Dyadic Reports of Interparental Relationship Quality and Intentions to Continue Fostering Among Coupled Foster Caregivers

The United States is in a foster care crisis with nearly 400,000 children in need of care and not enough foster homes to fill this need. Therefore, recruiting and retaining high-quality foster care homes is essential for the placement stability and well-being of some of our society's most vulnerable children. For foster caregivers in a couple relationship, the health of the couple and coparenting relationship may play a major role in their well-being and satisfaction, influencing their retention. Guided by existing literature and the sound house theory (Gottman and Silver 2015), the current study employs latent profile analysis to examine the interparental relationship quality of 79 different-sex foster caregiver couples, potential covariates of their interparental relationship quality, and their intent to continue fostering for the next 12 months. Three groups of foster caregiver couples emerged where (1) both partners reported high interparental relationship quality, (2) both partners reported moderate relationship quality, and (3) fathers reported moderate relationship quality and mothers reported low relationship quality. Couple and foster caregiver demographic characteristics were not associated with foster caregiver couple groups. Foster mothers in groups where foster fathers reported moderate interparental relationship quality and mothers reported low interparental relationship quality reported significantly lower intentions to continue fostering. These findings have potential implications for foster caregiver screening and expanding formal support resources to promote retention. Future research is needed with larger and generalizable samples to further assess the efficacy of couple relationship education on relationship quality and retention of foster caregiver couples.