Supporting the Individual Connection to Cultural Identity in Everyday Life: Identifying Supports and Barriers for BIPOC Foster Children Being Placed in Multicultural Homes

With the high and disproportionate numbers of BIPOC children in foster care, little to no action is taken to implement the mandatory competencies of the child welfare system to ensure children are meeting necessary cultural identity milestones. Core competencies are created to guide child welfare workers in providing the best practice to the children and families they serve. These competencies cover separation, placement and reunification. Child welfare workers are expected to assess the needs of children requiring foster or adoptive placement and select the most appropriate, least restrictive, most homelike, and culturally-relevant placement setting to meet the child's developmental and treatment needs (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2022). Although these competencies are put in place to further support BIPOC children, there is a concern with the implementation. To better understand where the gap exists, a scoping review of the current literature was conducted to identify supports and barriers for BIPOC foster children being placed in transracial homes. A phrase search strategy to administer this review used terms such as, (1) BIPOC foster children, (2) transracial homes, (3) children old enough to identify with their birth culture, (4) supports and barriers, (5) cultural identity, (6) ethnic identity. Of the 197 records found, 13 matched our criteria. Most of the literature examined the importance of cultural identity and the impact and negative effects on children when it is not present. Few studies highlight the importance of incorporating aspects of the child's culture from their communities of origin in fostering children such as cultural foods, dishes, holidays, religion, etc. Findings from our review continue to show the ways in which BIPOC children are disproportionately affected in the foster care system as well as the short term and long term significance of cultural identity in their lives. These findings shed light on the necessary actions that need to take place to contrive a healthy and meaningful connection to cultural identity.