Keywords

Foster care; Academic success; Interventions; Higher education

Introduction to the Problem

Children in foster care tend to have substantially lower school achievements and educational attainments than peers growing up in their own families [1-6]. The consequences of youth not completing their education or not moving on to higher education are far reaching, impacting their ability to obtain and maintain employment, obtain affordable housing and impacting their ability to move forward without government assistance. For example, each year in North Carolina approximately 125,100 children are involved in investigations of possible abuse, neglect and dependency. Of those children, approximately 4,800 children enter foster care each year [7,8]. Another 32% of school age youth living in foster care receive special education programming, compared to 14% of students receiving special education services who are not in foster care [9-11].

While the literature offers a limited view of academic struggles among foster care children, there are little data regarding outcomes and effectiveness. In order to gain more positive outcomes, the importance of understanding the educational needs of children in care should be emphasized. Information available regarding practice recommendations suggests attention to existing academic deficits, ensuring stability and security and responding sensitively to social and cultural differences are other important aspects of practice that should be held in high priority when promoting academic success with children in foster care [12-14].

For many youth in foster care life is one stressor after another. Often, they are removed from the only home they have ever known, sometimes with only minutes to put their possessions into a plastic bag. They are not only separated from their parents, but often their siblings and their family pets. In a study comparing school transition, researchers found that maltreated foster children might exhibit differences in school adjustment compared to other children [15]. For example, children that are maltreated in the foster care system have a lower affective and cognitive school engagement than other children in the community [16]. Children with a history of maltreatment including placement into foster care have an elevated risk of poor psychosocial outcomes including school failure, substance abuse and deviant peer association [17,18].

Negative outcomes for adults who have aged out of the foster care system are staggering. National statistics report that half of all children and youth in foster care drop out of school, 25% are homeless 18 months after emancipating and one third become public welfare recipients [19]. Twice as many foster care youth repeat grades as non-foster youth. Sawyer and Dubowitz found 45% of their sample had experienced grade retention, with a higher number of older ages and at advanced grades. What is more, 63% of adolescents had repeated grades [20].

Many articles report that behavioral issues in school, resulting in disciplinary actions are common for youth in foster care. Behavioral and relationship functioning are often problematic for children in foster care. During the first several months of placement, problems tend to persist or worsen, which may increase the risk of placement disruption. Because children are reliant on their caregivers for self-control, disruptions and inconsistencies in the early caregiving environment, such as maltreatment and foster placement, are likely to have deleterious effects on later inhibitory control [21,22]. The need for interventions for youth placed out of the home is clear. Some interventions that have been researched include personal education plans, tutoring and mentoring, staff development and educational tools provided to the foster care parents. Utilizing these tools within appropriate time frames will ultimately be key in addressing the needs of the youth in foster care.

When reviewing the literature, it is apparent that there may be scholarly information that detail academic interventions for children in foster care. Children who have been placed out of their home for reasons of abuse and neglect are of the most academically neglected group within the school system. “Education systems have increased their capacity over time for including families and providing youth with fair, equitable and significant educational opportunities in order to obtain a high quality education” [23]. Many macro-systems must work together to provide the highest quality of care to the children who are the most vulnerable throughout our country. Pears et al. [24] stated, “If effective interventions to improve school engagement in children in foster care can be developed, they could hold great potential for improving the long term trajectories of these vulnerable children” [25].

Other studies provide effective interventions that have been proven to assist children in foster care with decreasing grade retention and improving academic standards. Typically, foster children have lower school performance than peers with similar cognitive capacity [24,26]. Considerably fewer children in foster care go on to secondary and post-secondary education compared to peers with the same cognitive capacity level. There is a strong connection between foster children’s poor school achievements and unfavorable outcomes later in life. This is especially true for children who spent a third of their formative years placed in foster care [26,27]. Children in foster care have a more difficult time in school than their peers, tending to experience higher rates of suspension, retention, special education classes and lower achievement. They are also less likely to graduate from high school [27]. School mobility is also cited as a possible indicator of poor academic outcomes for children. Children who have been removed from their home often times are placed outside of their home communities, which, in turn, means a change in school. When school mobility [28] becomes an issue for children in foster care, there is often a slow transition with school enrollment and transfer of records. During this time, children lose critical academic instruction time, which only further delays academic gains

The purpose of this review was to complete an exploratory study to determine how many articles existed about the academic interventions that are available to foster children. Not much research has been done to effectively implement the interventions and outcomes. The research team identified the problems related to academic success for children and youth placed in foster care and identified interventions and strategies that can promote academic success. After analyzing and assessing the results from the systematic literature review, common themes emerged. The results indicated that there were many existing interventions for academic success with children in foster care. However, there appeared to be little follow up in determining if the interventions utilized rendered successful outcomes and were effective over a significant period of time.

