Fostering Higher Education: A postsecondary access and retention intervention for youth with foster care experience

Most youth in foster care aspire to obtain higher education, but face daunting obstacles in doing so. While societal interest and effort to support foster youth in achieving higher education has grown, very few supports have evidence to show that they are effective at improving postsecondary outcomes. In an effort to address the dearth of clearly articulated, evidence-based postsecondary support approaches for foster youth, we have developed Fostering Higher Education (FHE), a comprehensive, structured, and evaluable postsecondary access and retention intervention composed of elements (professional educational advocacy, substance abuse prevention, mentoring) that are either evidence based or promising based on the scientific literature and their ability to address the outcomes of interest. This paper describes the development and youth usability and practitioner feasibility testing of the FHE intervention approach, which was developed through funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Youth usability feedback was primarily positive, with the majority of participants indicating they found the FHE activities interesting and useful, and were comfortable participating in them. Practitioner feasibility feedback was also primarily positive, with almost unanimous ratings of the FHE intervention components as very important to provide to youth and that all would be feasible for an organization to implement, though the mentoring components were seen as slightly less feasible than other components. Next steps and implications of this intervention development process are discussed.     

The model standards project: creating inclusive systems for LGBT youth in out-of-home care

This article describes the Model Standards Project (MSP), a collaboration of Legal Services for Children and the National Center for Lesbian Rights. The MSP developed a set of model professional standards governing the care of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth in out-of-home care. This article provides an overview of the experiences of LGBT youth in state custody, drawing from existing research, as well as the actual experiences of youth who participated in the project or spoke with project staff. It will describe existing professional standards applicable to child welfare and juvenile justice systems, and the need for standards specifically focused on serving LGBT youth. The article concludes with recommendations for implementation of the standards in local jurisdictions.     

Effects of a stage-based alcohol preventive intervention for inner-city youth

The purpose of this study was to examine first year outcomes of an alcohol preventive intervention within inner-city middle schools. Subjects consisted of 650 sixth grade students from one neighborhood inner-city school (n = 262) and one bused school (n = 388). At posttest, chi-square analyses showed that significantly fewer neighborhood intervention students initiated alcohol use, used alcohol during the past seven-day and thirty-day periods, drank heavily during the past thirty days, and drank over any period of time, compared to control students (p's < .05). Significant group x prior alcohol consequences interaction effects were found for bused students, showing those with past alcohol consequences who received the intervention had less intentions to use alcohol and less frequent use of alcohol (p's < .05). These results suggest that a brief, stage-based preventive intervention may result in significant reductions in alcohol initiation and consumption among some inner-city youth.     

Evidence-based practice for youth in supervised out-of-home care: a framework for development, definition, and evaluation

Adolescents comprise more than half of the children in child welfare supervised out-of-home care. This article considers the evidence-base for an array of services to adolescents in out-of-home care and evaluates the existing research base for each program. This review advances a framework for considering the critical need to develop, define, and evaluate the essential elements of out-of-home care services for older foster youth. Policy, program, and evaluation recommendations are forwarded.     

Health care policies for children in out-of-home care

Placement in out-of-home care is one intervention used to protect children from abuse and neglect. While children are in such care, it is the child welfare agency's responsibility to ensure that their health needs are met. The study reported here examined health care policies and services for children in 46 state child welfare agencies. Virtually all states had some sort of written policies regarding health care for children in out-of-home care. Half, however, reported having no information management system to record health care data, and only six of the 23 had computerized systems. Most states fell short of meeting the standards set by the Child Welfare League of America for the health care of children in out-of-home care.     

Junior life skills: an innovation for latency-age children in out-of-home care.

Children age seven to 13 in out-of-home care should be given instruction in basic life skills, just as their older counterparts are prepared for independent living. One program that provides such instruction is detailed here.     

Fostering employability among youth at-risk in a multi-cultural context: Insights from a pilot intervention program

