The purpose of this study was to study if enhanced self-determination among foster youth improved their ability to take control over their lives, and pursue a greater quality of life (i.e. fulfilling educational and career goals) (Powers, Geenen, et. al., 201, 2179). Their performance in the TAKE CHARGE program for disabled/at-risk youths was compared to their ability to become more autonomous, independent, and stable providers for themselves and their loved ones. The methods used for this study were both qualitative and quantitative. According to the authors, “Sixty-nine youth (33 intervention, 36 comparison) were enrolled over three study waves and randomly assigned to either the treatment or comparison group; youth were assessed at baseline, at post-intervention, and at one year follow-up.” The subjects for this study were youth who had been: “(a) receiving special education services, (b) 16.5 to …show more content…
What the authors ultimately found was that, after one year was that the TAKE CHARGE program of enhanced motivation helped foster youth enrolled seize greater quality of life, employment, completed their educational careers, in spite of many other factors that could have hindered them from doing this, as it did with roughly 10 percent of the participants. =================== The authors acknowledge that further research will have to address larger population sizes for longer periods (2186). And further research questions will have to address the ways that self-determination research can better identify pracitces that support the ability of foster (and at-risk youth) to maintain a decent standard of living for themselves.
Another obstacle Olivia and Sabreen encounter is the lack of adult support in the foster care system. Family support is a crucial variable mediating the influence of neighborhood on a child’s development (Burton & Jarrett, 2000); nonetheless, Olivia and Sabreen receive little support and guidance and must quickly survive on their own.
This paper will contain research done about foster care, including a brief history and progressing along to the system today. This research interested me because it is a professional career option after graduation. I found both positives and negatives about the foster care system that children and foster parents go through on a daily basis. As the paper progresses I will be explaining these positives and negatives in more detail. Throughout the paper I will be referencing different scholarly sources that explain foster care in different ways. Overall, this paper will show different aspects that the general public may never know about foster care.
The foster system intends to place children in homes where they will remain until they can find permanent residence with an adoptive family. Sadly, this is often not the case with children placed privatized homes and they end up bouncing from home to home until they eventually age out of the system forced to enter into adulthood with no permanent family ties. Over the past decade the number of teenagers aging out of the system without a permanent family has risen from 19,000 to 23,000 per year. These teenages enter into the world without emotional, relational, or financial support and therefore possess a greater risk of poverty as well as low academic achievement. This causes many of these teenagers to rely on government benefits during their adult lives which places a heavier burden on taxpayers. The National Council for Adoption reported that the 29,000 teenagers that aged out of the system in 2007 will cost over one billion dollars per year in public assistance and support. These teenagers who age out are also found to be at greater risk of concerning behaviors, such as: creating disciplinary problems in school, dropping out of school, becoming unemployed and homeless, becoming teenage parents, abusing alcohol and drugs, and committing crimes. The privatized system does not have the best interest of the children in mind and
Vallerand R., Fortier M. & Guay F. (2000) School motivation for teens. Journal of Education Today, December 2000
Okpych, : Nathanael. "Policy Framework Supporting Youth Aging-out of Foster Care through College."Children Youth Service Review (2012): n. pag. Science Direct. Web.
The concept of aging out of foster care is referred to those children who are within the state foster care system and who are still in the system upon reaching the age of eighteen, twenty-one or have graduated from high school (Craft, 2014). The causes of children aging out of the foster care system is usually due to the children not finding a permanent home with an adoptive family, or the state for some reason has not reunited the child with his or her birth family before turning of age. Each state has a different regulation on what the age should be when a child ages out of the system. Many children are not ready to make the transition of being out on their own, therefore, some states have moved the age up to 21 years instead of 18 years (Craft, 2014). If the foster parents or parent chooses to keep caring for the child after he or she ages out, then the child is able to stay in their foster home until he or she is ready to make that step and move out. According to Cunningham and Diversi, many of the difficulties that foster youth face during their transition are known and read about in academic literature, but those who go through the process of aging out of foster care are largely missing from the academic literature (Cunningham & Diversi, 2013). Many children who are in the foste...
There is nearly 400,000 children in out-of-home care in the United States right now (Children’s Right). Just about every day children are being shipped in and out of foster homes and group homes. Most people want the best for children in foster care and decide to take care of them until their parents can possibly recover. The foster care system can have both a negative or positive effect on children, foster parents, and biological parents because of the gaps in the system. Foster cannot not be avoided but the some aspects of the foster care system can be avoided if the missing gaps were filled.
Other parents find themselves fighting the evils of Substance Use Disorders (SUDs), mental health, and other issues and may neglect their children. It doesn’t take an expert in social welfare to know that if a child grows up in a healthy family, he has better life chances than the child who grew up in a troubled one. Child abuse, neglect, and trauma are the bases of many of the ills that face our less well functioning adults. For children who grew up, like my clients do, in foster care, the outcomes are even worse. Growing up in a foster care is a predictive factor in that person future potential for homelessness, SUDs, and themselves being the parent of a child who grows up in foster
Roehlkepartain, E. C. (2012). Peter L. Benson: Spinning youth development toward hope and thriving. Applied developmental science, 16(1), 31-35. doi:10.1080/10888691.2012.642775
Zlotnick, Cheryl, Tammy W. Tarn, and Laurie A. Soman. "Life Course Outcomes On Mental And Physical Health: The Impact Of Foster Care On Adulthood." American Journal Of Public Health 102.3 (2012): 534-540. Business Source Premier. Web. 13 Dec. 2013.
Low educational achievement for foster youth was a pressing concern. A study completed by Ehrle and Geen (2002) using a phone survey of 44,000 foster care providers across the United States found that 55% of voluntary kinship care providers did not have a high school degree, this indicated that may care providers lack the knowledge and understanding to help foster youth be prepared academically. After studying over 1000 foster youth Pecora et al (2006) found, about one third of all foster youth repeated a grade in school. In addition, Vacca (2007) identified reasons that foster youth struggled in the school setting. “Foster youth will typically not have any consistent parent advocacy or representative in the creation and implementation of the educational plan for graduation” (p. 67). With primary and secondary education a struggle for foster youth, it was no surprise that higher education was not something foster youth had been prepared for. In a combination survey and interview study titled “Pathways to College for Former Foster Youth: Understanding Factors That Contribute to Educational Success” Merdinger, Hines, Osterling, and Wyatt (2005) studied more than 200 former foster youth and found that “overall 63.8 percent [of former foster youth] reported that the foster care system did not prepare them very well for college” (p.
Williamson, Lisa A. "Providing Support And Stability To Students In Foster Care." Education Digest 79.3 (2013): 62. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 23 Dec. 2013.
being in children and adolescents: an application of the self-determination theory. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 24(2), 280-292.
For me, social work is a calling to bring advantages to the disadvantaged and my worldview is informed by my desire to do this kind of advocacy work. Being a foster youth, myself, I can speak to both micro and macro aspects of social inequality in this country. Moreover, my life experience has been both educational and motivating in my desire to pursue a graduate degree in Social Service because I have not only lived within the broken system, but I have also analyzed it through a variety of theoretical frameworks to better understand the problems and their solutions. My most purposeful consideration, the connection between educational services for foster youth and foster youth performance in higher education, has helped me to contextualize my own circumstances and provided me with a unique perspective through which I have been able to develop relevant and applicable solutions.
Kent, Adam. 2009. “Vulnerable Youth and the Transition to Adulthood.” Table 1. Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, Office of Human Services Policy, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, DC. http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/09/vulnerableyouth/3/index.pdf.