A Follow-up Study of Foster Children in Permanent Placements

Lahti, Janet

doi:10.1086/644047

Cited by 49 publications

(21 citation statements)

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“…16,17,20,41 Little is known about the types of services, if any, families receive after reunification. It is critical to know if better child and family outcomes can be achieved with intensive services.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…6,31 Despite these arguments and beliefs, there is no coherent evidence that maltreated children who are reunified after placement in foster care do better than children who are not reunified. Although studies have not systematically explored this question, 3 studies have found better outcomes for children who were not reunified including gains in intelligence scores, 40 greater overall well-being, 41 and less criminal recidivism 8 than children who were reunified with their families of origin. 9,20 These studies, however, did not control for previous behavioral functioning at entry to foster care or comprehensively examine children's behavioral health outcomes.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Children Who Return Home From Foster Care: A 6-Year Prospective Study of Behavioral Health Outcomes in Adolescence

2001

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ABSTRACT. Objective. Returning children to their biological families after placement in foster care (ie, reunification) has been prioritized with legislation. Comprehensive studies of child behavioral health functioning after reunification, however, have not been conducted. This study examined outcomes for youth who were reunified after placement in foster care as compared with youth who did not reunify.Design. Prospective cohort. Setting. Children who entered foster care in San Diego, California, and who remained in foster care for at least 5 months.Participants. A cohort of 149 ethnically diverse youth, 7 to 12 years old, who entered foster care between May 1990, and October 1991. Seventy-five percent of those interviewed at Time 1 were interviewed at Time 2 (6 years later).Outcome Measures. 1) Risk behaviors: delinquent, sexual, self-destructive, substance use, and total risk behaviors; 2) Life-course outcomes: pregnancy, tickets/arrests, suspensions, dropping out of school, and grades; 3) Current symptomatology: externalizing, internalizing, total behavior problems, and total competence.Results. Compared with youth who were not reunified, reunified youth showed more self-destructive behavior (0.15 vs ؊0.11), substance use (0.16 vs ؊0.11), and total risk behavior problem standardized scores (0.12 vs ؊0.09). Reunified youth were more likely to have received a ticket or have been arrested (49.2% vs 30.2%), to have dropped out of school (20.6% vs 9.4%), and to have received lower grades (6.5 vs 7.4). Reunified youth reported more current problems in internalizing behaviors (56.6 vs 53.0), and total behavior problems (59.5 vs 55.7), and lower total competence (41.1 vs 45.0). There were no statistically significant differences between the groups on delinquency, sexual behaviors, pregnancy, suspensions, or externalizing behaviors. Reunification status was a significant predictor of negative outcomes in 8 of the 9 regression equations after controlling for Time 1 behavior problems, age, and gender.Conclusions. These findings suggest that youth who reunify with their biological families after placement in foster care have more negative outcomes than youth who do not reunify. The implications of these findings for policy and practice are discussed. Pediatrics 2001;108(1). URL: http://www.pediatrics.org/cgi/content/full/108/1/ e10; foster care, risk behaviors, child abuse, adolescence.ABBREVIATIONS. SD, standard deviation; CBCL, Child Behavior Checklist.C hildren entering foster care have high rates of emotional, behavioral, developmental, and physical health problems and are in need of many specialized services. [1][2][3][4][5][6] In one California study, children in foster care comprised Ͻ4% of Medi-Cal-eligible children, but accounted for 41% of all children who used Medi-Cal mental health services. 7 The limited long-term research on children in foster care suggests that they are at risk for continued difficulties, including not finishing high school, incarceration, and chronic problems with employment and housing....

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

Children Who Return Home From Foster Care: A 6-Year Prospective Study of Behavioral Health Outcomes in Adolescence

2001

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“…For young people who have been rejected by family and experienced repeated rejections by carers, whose transient lifestyle has been within an often remote and insensitive government welfare system, having a secure home is likely to be a profound influence in their lives. Certainly, a sense of permanence has been associated with young person wellbeing (Lahti, 1982). SYC removes the anxiety young people may associate with moving, as well as the constant expectation that they fit into an established family with whom they may have no affinity.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Special Youth Carer Program: An Innovative Program for At-Risk Adolescents in Foster Care

Gilbertson

Richardson²,

Barber

2005

Child Youth Care Forum

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Placement instability is a pervasive and long-standing problem which adversely affects outcomes for many young people in foster care. The Special Youth Carer (SYC) program, developed in South Australia in response to the needs of at-risk adolescents, is an innovative model aimed at reducing placement instability and promoting positive behavior change. Based primarily upon the Treatment Foster Care (TFC) model, SYC incorporates an additional defining feature: in the event of a placement breakdown, it is the carer and not the young person who leaves the home. This report includes a description of the program, an overview of outcomes for eight of the first program participants who were monitored over a 12-month period, and interviews with two carers who experienced the breakdown of an SYC placement. Positive behavioral change was reported for most participants, and there were some noteworthy improvements in placement stability.KEY WORDS: placement breakdown; placement stability; lead tenant; foster care; treatment foster care.

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“…A somewhat surprising finding in the latter study was that transracially placed children disrupted at the rate of only 11 per cent compared to 28 per cent for same-race placements. The Oregon Project's policy of 'aggressive adoption' resulted in 64 adoptions and only two disruptions in the months following the end of the project (and two or more years after the placement 75 per cent of the children remained in placement (Lahti 1982). Nelson (1985) also found that seven (28 per cent) out of 25 children placed when eight years of age and over disrupted within a year of the adoption order.…”

Section: Other Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%