Parenting attitudes and moral development of treatment foster parents: Implications for training and supervision

This study examined the relationship between moral development and treatment foster parent attitudes. The Defining Issues Test and the Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory were administered to 103 treatment foster parents. Additional variables of gender, age, race, marital status, and education were also considered. Significant correlations indicated that treatment foster parents with higher levels of moral reasoning were more likely to report more appropriate and nurturing parenting attitudes on the parenting inventory. Significant relationships with gender, race, age, and education are reported. Implications for utilizing a cognitive developmental framework for selecting, training, and supervising foster parents and perhaps other child and youth caregivers are discussed.[PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]