Preschool-aged foster children face multiple risks for poor long-term outcomes. These risks appear to increase with the number of placement changes experienced. The Early Intervention Foster Care Program (EIFC) targets the spectrum of challenges that preschool-aged foster children face via a team approach delivered in home and community settings. In this article, we report on permanent placemen...

Over the past two decades, the foster care system experienced an unprecedented rise in the number of children in out-of-home care, significant changes in the policy framework guiding foster care practice, and ongoing organizational impediments that complicate efforts to serve the children in foster care. This article discusses the current status of the foster care system and finds: Agencies oft...

OBJECTIVE Although prior population-based studies have found that children in foster care use more mental health services than their Medicaid peers, less is known about how different experiences in foster care impact the likelihood of mental health service use. The primary aim of this study is to test the hypothesis that instability of foster care placements is associated with higher costs for ...

Title of Document: AMBIGUOUS LOSS, NUMBER OF FOSTER CARE PLACEMENTS, CHILD AGE AND CHILD SEX AS PREDICTORS OF THE BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS AND POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS SYMPTOMS OF CHILDREN IN FOSTER CARE. Lisa JoAnn Benson, Master of Science, 2006 Directed By: Associate Professor Jacqueline Wallen, Department of Family Studies This study examined four factors that may predict the behavior problems and pos...

Over 76,000 children and youth are in foster care in Canada, and their numbers are increasing annually [1]. Children and youth in foster care have higher than average medical, emotional, developmental and educational needs [2]. These special needs are often chronic, under-recognized and neglected. There are many barriers to health care including lack of or inadequate medical records, lack of co...

OBJECTIVE To examine differences in waking to bedtime cortisol production between children who remained with birth parents vs children placed in foster care following involvement of Child Protective Services (CPS). DESIGN Between-subject comparison of cortisol patterns among 2 groups of children. SETTING Children referred from the child welfare system. PARTICIPANTS Three hundred thirty-ni...

For children in foster care who cannot be reunified with their families of origin, there is no question that adoption is preferable to “aging out”. Moreover, every dollar spent on adoption for a child from foster care yields three dollars in benefits. Yet, 27,854 youth aged out of foster care in FY2010, and, for each child who was adopted during the year, two children with a goal of adoption co...

Overview Every year, public agencies place a substantial number of children in foster care after child welfare officials have determined that the parents of these children are either unable or unwilling to care for them. Most of these children are placed in foster homes, either with relatives (“kinship” care) or under the care of unrelated adults in family foster homes. Many of these children s...

Over 400,000 children in the United States are currently in foster care, many of whom are at risk for long-lasting emotional and health problems. Research suggests that adoption may be one of the more promising options for the placement of these children. The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980, which provided federal funds for monthly adoption subsidies, was designed to promote a...

Each year more than 800,000 children in the United States spend time in foster care as a result of abuse and neglect. States disburse about $10 billion a year in federal and state funds to meet the needs of children placed in foster care. Foster children are at particularly high risk for physical and mental health problems stemming from not only the maltreatment they have experienced but also t...