Foster Families (foster + family)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


A French, abridged version of the Hospitals and Hostels Practices Profile Schedule

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF METHODS IN PSYCHIATRIC RESEARCH, Issue 4 2001
Marc Corbière
Abstract This study aims to validate the Hospitals and Hostels Practices Profile Schedule (HHPPS) in the French version according to the statistical requirements of factor analysis and internal consistency, and to arrive at as parsimonious a version of the questionnaire as possible. As no validation of the original English instrument exists to our knowledge, the most parsimonious factor structure suggested by hypothetical constructs was used. Analyses of variance of six categories of residential settings served to underscore their points of convergence and divergence in terms of degree of autonomy allowed to patients. The following seven scales emerged from the analyses: ,activities: house rules', ,activities: morning wake-up', ,health and hygiene', ,activities: curfew', ,personal effects', ,activities: night-time surveillance' and ,meals'. These accounted for 65% of the cumulative explained variance. Of the residential settings considered, supervised apartments allowed patients the most autonomy, compared with psychiatric hospital wards, hostels, nursing homes, foster families and group homes. Aside from its primary role of measuring the degree of autonomy that residential settings allow patients, this questionnaire seems suitable for gauging the adequacy of fit between a patient's needs and available residential facilities. This should help to direct persons with severe and persistent mental disorders towards facilities better tailored to their needs. Copyright © 2001 Whurr Publishers Ltd. [source]


Behavioural and emotional problems of children by type of out-of-home care in Croatia

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIAL WELFARE, Issue 3 2005
Marina Ajdukovi
The aim of this article is to compare the kinds of behavioural and emotional problems of youth in relation to type of out-of-home placement in Croatia. Children living in children's homes manifest significantly more behavioural and emotional problems than other groups of children in out-of-home care or children living in their primary families. Children living in foster families or in family-type homes integrated in the community do not differ from a comparative group of children living in primary families. Regardless of differences among sub-samples regarding behavioural and emotional problems, the current problems of individual children in all groups of children in out-of-home placement were connected more to currently experienced stressors than to unfavourable circumstances before their removal. This indicates that there are benefits to be gained by improving services in the children's present care environment. [source]


Children in Foster Care: A Nursing Perspective on Research, Policy, and Child Health Issues

JOURNAL FOR SPECIALISTS IN PEDIATRIC NURSING, Issue 2 2001
Mary Margaret GottesmanArticle first published online: 23 FEB 200
ISSUES AND PURPOSE. To examine the roles of public policy and poverty on the rising number of children in family foster care, and to examine the impact of different types of family foster care on children's well-being. CONCLUSIONS. Recent changes in welfare legislation increase the likelihood of family poverty, with a subsequent increase in the number of children in out-of-home care. Greater emphasis needs to be placed on preventing entry into out-of-home care, improving the quality of foster care, and giving children a voice in care decisions. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS. Nurses have important roles to play in the prevention of family dissolution, the design of healthcare delivery systems for children in foster care, in evaluating and educating all types of foster families, and as advocates in legal and legislative proceedings. [source]


Adoption, permanent care and foster care: Home-based care in and beyond the 1990s

JOURNAL OF PAEDIATRICS AND CHILD HEALTH, Issue 5 2000
C O'Neill
Abstract: Home-based care in Australia has changed considerably in the past two decades. The majority of children in adoptive, permanent care and foster families are likely to have experienced abuse, neglect and multiple placements. The disruptive behaviours displayed by these children undermine the potential for attachment offered by their new families. While the needs of the child will be obvious, the challenge for paediatricians is to recognize the relative instability of these newly established families and the high levels of stress they experience. [source]


Reproductive traits following a parent,child separation trauma during childhood: A natural experiment during World War II

