Initial Evidence for the Reliability and Validity of New Survey Measures to Evaluate Family Outcomes of Kinship and Adoption Navigator Programs

Abstract

Kinship navigator programs (KNPs) are an important strategy to prevent overreliance on the use of foster care, but the evidence for their effectiveness is still emergent. One of the challenges in building the evidence of KNPs is the lack of culturally responsive measures to assess program-specific outcomes. Four new measures were codesigned with advisors to the Ohio Kinship and Adoption Navigator Program, including service providers and caregivers with lived expertise, to assess the most proximal outcomes of the program: satisfaction with services, self-identified family needs, caregiver resourcefulness to meet children’s needs, and accessibility of community resources. Psychometric testing with 194 kinship caregivers and adoptive parents shows promising evidence for the measures’ reliability and validity. The findings have implications for navigator programs aiming to specify and measure proximal outcomes that are tailored to their program’s design.