Suchergebnisse

The emergence of COVID-19 forced significant adaptations for families worldwide. Children and youth in foster care and their caregivers or resource parents experience unique stressors. The current study aimed to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and "Safer-at-Home" orders on resource parents in Los Angeles County. Resource parents (n = 648) were surveyed about COVID-19 concerns, positive impact and strengths, access to and helpfulness of provided resources, visits with birth parents, children joining their families during the pandemic, and transition to telehealth. Between one-third and half of resource parents with foster or foster-adoptive children in their home reported significant anxiety about issues such as getting infected, uncertainty about the future, and financial hardship. In contrast, most resource parents reported some perceived benefits, such as increased family closeness. The most helpful resource reported was video visitation by social workers. A quarter of resource parents experienced in-person birth parent visits. Developmentally, parents with a foster or fosteradoptive child 0–5 years old reported significantly more worries related to COVID-19, while those with children of multiple ages reported feeling less valued as a resource parent and expressed more concerns about children falling behind with school, mental health and developmental services, birth parent visits, and delayed reunification. Lastly, younger parental age, fewer foster children in the home, and the less negative impact from COVID-19 a resource parent reported having were associated with an increased likelihood of resource parents welcoming a child into their home. Implications for policy and recommendations for practice are discussed.

Foundations -- Theoretical and empirical underpinnings of adoption-specific therapy -- Overview of adoption-specific therapy -- The adapt curriculum -- Module 1. trust, positive coping strategies, and behavior management -- Module 2. developmental understanding of adoption experience -- Module 3. loss and grief issues in adoption -- Module 4. attachment/joining with adoptive family -- Module 5. search for identity/self-esteem/transracial adoption -- Module 6. adoption and the outside world -- Module 7. trauma treatment (optional: may be inserted as needed any time after module 1) -- Termination session -- References

ObjectiveTo test whether low adoptive parent stress buffers the effect of preadoptive risk on substance use among adoptees.BackgroundAdoptees are especially susceptible to substance use in adolescence, potentially because they often experience multiple early risk factors. Because caregiver stress and child behavior problems are linked, degree of parenting stress may serve as a buffer in reducing adoptee substance use.MethodIn a longitudinal study of 82 adoptees, we tested whether cumulative preadoptive risk, parenting stress, and their interaction predicted substance use in adolescence.ResultsParents' parenting stress, but not children's preadoptive risk, predicted later substance use. Higher risk children were more positively and negatively affected by variations in parent stress.ConclusionsParenting stress is a malleable risk and protective factor in the development of substance use among adoptees.ImplicationsPrevention and intervention programs for adoptive families should target parenting stress to reduce the risk of later youth substance use.