towards the agencies. The literature describes the population of the African American as not being huge. The kinship and non-kinship providers are almost of similar number and are considerably not similar in terms of their level of fostering motivation. They are driven by different desires to protect the children. In the literature the author further notes that even though there are studies on the perceptions of foster parents, specific information or studies on African Americans kinship and non-kinship foster parents are lacking (Warde, 2008).

In the literature, a good framework should outline the concepts of interest and how they relate to each other. The author has identified the perceptions of the kinship and non-kiship about the fostering role responsibilities and also how they relate with the expectations of the agencies dealing with the protection of the children. The study will later build on these concepts through empirical observation. Study justification Study justification should always try to give an explanation as to why a particular activity is being undertaken or should be implemented and how its implementation will offer the needed solution to already identified problem. In this article the author notes that there are researches that provide information on the African American perceptions on their roles as foster parents, however, specific studies providing information on how the African Americans kinship and non-kinship perceive their responsibilities as foster parents are missing (Warde, 2008).

References

• Warde, B. (2008). Role Perceptions of Foster Care in African American Kinship and Non-kinship Foster Parents: A Quantitative Analysis.
• Journal of Family Social Work, Vol. 11(3) 2008. Available online at http://www.haworthpress.com.