Child welfare, state educational, and local educational agencies are mandated to collaborate by (1) the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 (FSA) and (2) the Every ...Student Succeeds Act of 2015 (ESSA). A focus of these collaborative partnerships is to promote the educational stability of children in foster care. This paper uses the theory of collaborative advantage to provide a framework for developing and maintaining educational stability collaborations mandated by FSA and ESSA.
There is a pressing need to improve job satisfaction among child welfare caseworkers given historically high turnover rates that adversely affect family outcomes. Guided by the job demands-resources ...model, this study examined whether caseworkers’ job satisfaction was associated with their quality of interprofessional collaboration (IPC). Linear regression models were estimated using cross-sectional data provided by the National Child Welfare Workforce Institute. The sample included caseworkers (N = 1,489) in two states and one urban county in the United States. Results indicated that caseworker job satisfaction increased as their quality of IPC with service providers and court professionals improved. These findings suggest that agency leaders should foster and support IPC as a means of enhancing caseworker job satisfaction.
Abstract Unique service needs exist for expectant or parenting youth with foster care histories (EPY) and their families. Informed by Critical Ecological Systems Theory (CEST), this exploratory ...qualitative study presents findings from an inductive content analysis of in‐depth interviews and focus groups with EPY and service providers. The study included nine in‐depth face‐to‐face interviews with service providers ( n = 5) and EPY ( n = 4) as well as five focus groups with service providers ( n = 23) and three with EPY ( n = 7) to identify the characteristics of service providers, agencies and systems that may act as barriers to service utilization among EPY with a foster care history ( n = 10) or juvenile justice history ( n = 1). Service provider characteristics included negative attitudes towards EPY and/or those with child welfare experiences. Agency characteristics included a lack of workforce diversity, employee turnover, lack of training about diverse communities, restrictive enrolment processes and eligibility requirements, lack of childcare and transportation and limited accessibility of services. System characteristics included a lack of up‐to‐date information about existing services, territorialism, funding sources that do not prioritize interagency collaboration and a lack of communication/coordination among agencies. Implications include hiring and retaining a diverse workforce, providing training about diverse communities and implicit biases concerning young parents, developing navigation services specifically for EPY and developing processes for sharing data and communicating across systems that interact with EPY.
Expectant or parenting youth (EPY) with foster care histories are often in need of a range of services yet experience barriers to accessing and utilizing those services. This exploratory qualitative ...study was informed by ecological systems theory and utilized interviews and focus groups with EPY (
n
= 11) and service providers (
n
= 28) to identify factors that facilitate service utilization for EPY. We found characteristics at the service provider, agency, and system levels that act as facilitators. Service provider characteristics that facilitate service use include empathy and trustworthiness, supportive navigation, and youth-centeredness. Agency facilitators included representative diversity and inclusivity, trauma-informed training and practice, and availability of tangible supports. System facilitators included having a variety of service providers, systems integration, and co-location. Findings provide a more nuanced understanding of the facilitators that contribute to EPY’s service utilization. Future research is warranted to examine how these youth- and provider-identified drivers of service use influence health, mental health, parenting, education, relationships, employment, and housing outcomes for EPY.
•Examined risk/protective factors for homeless young adults on educational outcomes.•Analyzed homeless young adults with and without a history in foster care.•Used a sample from three different ...cities in Colorado, California, and Texas.•Lower probability of positive educational outcomes for HYA with an arrest history.•Implications for federal and state postsecondary financial aid programs.
Homeless young adults (HYA) with and without a history in foster care in the United States experience lower high school graduation rates than young adults in the general population. Few studies examine the risk and resilience factors that promote positive educational outcomes for these subpopulations. This study explores the factors that are associated with positive educational outcomes for HYA with and without a foster care history. This study uses data from a 3-city cross-sectional study of HYA, which included quantitative interviews of HYA between the ages of 18 and 24 (N = 601) in Austin, TX (n = 200), Los Angeles, CA (n = 200), and Denver, CO (n = 201). Positive educational outcomes consisted of HYAs being currently enrolled in or previously attaining a degree from a secondary, postsecondary or technical education program. This study uses two logistic regression models to identify the risk and resilience factors associated with positive educational outcomes for HYA with and without a history in foster care. For HYA with a history in foster care, city was a significant predictor of positive educational outcomes as well as being an older age, formal employment, not having an arrest record, having a lower score of emotional neglect, and having a higher score of physical abuse. For HYA without a history in foster care, significant predictors included not having an arrest record and having a higher score of emotional abuse. Findings highlight the need for an expansion of federal and state postsecondary education financial aid programs for HYA with and without a history in foster care.
Objective: Stable housing is vital for improving behavioral health outcomes among youth experiencing homelessness (YEH). However, few studies have focused on YEH with foster care history and the ...relationship between housing status and behavioral health. This study examined whether housing status (i.e., literally homeless vs. unstably housed) was significantly associated with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), major depressive episode, and substance use disorder (SUD). Literal homelessness was defined as living on the street or in a temporary shelter; unstably housed referred to living with parents, family, or foster parents but seeking services at a YEH drop-in center. Method: Data were from YEH ages 14–23 at YEH-serving agencies in three U.S. cities (N=175): Los Angeles, CA; Denver, CO; and Austin, TX. We used propensity score weighting to balance the two comparison groups (i.e., literally homeless vs. unstably housed). Results: YEH who were unstably housed were significantly less likely than those who were literally homeless to meet the criteria for PTSD but were more likely to meet SUD criteria. Conclusions: Increased attention should be paid to the behavioral health outcomes of YEH with a foster care history. Social workers should strengthen outreach efforts to provide them with behavioral health services and housing options that are integrated with social support-building and trauma-informed approaches.
Child welfare, state educational, and local educational agencies are mandated to collaborate by (1) the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 (FSA) and (2) the Every ...Student Succeeds Act of 2015 (ESSA). A focus of these collaborative partnerships is to promote the educational stability of children in foster care. This paper uses the theory of collaborative advantage to provide a framework for developing and maintaining educational stability collaborations mandated by FSA and ESSA.
Children and youth in foster care experience poor K-12 educational outcomes compared to their peers without foster care histories. Child welfare and school professionals hold shared responsibility ...for ensuring their educational well-being based on federal policies and role expectations. However, professionals often experience challenges in effectively collaborating with one another to support the educational of children and youth in foster care. Guided by ecological systems and critical theory, this mixed methods explanatory sequential design explored the facilitators and barriers that child welfare professionals, school professionals, and professional caregivers viewed as promoting and hindering effective interprofessional collaboration between child welfare and school professionals. The quantitative phase involved the analysis of surveys (N = 136) collected from child welfare professionals, school professionals, and professional caregivers in an urban county in the Southwest. In the qualitative phase, interviews and focus groups were conducted with a subsample of survey participants (N = 22). Facilitators of interprofessional collaboration included: centering the best interests of the child, opportunities and capacity to meaningfully engage, effective communication, positive and trusting relationships, being knowledgeable about the child, policies, roles, and systems, and empathy towards other professionals. Barriers of interprofessional collaboration included: competing priorities or agendas, unmanageable workloads and limited time, little to no timely communication, weak ties and mistrust, limited knowledge about the child, policies, roles, and systems, and biases towards professional caregivers and other professionals. The overall findings have multiple implications for social work practice, policy, research, and education to enhance collaboration between professionals to better serve children and youth in foster care.
