Resiliency and vulnerability among abused and neglected children in foster care.

Abstract

Children in foster care are considered at risk for disturbances and delays in their socioemotional and academic functioning. Yet there is very little empirical information concerning their actual functioning in these different areas. Furthermore, there is little information as to what factors lead some foster children experiencing comparable stressors to function well while others function poorly. The behavioral, social and academic functioning of 63 African-American and 17 white, 8-14 year old foster children who entered care during their latency years was assessed. Cognitions and fostering experiences that contribute to resilient functioning were investigated. Resilience was defined as children's competence in: (1) behavioral, academic and social domains, as assessed by foster mothers and teachers; and (2) on foster care related tasks (e.g., fitting into foster family), as assessed by foster mothers. Instruments included standardized scales and questionnaires. Foster mothers' ratings revealed that the majority of the children scored significantly poorer than both normative and clinical samples in all three domains, with behavior being their most vulnerable area. From their teachers' perspective, most children scored in the normal range on behavioral problems, but in the clinical range in academic areas. Within each informant's assessments, a different subset of children was identified as functioning at the normative level in all domains, i.e., predominantly older girls from the foster parents' perspective and younger boys from the teachers' perspective. Results on the children's self report scales indicated strong defensiveness, resulting in scores that were significantly 'healthier' than the norm on self concept, learned helplessness and depression. The children's reported fostering experiences and internal cognitions related differently to adaptation across age and gender groups, e.g., better adaptation related to lower psychological investment in birth parents for younger boys, less fear of replacement for younger girls, more frequent foster parent support for older boys and more frequent communication with foster parents for older girls. The findings are discussed in terms of the methodological issues that arose, e.g., foster parent biases, children's defensiveness, reliability of standardized scales for foster children. Implications for policy and programming for children in foster care are discussed.