Recent studies indicate that the transition from school to work is a critical juncture in shaping the professional future of youth at risk. This period may thus serve as a window of opportunities for fostering employability among these youths and, thereby, for promoting their social mobility. However, systematic evaluations of intervention programs aimed at fostering employability among at-risk adolescents—and especially in a multi-cultural context—are relatively few. The current study describes the strengths and weaknesses of a pilot, nation-wide, multi-cultural, holistic intervention program, aimed at fostering employability among at-risk adolescents before they actually enter the labor market. The program integrated efforts in three main domains: cultivating work-related skills, fostering personal and interpersonal skills, and providing a supportive personal and group climate. During the years 2011–2013, the program was operated in 40 localities in Israel and in three culturally different sectors: The Jewish-Israeli majority sector in the periphery, the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish minority sector, and the Israeli-Arab (Muslim) minority sector. The current study describes the results of an evaluation study that accompanied the implementation of the program in nine representative localities (117 adolescents, ages 14–19) during 2012.Overall, the functioning of the adolescents (as evaluated by the professional program instructors) improved in all examined work-related domains: personal-emotional functioning, work-related functioning, CV writing ability, and future education prospects. Regression analyses highlighted several factors as predictive of improvement in the different employability-related domains, most notably, having a working father, being active in group meetings, having no Internet connection at home, helping other participants in the program, and being involved in selecting the topics of a professional course. Importantly, this improvement was linked with the cultural affiliation of the participants, and participants from the different sectors indicated different factors as contributing to their advancement.The results of this evaluation study suggest that intervention programs for promoting employability among at-risk adolescents should integrate a holistic and flexible national model with adaptations by local steering committees, whose members are from the same cultural group as the participating adolescents. Such a strategy will enable each unique community to tailor the local operation of the program to the culturespecific needs of—and to maximally utilize the resources available for—the different sectors in a multi-cultural society, while establishing a dialogue and reciprocal learning in national forums. A dilemma has been identified, however, with respect to increasing the local involvement of the national committee to provide the local committees with different viewpoints.     

Administrative case reviews: Improving outcomes for children in out-of-home care

For nearly three decades foster care review has been required and practiced in the United States. It is well established that foster care review was designed with the intent to reduce the time children spend in foster care and increase permanent placements for children. This article presents that foster care review, as practiced in Colorado, is a social work intervention and quantitative results of this study demonstrate that as an intervention, timely administrative case review is an effective social work intervention related to improving child welfare outcomes for the children and families served in Colorado. The major findings show that timely administrative case review and increased levels of review attendance (mother, father, Guardian ad litem's, and foster parents) are predictors of the child welfare outcomes of permanency and length of time in out-of-home care. Bivariate results indicate a median length of stay approximately 10.76 months longer for children who do not consistently receive timely case reviews. Additionally, the results show that timely care review moderates the underlying casework process related to caseworker contacts, demonstrating that a child's length of stay differs depending on the level of timely case review. In essence, the administrative case review process in Colorado is effectively achieving its goal and is an effective intervention for improving the lives of children in foster care.     

Placement stability for children in out-of-home care: a longitudinal analysis

This study examines the number of placement moves experienced over an eight-year period by 5,557 children in one state who first entered out-of-home care between birth and age six. This group comprised 28% of all young children who entered care during this period. Nearly 30% of children in kinship care and 52% of children in nonrelative care experienced placement instability (defined as three or more moves after the first year in care). Children in kinship care, regardless of age, had fewer placement moves than those in nonkinship care. A multivariate analysis found that children who had more than one placement move during their first year of care were more likely to experience placement instability in long-term out-of-home care than if they did not move or were moved only once during their first year in care.     

Putting youth development into practice: learning from an innovative fellowship program

Professionals who work with youth can have a tremendous impact on the development and life trajectory of these young people. This article reports on an effort to provide support and professional development for those who work with youth during nonschool hours in a youth development fellowship program. Combining intensive residency workshops and a six-month coaching experience, the fellowship was designed to teach participants how to integrate youth resilience and youth development perspectives into their work. The evaluation collected data from the fellows and their coaches during the course of the program. The study offers insights into the types of benefits achieved through this type of focused intervention with youth workers, as well as the challenges of conducting such an effort.     

Child resilience in out-of-home care: Child welfare worker perspectives

The study of resilience and its associated factors is highly applicable to the child welfare population as children living in out-of-home care have often experienced much adversity and are particularly vulnerable to the development of problems in numerous domains of functioning. The use of qualitative research in this area is scarce, and the majority of such studies have been based on the U.K. or U.S. child welfare systems. Therefore, the goal of the current study was to gain child welfare workers' perspectives on resilience and to explore the factors that they believe might influence resilience. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 child welfare workers from Ontario (Canada) to accomplish this goal. The interview was developed using an ecological perspective that inquired about possible sources of resilience from within children themselves, their family, their community, and the child welfare worker and agency. The workers identified a number of factors associated with resilience (e.g., child intelligence, worker communication skills); however, the critical importance of a child's relationships and social support from others underpinned all factors discussed. The findings highlight the importance of including the perspectives of all those involved in the child welfare system in assessing the well-being of children in out-of-home care. In addition, the dynamic interrelationships between the various levels of the ecological model and how these can impact on how a child is doing in out-of-home care were highlighted.     

