Placement instability for children in foster care has an adverse effect on child safety, permanency, and well-being. Some studies have examined racial matching between caseworker-child to improve child outcomes, but fewer have explored racial matching in foster care placements and subsequent outcomes. This study examined the impact of same-race foster home placements on placement stability. This study used data from the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis System (AFCARS), an administrative database containing the children in care for each fiscal year (FY). The analytic sample included n = 36,191 children aged 0–17 years who entered foster care in FY 2015 and were placed with a non-relative foster family and remained in the same placement throughout FY 2015. We followed this sample through FY 2019 to compare racially-matched initial placements and subsequent placement changes. The authors conducted an inverse probability-weighted regression adjustment model using Stata version 16. Approximately three-quarters of children were in a racially matched foster home when they entered foster care, and two-thirds experienced placement stability. Non-Hispanic White children had the highest rates of racially matched placements. After adjusting for other factors, racial matching increased the likelihood of placement stability (b = .05, p < .001). The relationship between child race/ethnicity and placement stability varied among those in racially-matched and transracial placements. Initial findings highlight the importance of recruiting foster families of color and we identify areas for future research that could track child and foster parent characteristics with each placement move.

寄养儿童的安置不稳定会对儿童的安全、永久性和福祉产生不利影响。一些研究已经检查了个案工作者与孩子之间的种族匹配以改善儿童的结果，但很少有人探讨寄养安置和后续结果中的种族匹配。本研究探讨了同种族寄养家庭安置对安置稳定性的影响。本研究使用来自收养和寄养分析系统 (AFCARS) 的数据，这是一个管理数据库，包含每个财政年度 (FY) 的受照护儿童。分析样本包括n = 36,191 名 0-17 岁的儿童，他们在 2015 财年进入寄养家庭，并被安置在非亲属寄养家庭中，并在 2015 财年保持相同的安置。我们在 2019 财年跟踪此样本，比较种族匹配的初始安置和随后的位置变化。作者使用 Stata 版本 16 进行了逆概率加权回归调整模型。大约四分之三的儿童在进入寄养家庭时处于种族匹配的寄养家庭中，三分之二的儿童经历了安置稳定性。非西班牙裔白人儿童的种族匹配安置率最高。在调整其他因素后，种族匹配增加了安置稳定性的可能性（b  = .05，p < .001)。在种族匹配和跨种族安置中，儿童种族/民族与安置稳定性之间的关系各不相同。初步调查结果强调了招募有色人种寄养家庭的重要性，我们确定了未来研究的领域，这些领域可以跟踪每个安置举措的儿童和寄养父母的特征。