In the article”Characteristics of Foster Family Applicants Willing to Accept Hard-To-Place Children”, author Mary Ellen Cox delves into the topic of the foster care system in an attempt to address the problem of foster parents often being unwilling to accept such children, a trend which she argues jeopardizes the quality of care available to children searching for foster homes. To approach this problem, Cox designed her research to answer two questions: “what number of foster family applicants are willing to foster hard-to-place children?”, and “what type of applicants are willing to accept these children?”. Cox gathered several types of data, including demographic and organizational, from 153 applicants in pre-service training. Using a combination of questionnaires, interviews, and public and private records, she measured the presence of 11 different foster parent resources, as well as the willingness of applicants to accept different types of hard-to place children, such as abused children, siblings, or deprived children. Following the period of data collection, the author then used a data analysis to obtain results. Cox found a high number of applicants were willing to take hard-to-place children, 2/3 for most types. She also found that the amount of total resources was a good predictor of willingness, as was membership in a place of worship, or race.

As a whole, I thought the project was interesting, and had great merit. I particularly appreciated that Cox thought to look at different catagories of hard to place children, which was backed by the fact that the results often showed differences. For example, the high willingness of applicants to accept most types of these children did not extent to those with a tendency to set fires. The author did not give much detail on the method analysis, which I was dissapointed with, but in general the project was well done, and engaging to read about.

Cox, M. E.Characteristics of foster family applicants willing to accept hard-to-place foster children Available from Social Services Abstracts; Social Services Abstracts. (61464283; 200104915). Retrieved from http://0-search.proquest.com.books.redlands.edu/docview/61464283?accountid=14729