In this article, the authors present the Willingness to Foster Scale - Disabilities and Medical Conditions (WFS-DMC) and report results concerning its psychometric properties. The WFS-DMC is a new measure designed to accurately and efficiently assess the willingness of parents to foster children with special needs, in particular, disabilities and special medical conditions. The authors tested the WFS-DMC with a national sample of 298 foster mothers. Internal consistency reliability was excellent (α =. 90). With reference to construct validity, mothers with higher WFS-DMC scores fostered longer, fostered and adopted more children, and requested the removal of a smaller proportion of foster children. Furthermore, the mothers' WFS-DMC scores were unrelated to demographic characteristics. The WFS-DMC could help guide the decision-making process involved in matching children who have special needs with parents willing to care for them.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ETSU/oai:dc.etsu.edu:etsu-works-8893 |
| Date | 01 September 2013 |
| Creators | Orme, John, Cherry, Donna J., Cox, Mary Ellen |
| Publisher | Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University |
| Source Sets | East Tennessee State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | ETSU Faculty Works |
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