Placement stability and the psychosocial well-being of children in foster care

Objective: This article assesses one of the key assumptions underlying the philosophy of permanency planning-that placement instability, adversely affects the psychosocial development of children in foster care. Method: The placement movements and psychosocial well-being of foster care were assessed over an 8-month period. Results: Most of the children who remained in care throughout the period could be assigned to one of three groups: 1 (stable throughout), 2 (unstable throughout), 3 (initially unstable, then stable) Results for these 120 children were generally consistent with a linear trend toward improvement in Groups 1 and 2, whereas Group 3 children displayed improvement only while their placements were unstable. Conclusions: Although results for Group 3 permit more than one interpretation, results for Group 2 suggest that placement instability up to at least the 8-month point is not necessarily damaging to the child.