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF HUMAN BIOLOGY, Issue 3 2008
Anu-Katriina Pesonen
Given the ethical limitations of exposing children to experimentally manipulated adverse experiences, evidence of the effects of childhood traumas on subsequent life history are based mostly on women's retrospective reports and animal studies. Only a few prospective studies have assessed the life-long consequences of childhood trauma. We asked whether a traumatic separation from both parents during childhood is associated with reproductive and marital traits later in life, measured by age of onset of menarche, timing of menopause, period of fertile years, age at first childbirth, birth spacing, number of children, and history of divorce. We studied members of the 1934,1944 Helsinki Birth Cohort, including 396 former war evacuees from varying socioeconomic backgrounds, who were sent unaccompanied by their parents to temporary foster families in Sweden and Denmark, and 503 participants who had no separation experiences. Data on separation experiences, number of children, and divorces experienced came from national registers, and the remaining data from a survey among the participants aged 61.6 years (SD = 2.9). Former evacuees had earlier menarche, earlier first childbirth (men), more children by late adulthood (women), and shorter interbirth intervals (men), than the non-separated. A traumatic experience in childhood is associated with significant alterations in reproductive and marital traits, which characterize both women and men. The implications are relevant to the 9.2 million child refugees living throughout the world today. Am. J. Hum. Biol., 2008. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]


Predicting Family Reunification, Adoption, and Subsidized Guardianship Among Adolescents in Foster Care

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ORTHOPSYCHIATRY, Issue 3 2010
Sonya J. Leathers
Although national legislation has attempted to decrease the length of time that children spend in foster care, these policies have been less effective with adolescents than with children, raising questions about how best to promote permanency for adolescents. This study examined factors that predict adolescent adoption, subsidized guardianship, and reunification. The caseworkers and foster parents of 203 randomly selected 12- to 13-year-olds placed in traditional or specialized foster care were interviewed. Permanency outcomes were prospectively tracked for 8 years. By the end of the study, over 40% of the adolescents were placed in permanent homes. As hypothesized, a strong relationship with a biological mother predicted successful reunification, and a high degree of integration into a foster home predicted adoption. Additionally, when compared with adoption, subsidized guardianship with foster parents occurred more frequently for youth with strong relationships with their biological mothers and weaker relationships with their foster families. Unexpectedly, behavior problems were not related to any permanency outcomes. Results suggest that promotion of strong relationships with adults is the key in efforts to find permanent families for foster children. Furthermore, efforts to attain permanency should not cease during adolescence. [source]


Preferentially rejected children and their development in permanent family placements

CHILD & FAMILY SOCIAL WORK, Issue 4 2003
Alan Rushton
ABSTRACT Several studies of family placements have indicated poorer outcomes for children who are placed singly in new families. In an effort to understand why this may be so, this paper explores differential outcome among a group of children who were placed singly with adoptive or long-term foster families during middle childhood. A small number of these children were ,only children' at the time of placement but most had siblings living elsewhere. Particular attention is paid to preferential rejection by birth parents in the children's backgrounds. Preferential rejection indicates that one child has been rejected while siblings are accepted. This was found to be associated with poorer progress in placement. The methodological and statistical detail of the analyses are to be found in another paper. We focus here on describing the patterns which emerged and the ways in which the findings may assist practitioners in making and supporting permanent placements. [source]


Factors Associated With the Adjustment of Foster Children in the Netherlands

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ORTHOPSYCHIATRY, Issue 3 2009
Johan Strijker PhD
Information obtained from 419 case files was used to investigate the associations between the foster child's adjustment to the foster family and factors in the histories of the child and the parents, as well as factors in the relationship between foster children and their biological parents while they are placed in foster care. Problems in the foster child's prior history, particularly attachment disorders and the experience of replacements, affect the extent of adjustment to the foster family. In-home visits by the child and the absence of parental permission to stay with the foster family are two factors related to the parent-child relationship that impeded adjustment. In general, parental problem factors did not affect adjustment. The fact that many foster children come from problem-laden backgrounds raises the question of whether foster parents are always sufficiently equipped to cope with these problems. [source]


What changes in ,parenting' approaches occur over the course of adolescent foster care placements?

CHILD & FAMILY SOCIAL WORK, Issue 4 2004
Jo Lipscombe
ABSTRACT An overview of the parenting skills and strategies utilized by foster carers looking after adolescents was given in an earlier paper. This paper focuses specifically on the relationship between the behaviour of fostered adolescents and the quality of parenting provided by the carer. In particular, the paper considers the consequences of situations in which fostered young people have a detrimental impact on other children within the foster family, as this was an especially difficult situation for foster carers to manage. Similarly, foster carers appeared to find it difficult to maintain good parenting skills with young people who were at risk due to their own sexual behaviour although, conversely, caring for a young person whose sexual behaviour put others at risk was connected with improved parenting. The quality of parenting provided by the foster carers was also influenced by the level of stress they were experiencing, with increased levels of stress leading to poorer parenting of the fostered adolescent. [source]