Suchergebnisse

Youth involved in the child welfare system face many barriers to educational success and are at a higher risk of becoming involved in the criminal justice system as youth and as adults. They face disruptive school changes, social stigma and isolation, lack of educational supports, disproportionately high rates of special education services, and exclusionary disciplinary actions. The implementation of promising practices and interventions regarding school discipline, delinquency prevention, educational supports, and collaboration among service agencies can help improve foster care experiences and educational outcomes. These can help prevent the crossover of youth in foster care into the criminal justice system.
Keypoints
Learn about specific experiences linked to educational outcomes for youth in foster care.
Learn about some practices and interventions that can be implemented to help improve school experiences and outcomes for youth in care.
Ideas in this article can contribute to strategies aimed at preventing negative behavioral, social, and academic experiences that make the crossover from foster care to juvenile and criminal justice systems so common.

This study examines foster care experiences and adult functioning of 65 alumni (ages 23–24) of Michigan foster care, using data from case records and in-person interviews. Results indicate that Michigan foster care alumni had similar or worse outcomes than their peers in other alumni studies, and significantly worse outcomes than their peers in the general population in the areas of mental health, substance dependence, and education. More research is needed to understand this transitional period for youth leaving foster care and to determine which evidence-supported interventions lead to their success as adults.

ABSTRACTThis paper presents data about the emotional, behavioural and substance abuse disorders of youth in foster care and former recipients of foster care ('alumni') in the USA. The prevalence rates of these groups are compared to those of the youth and young adults in the US general population. The implications of these data for policy and program design are discussed.

Objective: This article describes the evaluation of permanency roundtables, an intervention to help youth in foster care achieve legal permanency and the challenges evaluators faced in finding and using appropriate comparison data. Method: In 2009, permanency roundtables were conducted for 496 children in Georgia, most of whom had spent extended time in care. Half (50%) achieved legal permanency within 24 months of the roundtables. Results: Five potential sources of comparison data, none of which provide an ideal comparison, are presented and discussed. Conclusions: Ideally, evaluators should plan for one or more comparison groups at the very beginning of the evaluation. However, post hoc comparisons should not be dismissed altogether. The challenge for evaluators is to generate valid comparison groups to determine whether an intervention made a significant improvement, despite challenges such as limited funding, tight timelines, and unmeasured contextual differences between groups.