This exploratory study focuses upon parental visiting of children in foster family care. An ex post facto single cross-section survey design is employed in which data were collected from a purposive sample of two of eleven districts within the State of Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services. Random samples of children and foster parents were drawn from selected units within these districts. Data were collected from the case records of 97 children. In person interviews were conducted with 15 direct service workers while 67 foster parents were interviewed by telephone. Additionally, the six unit supervisors were given in person interviews, concerning agency visitation policy. Study findings indicated that only 30 percent of the sample children were visited at least once a month while 29 percent of these children received no visitation during the six months prior to data collection. 12 a priori hypotheses were tested. These findings indicate that children are more likely to be visited if their workers encourage visitation, their case plan is to return home, their foster parents have positive attitudes toward visitation for the specific children in their care, and they have been in care for relatively short periods. The child's reason for entry into care and the general measures of foster parent attitudes toward visitation were found to be unrelated to the frequency of parental visiting. Additionally, study data do not generally support the conclusion in the literature which suggests that workers and foster parents may inhibit visitation. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-06, Section: A, page: 2320. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1985.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_75835 |
| Contributors | NEWCOMB, PAUL ROY., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 172 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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