Methods

A systematic literature review (SLR) was used to identify the number of articles (Table 1) that met the criteria shown in Figure 1 relating to academic success among children in foster care. Three Masters of Social Work research students The research team began the systematic search using a university library databases (ERIC, PsychINFO, Social Work Abstract, Social Work Index, Academic Search Complete and PsychARTICLES) then limited the article selection using peer reviewed articles published from 2005-2015 with the specific key words, academic interventions and foster children (Table 2). Articles that met the criteria illustrated in Figure 1 were critiqued using a literature review sheet, which included citations, quotes, key points, and how the article related to the key words. The three research students were trained in creating and examining the literature review sheets. They assessed the number, quality and themes of the articles that met the criteria of the systematic literature review regarding successful academic interventions and foster children. Based on the information found in the literature review sheets, the researchers categorized the articles by quality of content, placing more emphasis on the articles that were written from a social work perspective. To determine inclusion in the study, each team member reviewed the literature review sheet with at least two of the three researchers concurring that the article met the study criteria. The research team focused on articles based on the social work perspective and expertise.

Figure 1: Cochrane systematic review.

Table 1: Literature review matrix for the systematic literature review outcomes (n=30).

Table 2: Synthesis of keywords for the systematic literature review (n=30).

Results

The research team determined that 30 articles met the criteria and were selected for review to determine themes shown in Figure 1. Table 1 presents the articles (n=30) that were included in the study. These articles described several interventions have demonstrated promise in assisting children in foster care to increase the academic success with children who are placed in foster care. There were three themes that emerged from a content analysis of the titles, abstracts, and intervention sheets for the articles (n=30). The following three interventions have been shown to be particularly effective at keep children in foster care on-track academically

Theme 1: Interventions for direct instruction with enhanced curriculum

The first intervention is schools providing opportunities for children in foster care to receive direct instruction with an enriched curriculum as well as continually assessing children to determine their level of progress [28]. Vacca indicates that adequate planning and administrative support can provide the most educationally disadvantaged children an enriched curriculum that includes problem solving and thinking skills [20]. Schools can also minimize continued failure among children in foster care by keeping them in classrooms with their regular teachers and peers that may be higher achieving. When foster children are removed from classrooms for special services they continue to be stigmatized not only by being foster children but also by being low achievers. Students in foster care are enrolled in special education at three times the rate of children who are not in foster care [20,27]. When allowing children who are in foster care to remain in a classroom with their peers, it allows them to gain academic standing that may keep them abreast with children who have the same cognitive capacity but are not placed out of their homes.

Theme 2: Interventions for the team approach in monitoring academic outcomes

A second intervention theme that is helpful is using the team approach. This helps to ensure that foster children have more coordination of communication between schools and welfare agencies. There must be a strong, collaborative relationship between the child welfare agency and the education system to be sure that children are getting needed services so they can meet grade requirements each year [29,28].

Theme 3: Interventions for supportive mentoring

A third intervention theme that is successful is providing supportive mentoring to children in foster care. This may be done with programs through the Boys and Girls Club and other types of programs that link a child up with an older child or adult to help them through the difficult circumstances they live in. Mentoring has been shown to positively affect academic achievement. In a five-year longitudinal study of a two-year mentoring program created to serve at-risk youth, significant improvements were noted in both social skills and academic improvement among the at- risk youth who participated in the services [29].

In summary, it is important to ensure that in the emotional chaos of changing placements, someone, foster care workers, other case workers, or foster parent, must pay attention to children’s school progress and monitor children’s attendance, homework, and school progress while in foster care.

Recommendations from the Literature

The results of the literature review painted a clear picture of the educational experiences and needs of the youth in the foster care system. Many of the reports highlighted how poor these children do in the educational system compared to those not living in foster care. Of the 30 articles reviewed nearly half provided comparison data on interventions used to promote educational success. Three important conclusions can be drawn from this data.

Recommendation I: Implementing educational programming tailored to foster children

Students in foster care are often not provided stability in their homes. Due to a variety of circumstances, their birth parents were not able to provide a stable learning home environment. The home environment has an impact on literacy interaction, exploration, expressions and sets the tone for lifelong learning [20,30]. Once children are in foster care, interventions tailored to the child's needs are keys to academic success. Promoting a child’s strengths while addressing their needs was instrumental in researched interventions. Programs like the Letter Box and the Helsingborg study both reported successful outcomes related to individual programing along with support [31].

