State Child Welfare Policy Guide: Part of the Policy Matters Series

1.4 Respite and short-term crisis care

Respite care services provide temporary relief for caregivers in stressful situations by offering short-term care of children who have disabilities or chronic or terminal illnesses, who are at risk of abuse or neglect, or who have experienced abuse or neglect. [i]   Crisis care services -- often called emergency respite or crisis nurseries -- are a unique form of respite offered any time of the day or night when families are facing a crisis and no other safe childcare options are available. [ii]   Respite care typically lasts from a few hours to a few weeks.  Respite providers may be family members, friends or neighbors, community recreation programs, child care providers, home health aides, family resource centers, or community service providers. [iii]   Additionally, respite and crisis care providers may offer supports to minimize the likelihood of future crises, such as parenting training, referrals to other programs, and after-crisis services for children and parents.

Rigorous research documents the success of crisis respite services in protecting children and keeping families together.  Control group studies show that children receiving short-term, crisis respite services experience fewer substantiated incidents of maltreatment, fewer placements in foster care, and fewer out-of-home placements due to emotional and behavioral disturbance. [iv]   

Some states include respite care as a component of support systems targeted specifically to kinship caregivers, foster parents, and adoptive parents.  At least seven states provide respite care to either all foster parents or those caring for children with special needs. [v]   In Minnesota, adoptive parents are eligible for up to 504 paid hours of respite care per year [vi]

Caution is necessary, however.   Over time, many child welfare agencies have come to rely on crisis shelters to house children who have been removed from their families when immediate placement with kin or a foster family is not available.   In these jurisdictions, what was intended as short term respite care has come to be used as congregate care placements for children in the custody of child welfare agencies.   Research shows that shelter and other congregate care for infants and toddlers is damaging to brain development, and several jurisdictions have prohibited placement of young children in crisis nurseries and shelters. [vii]   (See Policy 6.4 -- Prohibition of congregate care for young children.)

Policy Options:   States can authorize and fund respite care using 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 of the following eligibility criteria for families experiencing stress in caring for their children:

·         All parents and caregivers of children who have disabilities, 

·         All parents and caregivers of children at risk of abuse and neglect,

·         All foster parents,

·         All kinship caregivers,

·         All adoptive parents of children who have been involved with the child welfare system.