Connected After Care: Youth Characteristics, Policy, and Programs Associated With Postsecondary Education and Employment for Youth With Foster Care Histories

Recent federal laws and state policies reflect the government’s investment in improving education and employment outcomes for youth with foster care histories. However, little research has assessed the roles of these programs using national data. Drawing on data from the National Youth in Transitions Database (NYTD) ( n = 7797), this study examines the roles that state-level policies and programs, youth-level participation in programs and services, and youth characteristics play in youths’ connection to employment and education (“connectedness”) at age 21. Results from multilevel regression analyses find that foster youth in states with widely available tuition waiver programs increases the odds of connectedness to school. The amount of time youth spend in extended foster care, as well as receipt of postsecondary education aid and services, also increases connectedness. Study findings underscore the importance of material and relational supports in supporting foster youths’ connection to employment and education in early adulthood.

Short-Term Effectiveness of Job Search Skills Training: Comparisons by Summer Work Experience Participation

We utilized a quasi-experimental pre-test–post-test design to assess the effects of job search skills training on job search knowledge, job search behavior, job search behavior self-efficacy, and job search outcomes self-efficacy. We also examined differences in outcomes based on participation in a vocational rehabilitation agency-sponsored summer work experience (SWE) program. Participants were 92 youth with visual impairments, ages 15 to 22 years, from three U.S. states. The intervention was an intensive job search skills training program involving 35 to 40 hr of content; 42 youth also participated in an SWE program for approximately 6 weeks. Intervention group participants significantly improved in job search knowledge, job search behavior, and job search behavior self-efficacy in contrast to comparison group participants, but results for job search outcomes self-efficacy did not differentiate the two groups. SWE participation by itself was related to increases in both self-efficacy measures, and participation in the intervention plus the SWE was related to larger increases in job search behavior self-efficacy. Results indicate that job search skills training and SWE programs may have differential effects on short-term outcomes. Rather than finding jobs for youth, practitioners could foster youths’ competence, confidence, and preparation for the future by teaching job search skills and encouraging independent job-seeking.

Permanency and the Educational and Economic Attainment of Former Foster Children in Early Adulthood

Foster children are at disproportionate risk of adverse outcomes throughout the life course. Public policy prioritizes permanency (exiting foster care through reunification with birth parents, adoption, or legal guardianship) to promote foster youths’ healthy development and well-being, but little empirical evidence indicates that permanency, including its most preferred form—reunification—promotes positive outcomes. Using multi-system, statewide longitudinal administrative data, we employed logistic and mixed-effects regression to examine educational attainment and earnings among former foster youth in early adulthood. We found that youth who aged out of care had significantly higher odds of graduating high school and enrolling in college than did reunified youth and youth who exited to guardianship, and they had similar odds as adopted youth. Earnings were similar across groups. Among aged-out (but not reunified) youth, odds of high school graduation and average earnings were higher for youth who spent more time in foster care prior to age 18. Overall, results suggest that permanency alone is insufficient to promote foster youths’ educational and economic attainment.

Families are for thriving, not just surviving : aged out foster youths' experiences of family, home, and estrangement

Guided by social identity (Tajfel and Turner, 1986), social constructionism (Berger and Luckmann, 1967; Gergen, 1985), and discourse-dependence (Galvin, 2006; Galvin and Braithwaite, 2014) theorizing, the present study illuminated the communicative experiences and complexities inherent to family and home life for youth who aged out of foster care. Broadly, results from 30 interviews afforded a necessary understanding of how aged out foster youth understand and process "family," "home," and family identity formation and deconstruction in conversations with others. First, findings revealed that "family" was conceptualized as those who love you unconditionally, as those who support you, and as more than blood -- signifying a valuing of function (e.g., love, support) over structure (e.g., blood/legal ties) when defining-family. The criteria aged out foster youth applied to “family” informed aged out foster youths' decision-making processes about what individuals were identified as family ingroup members, family outgroup members, and liminal group members. Second, results indicated that participants drew upon their experiences before, during, and after care when making sense of home as self, home as a place, and home as family. Third, findings revealed that aged out foster youth utilized naming, discussing, narrating, ritualizing, and normalizing to build and maintain family identity with family ingroup members. Fourth, results indicated that aged out foster youth most often estranged from biological family members due to physical actions, personal attributes, and/or lack of social support. Ultimately, participants reported estranging from family members because they defied their personal standards for family relationships. In order to actively deconstruct family identity with these family members, aged out foster youth utilized the discursive strategies of naming, discussing, deritualizing, silencing, and disassociating to deliberately defy standards of family as a way to create distance. Last, results revealed that aged out foster youth tended to focus on the positive impacts of family estrangement on the self through discussing both emotional implications (i.e., positive affect, negative affect, and mixed affect) and self-improvement implications (i.e., demonstrating empowerment, encouraging self-care, and promoting mental health). Findings contribute to family communication and family estrangement research by illuminating how aged out foster youth accounts spoke to family estrangement as a potential pathway to self-actualization. Results also advance discourse-dependence theorizing by empirically testing Galvin and Braithwaite's (2014) proposed identity deconstruction strategies and illuminating how standards for identity-building talk have heightened. Moreover, findings contribute to social identity and intergroup theorizing through revealing how the family ingroup is being reimagined and complicating our understandings of intergroup distinctions. A host of practical implications, such as offering estrangement coaching and developing practical skills for evaluating family, also emerged. Ultimately, results from the current study pave the way for future research to continue to explore how family and home life are discussed and experienced among aged out foster youth.

Beyond Expectations: From Foster Children to Foster Parents

Little research exists on long-term outcomes for adults who have been in foster care as children, with even less research on former foster children who become foster parents themselves. Foster care and maltreatment exert significant independent and interdependent impacts on youth outcomes. While traditional research often focuses on predicting and mitigating negative outcomes, new studies indicate success using a positive youth development approach that is strengths-based targeting positive outcomes, such as strong empathy skills. These outcomes align with the demonstrated skills that lead to successful foster parenting. The current review examines the possible transition from foster child to foster parent through the lenses of parenting styles, attachment, and family systems theories, as well as positive youth development and social justice youth development theories. The authors propose utilizing theory and proven interventions to address foster youths’ attachment and emotional development needs, recognize positive outcomes for youth in foster care, and employ evidence-based training programs in place for at-risk parent groups to help break the cycle that leads to displacement. The need for more research to assist foster children, parents, case workers, and systems to promote healthy youth development is discussed.