Recommendation II: Implementing mentoring and foster care parent engagement

In addition to tailoring academic programs several studies researched the effectiveness of mentoring programs. Programs like the Boys and Girls Club and Big Brother, Big Sister have addressed the needs of children lacking stability at home [5,32]. These programs offering time and attention to foster children result in better grades, engagement in school and decreased behaviors. Another theme of support was the need to educate foster parents on the importance of at home learning, even as young as kindergarten. Wrapping services around foster children who also have a supportive person to coach them through these services is a pathway to academic success.

Recommendation III: Implementing team approach

Finally the literature was clear that there are many people involved in the life of foster children including teachers, social workers, biological parents, foster parents and counselors [17]. Due to the events that brought the child into foster care, these children now have the benefit of a variety of services. Navigating and managing these services can be extremely challenging. The research suggests that there is an increase in academic success when an individual plan is in place and the plan is being shared with all those involved in the care of the youth [25].

The results from this study support the premise that foster children may be behind their peers in academic competence. In the absence of interventions, these deficits are likely to lead to poor academic achievement across the school years, including dropping out of school. Working with the school system, after school programs and preschool programs to develop literacy programs tailored to foster care children is clearly a needed intervention. This, along with addressing mentoring needs of foster children, can be implemented by the social service agency that has custody of the child. These agencies can require foster children to engage in mentoring programs, whether the program is within the agency or by referral. Providing support to foster parents, education, resources and referrals is also key the meeting the needs of foster care children. This may be covered in foster parent training such as Partnering for Safety and Permanence Model Approach to Partnerships in Parenting (PS-MAPP), Model Approach to Partnerships in Parenting (MAPP), Foster Care and Adoptive Parents On-line Training, to name a few. Child and family team meetings can be helpful with ensuring a plan of care is in place to address educational strengths and needs. This may also ensure that all parties involved in a child’s life are kept up-to-date on the academic needs of the child. Foster parent trainings help the foster parents understand the expectations for working with children who have been maltreated in some way and removed into their care. These children may be anxious, lack focus, and have difficulty transitioning to another school, home, and community. It is imperative to create educational teams for foster children consisting of the foster parents, teachers, caseworkers, and social workers to create common goals, monitor, supervise, and evaluate foster children to prevent miscommunications and misunderstandings about children’s school progress and wellbeing.

The authors examined the literature related to children who are in foster care and their academic success and interventions available to them. Future interventions may need to consider attainment support as well as other aspects as the effect of emotional trauma resulting from pre-care experiences [12]. There is also a need for interagency collaboration and intervention to improve practice for these children [20]. Future research could lead to understanding the timing and extent of CPS involvement factor into the achievement gap [32].

However, stability for teens in foster care may not always be easily achieved due to outside factors and agencies involved with the youth. There are various issues that must be addressed to reduce the time children wait in residential placements. Studies may not correlate the problems with the stays in residential care or why the child came into care [25]. Prolonged stays in residential care may create serious developmental problems.

Studies in this SLR seem to indicate that families not being able to maintain stability within their home community. School records were not always complete which made the study difficult to complete [33]. Many of the studies were secondary data analyses using existing data sets. As a result, it was impossible to determine when a child had changed schools or whether the change also meant a change in placement from the data examined. Some studies specified that the research outcomes with children in foster care should be focused on the professionals who serve children in foster care to focus more on discharge from foster care and aftercare outcomes [30,34].

Policy and Practice Implications

This study can change policy and practice by encouraging social workers, school officials and foster parents to work together in order to give children and youth in foster care additional supports to ensure school attainment. Community agencies and supports working together may help to ensure that children in foster care do not slip through the cracks. Nurturing good relationships within the communities appears to be one of the most important ways to improving the lives of the children and youth in foster care.

This study allows social workers and other professional helpers to review interventions and research that illustrate the academic challenges of children and youth in foster care. Many effective interventions have been identified to help promote school attainment by providing these interventions to rural areas. The researchers identified three overall themes for interventions in articles that met the study criteria, (1) direct instruction, (2) mentoring and parent engagement, and (3) the team approach to supervising children and youth in foster care.

Conclusion

It is vital to help foster children and youth achieve in school to have “a level playing field” with their peers who do not experience the trauma regarding school transition, adjustment, and achievement. Children and youth in foster care have been removed from family and familiar environments and transitioned to a different home, different neighborhood or community, a different school, and different guardians or parents. It can be overwhelming for them. Some research has been identified that discusses successful academic interventions for foster children. Typically, these are community programs that use a team approach to supervising, monitoring, mentoring, and nurturing the future of human kind, children and youth.

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