No description available.

The purpose of this study seeks to assess the cultural competency training needs of non-Latino caregivers who have Latino children in their homes.

Barn inom samhällets barn- och ungdomsvård, däribland familjehemsplacerade barn, är mer utsatta för sexuella risker än andra. Familjehemsföräldrar har således en viktig roll att kunna möta de placerade barnen och på olika sätt samtala om sexualitet. Genom kvalitativa intervjuer och tematisk analys undersöker denna studie fyra familjehemsföräldrars förhållningssätt till och förståelse av samtal om sexualitet med det placerade barnet. Den teoretiska analysen utgår från ett socialkonstruktivistiskt perspektiv och kombineras med teori om sexuella script, teori om sexuella värdehierarkier samt systemperspektivet. Resultatet visade att underlättande strategier såsom platsen och situationen var av stor betydelse för samtal om sexualitet. Familjehemsföräldrarna ville i samtal om sexualitet förmedla öppenhet och tillgänglighet gentemot barnet. I samtal om sexualitet var familjehemsföräldrarna särskilt angelägna om att förmedla kunskap om samtycke och egna och andras gränser, bland annat eftersom en del placerade barn inte har fått lära sig om detta i sina ursprungliga familjer. Vidare visar resultatet att de placerade barnens sexualitet var nära sammanbunden med risker. Genomgående uttryckte familjehemsföräldrarna en balansgång i samtal om sexualitet som handlar om porr, risker och ursprungliga föräldrar. I samtalen om porr skapades en balansgång mellan viljan att vara en motvikt till porren och risken för att skuldbelägga ungdomen som konsumerade den. I samtal om risker uttryckte familjehemsföräldrarna en balansgång mellan viljan att samtala om risker, och oro för att skrämma barnet. En ytterligare balansgång uppstod när familjehemsföräldrarna ville förmedla ett annat sexuellt script än det som barnen lärt sig från sina ursprungliga föräldrar, med risk att påverka barnen negativt.

The purpose of this study has been to examine the construction of identities that are taking place when Swedish children and teenagers are, according to their local social services, in need of a family home. We have collected and analyzed data in the form of advertisement that is publicly available from the Swedish website Familjehemsbanken.se. It is a kind of marketplace that specializes as a go-between for the local social services in different Swedish municipalities and the presumptive local family homes. The descriptions of the children were looked at through a social constructionism lens where we identified patterns and different themes to which we assigned our own meanings or interpretations, based on the analyzed data and previous research and theories. What we found were broadly categorized into three themes; descriptions that were aiming to sell the kids to prospective buyers (family homes), descriptions that highlighted certain issues or problems that the child needed support with or descriptions that we considered neutral or ambivalent. As we conclude in the study, the descriptions in the last category could also be interpreted as either good or bad, depending on the reader and their own values and life experience. Our results show that even though child auctions (in essence: a form of economic slavery) were abolished in Sweden in 1918, today’s Swedish society are still dealing with socially vulnerable children as they – in practice – are still commodities on a marketplace. The methods and language may have changed, but the end result is still strikingly similar to what happened over a hundred years ago. One of the biggest challenges the authors faced was that it doesn’t exist any previous Swedish research on the subject at hand. We would argue, however, that the marketization of socially vulnerable children is an important issue that should be more deeply and thoroughly researched by further studies on the subject.

In 2015, over 427,000 children were in foster care and the largest population were in California's system. Of those children, more than 9,400 were prescribed psychotropic medications. Increases of psychotropic medication use have led to investigations and findings of medication oversights in foster care. Medication oversights included medication nonadherence, which was linked to an increase of problematic behaviors in foster children. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the issues of medication adherence for foster care providers who care for foster children of mild to chronic health concerns who were prescribed medications and experienced multiple placements. By utilizing the health belief model as a guide to formulate the research question and interview questions, an understanding of how the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of foster care providers were impacting proper medication adherence behaviors began to manifest. Data gathered through semistructured interviews of foster care providers were analyzed to code and identify themes. The results of this phenomenological study revealed the perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes of foster care providers related to medication adherence behaviors. Multiple barriers to medication adherence for foster children included systemic interferences, limited health information, limited knowledge regarding medications and medication side effects, and child refusal. These findings may be used to create educational trainings, inform policymakers, and develop regulations for medication use in foster care, which could bring about positive change by increasing the potential for better health outcomes for foster children.

No description available.

The purpose of this study is to analyze experiences of moving to and living in a foster home. The empirical material consists of autobiographies written by children placed in family homes when they have become adults. This study analyzes how the emotional and behavioral aspects of the experiences are portrayed in the autobiographies. The analysis includes what influence the foster parents' treatment of the child has on the experience of the foster care placement. The collection of the empirical material for this qualitative study has been done using a content analysis. The collected material has been analyzed based on previous research and three theoretical perspectives, which are attachment theory, mentalization and systems theory. The results show that feelings when moving can be fear, worry and anxiety about having to move away from their biological parents or move away from their foster parents. When experiencing traumatic moves, feelings of despair and anger become prominent. Behaviors in the form of showing resistance through threats and running away are based on the fact that the child has been involuntarily separated from his/her biological parents or carries with him/her unmanageable emotions that being moved can mean. Abandonment is a prominent feeling of living in a family home, which is based on the fact that the child does not get the opportunity to decide how the contact with the biological parents should be designed. The feeling of abandonment can also be based on the child feeling unwanted by adults. A prominent behavior in the family home is the child's adaptation to the new family, which functions as a survival strategy. Children with difficult experiences bring with them difficult-to-manage emotions to the family home, which can cause them to become aggressive during the placement. The results also show a strong correlation between receiving emotional support from the foster parents and feeling a sense of belonging in the family. Having their feelings addressed strengthens the sense of family belonging, which correlates with positive experiences of family home placements.

No description available.

No description available.

The purpose of this study was to conduct a descriptive and exploratory analysis of Riverside County's Independent Living Skills Program (ILSP) and its ability to prepare foster youth for successful adult transition. A vital component of this study was the exploration of perceived preparedness through the eyes of the participants enrolled in this program.