Permanency mediation: a path to open adoption for children in out-of-home care

This research study examined the experiences of birthparents, permanent parents, and mediators in permanency mediation following a state child welfare agency's recommendation for termination of parental rights. Permanency mediation provides participants with the opportunity to collaborate in an agreement that entails a voluntary surrender of parental rights by the birthparents and the placement of children with permanent parents in open adoption or guardianship. Findings suggested that permanency mediation has the potential to be a successful practice. Participants, however, need additional support during and after mediation to help them understand open adoption and deal with the changes in family structures and boundaries, address their own feelings and concerns, and establish reliable means of communication with each other.     

Children with disabilities in out-of-home care: Perspectives on organisational collaborations

Many contemporary support services for children and young people (CYP) in out-of-home-care have adopted a collaborative approach to service provision in order to best meet the complex needs of clients. The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of the perceptions of Evolve Behaviour Support Services (EBSS) frontline and managerial staff delivering services to CYP in out-of-home-care with disability and complex behaviours regarding interagency/stakeholder collaboration. Views about the number and nature of collaborative partnerships, factors which facilitate or hinder effective relationships and advantages (including unintended benefits) of collaboration were sought. Qualitative interviews with 21 participants highlighted issues around: (1) general and agency/stakeholder specific issues and barriers, and (2) benefits of collaboration. The collaborative approach to service provision was seen as greatly enhancing the effectiveness of EBSS' response and ability to meet the range of CYP's complex needs, as well as having benefits for carers and service providers. Nevertheless, difficulties with collaboration were also encountered. Frequently identified challenges included reduced stakeholder engagement, differences in professional backgrounds and practice frameworks, unequal initiation of contact and follow-up, organisational disparities, communication and information sharing problems, frequent stakeholder turnover and geographical barriers in rural/remote areas.     

Characteristics of effective, harm-free environments for children in out-of-home care.

The history of out-of-home care is replete with documented examples of abusive and neglectful practices. Some scholars express concern that out-of-home care is de facto abusive. Certain elements, however, can foster effective and harm-free out-of-home care, such as caregiver support, a model of care, a focus on positive behavior, a consumer orientation, training, program evaluation, and an internal program audit. These elements work together to increase program effectiveness and reduce negative outcomes such as staff burnout. Furthermore, programs that use these elements can be cost efficient.     

Children placed in out-of-home care: risk factors for involvement with the juvenile justice system

In previous research, child maltreatment has been associated with several negative outcomes, including delinquency. This study uses administrative data to examine risk factors, including the severity and chronicity of maltreatment, for juvenile justice involvement among children, ages 7 to 17, who were placed in out-of-home care in Florida (N = 13,212). The results of multivariate Cox regression analysis indicated that among specific types of maltreatment, sexual abuse was associated with the risk of faster placement only in a detention center. Additionally, findings from this study suggest that maltreatment chronicity but not maltreatment severity increases the chances of earlier involvement with the juvenile justice system among children who were placed in an out-of-home care. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Profile of children placed in out-of-home care: Association with permanency outcomes

The goals of this study were to explore characteristics and profiles of children who received out-of-home care services and to examine the relationship between their profiles and permanency outcomes. Results of latent class analysis suggest that there are three distinct subgroups of children served in out-of-home care (N = 33,092): Children with Complex Needs (6%), Children in Families with Complex Needs (64%), and Older Abused Children (30%). Of the three identified subgroups Children with Complex Needs consisted of youth who were at greater risk for adverse outcomes. These children were less likely to experience timely adoption, had the longest length of stay in out-of-home care, and were least likely to experience timely reunification. Although permanency outcomes for Older Abused Children are somewhat better than for Children with Complex Needs, they represent a vulnerable population of youth in out-of-home care who have a very low chance of being adopted. Overall, this study suggests that service provision by itself may not improve permanency outcomes for children unless both prevention and intervention efforts address co-occurring family needs and are tailored to specific characteristics of the children being served.     

Academic engagement and performance: Estimating the impact of out-of-home care for maltreated children

Using data from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-being II, the authors examined whether being placed in foster care was associated with school engagement and performance. The authors used propensity score matching to compare children who had similar demographic characteristics, maltreatment histories, and prior levels of school engagement. Children who were in foster care at wave 2 were found to have higher levels of cognitive engagement in school compared to children who were maltreated but never removed from their homes. It is recommended that children who are maltreated but remain in their familial home receive additional intervention related to their educational engagement.     

Power through choices: the development of a sexuality education curriculum for youths in out-of-home care

Youths in out-of-home care demonstrate high rates of sexual risk-taking behavior and elevated rates of unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). This article profiles the development and characteristics of an innovative pregnancy/HIV/STI prevention curriculum tailored to the needs of youths in out-of-home care. Promising results from an implementation study suggest the need for further dissemination and rigorous testing.