Nationwide more than 2 million youth are placed in custody annually, approximately 80,000 children return home, and more than 70% have a diagnosable mental disorder. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the outcomes of 311 youth released from secure residential facilities in Georgia between January 2012 thru May 2017. In the dataset, 136 youth returned to regular homes, 128 returned to group homes (GC), and 47 returned to traditional foster homes (TFC). The goal of the study was to examine the differences in probation outcomes based on the type of placement. For the purpose of the study, probation success was defined as having no additional placements in a secure residential facility within 365 days of release. To provide additional context, mental health status, race, sex, and age were analyzed. Binomial logistic regression and chi-square tests were performed to answer the research question. The tests did not reflect a statistically significant difference in the outcomes. However, the analysis did reflect that race and placement type had some effect on probation success. For race, success was 15.4% for black, 24.0% for white, and 24.1% for other. For placement type, probation success was 15.6% for youth returning to GC, 20.6% for youth returning to regular homes, and 23.4% for youth returning to TFC. As reflected in the literature, issues such as lack of proven programs in the community, mental health, and family impact the outcomes of delinquent youth in foster care. This study and the literature reflect the need for social change which can occur when the needs of delinquent juveniles supervised in foster care are addressed systematically.

This dissertation draws on semi-structured interviews with 20 former youth in care to examine their experiences in Ontario’s child welfare system and the long-term impacts of those experiences. Using a symbolic interactionist approach, the study analyzes the biographical disruption that experiences in the care system represented for participants and how this affected their life trajectories. The findings are organized and discussed around three themes: a) participants’ involvement with the system – how they experienced entering, being in, and exiting the system; b) the stigma participants experienced while in care, and their efforts to neutralize or manage the stigma; and c) the impact that their care experiences had on participants as adults. The data reveal a range of challenges that participants encountered while they were in care, including loneliness, isolation, neglect, general mistreatment and in some cases, abuse. Particularly damaging were the stigma and assaults on “self” that participants experienced as a result of their care status. The data also reveal that in one way or another, these early experiences followed participants into their adult lives, leaving them with a myriad of issues and concerns. The dissertation ends with a discussion of the substantive and theoretical contributions of the findings, as well as a section that addresses the policy implications of the research. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This dissertation draws on semi-structured interviews with 20 former youth in care to examine their experiences in the care system and the long-term impacts of those experiences. Participants described their time in care, including the stereotyping, stigma, abuse, and general mistreatment they encountered, as well as the loneliness and isolation they experienced. Leaving the care system also came with a distinct set of challenges that often persisted into their adult lives. The analysis focuses on impacts relating to identity, self-perception, and material circumstances for those who pass through Ontario’s child welfare system.

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The Child Welfare System is faced with an increasing number of children in foster care with a decreasing number of foster homes available for placement. By interviewing adults who were former foster children, this study examines the significance of one caring adult in the life of a foster child. Erik Erikson states that in the first stage of psychosocial development a child learns trust vs. mistrust. For many children entering foster care, this first stage of development has not been achieved, given their experiences in their biological families. In order to protect themselves during this time of mistrust, children exhibit behaviors designed to keep adults at a distance. This poses a problem for foster parents who must try to develop trust with their foster children in an effort to change their behavior. What if anything can be done to help these children learn to trust? The participants were asked to focus on specific behaviors at least one caring adult demonstrated that helped them as foster children, move through their past experiences of mistrust to a place of trusting that caring adult. The concept of attachment theory provided a foundation for the study. / Master of Science

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Critiques of the U.S. foster care system as “broken” span multiple disciplines, including journalism, social work, sociology, psychology, and legal studies. Foster care “brokenness” is poorly defined in these critiques but generally refers to how policies and practices fail to adequately help and support people involved with the foster care system. These disciplines approach understanding “brokenness” via a single problem (e.g., specific policies, inadequate prevention programs, family and community deficits) or measures of “outcomes” (e.g., the foster-care-to-prison-pipeline, low educational attainment for fostered youth, drug abuse). This study applied anthropological methods and theories to the problem of the system’s “brokenness.” In particular, I used participant observation, semi-structured interviews, qualitative surveys, and media and historical analyses to examine foster care as a social, political, economic, and hierarchical institution comprised of the subjects of foster care, namely fostered youth, their kin, foster parents, and foster care professionals. I conducted data collection for 46 months and relied on two fieldsites: a geographic expanse of urban and rural South Texas consisting of courts, community meetings, non-profit foster care organizations, foster care training sites, and private homes, and a digital, qualitative survey with respondents across the U.S. The local South Texas fieldsite and digital field together allowed me to collect 101 narratives of foster care. A holistic anthropological approach revealed that the premise that foster care is “broken” is flawed. The assertion of “brokenness” presumes the primary goal of foster care is to help and support families and children. Exploring what the foster care system actually does for and to the families, youth, foster parents, and professionals involved with the institution made clear that the system’s most basic function is to shape, control and reform its subjects into compliant neoliberal citizens. Media analysis demonstrates how persistent meta-narratives of foster care obscure the production of structural inequalities. A historical review illuminates how foster care has always been primarily a system for managing impoverished people, rather than a system for aiding families or protecting children. Ethnographic data elucidates how well-meaning and kind judges, social workers, and foster parents become unwitting participants in structural violence that subjugates kin and fostered youth and limits their resistance. / Anthropology

This qualitative study examines the personal and musical lives of adolescents with foster care experience. Based on the researcher's experience, it seemed that foster care adolescents had a different life experience with music than adolescents who were never in foster care. A structured interview, developed by the researcher, was used with a sample of 10 participants (6 males, 4 females) enrolled in out-patient therapy. Participants were chosen based on three criteria: 1) between the ages of 13-18 years, 2) present or past experience in foster care placements, and 3) willing and able to discuss their lives and musical backgrounds. Biographical inquiry was the specific method used to gather data on the musical lives of adolescents in foster care and to discern how the musical and personal biographies may have been related to one another. In this context, a musical biography was defined as the sum total of music experiences a person has had and the various meanings given to them, both in the past and present. It was assumed that one's musical life is part of one's personal biography, which also includes non musical events, experiences, and meanings. The study was organized according to two basic questions: 1) What music experiences had these adolescents in foster care had throughout their life span, and what meanings had they attached to those experiences, and 2) What relationships could be found between the musical and personal biographies? Results of the study showed that these adolescents with foster care experience used music consciously and actively in their everyday lives, similar to ways that adolescents with no foster care experience do. For example, adolescents with and without foster care experience share the same listening habits, music preferences, and how they use music. The results also showed that the music experiences of these adolescents did affect their life in foster care, and that their life in foster care did affect their overall relationship to music. In regards to foster care's influence on an adolescent's relationship to music, the results showed that when an adolescent had a relationship to music that was shared with a biological family member before foster care, this music relationship ceased when the participant entered foster care. Also, adolescents generally had a positive relationship with their foster family when involvement with music was encouraged. Conversely, music influenced the foster care experience of these adolescents. First, listening to music by oneself tended to increase in frequency and importance when the adolescent did not have a positive relationship or healthy attachment with the foster parent. Second, formal and active involvement in music (e.g., participating in school or group music, or taking lessons) seemed to be associated with a positive or healthy relationship with the foster family. Third, adolescents tended to listen to music for personal, psychological reasons, often to cope with the trauma, grief, and loss they continued to encounter throughout their lives. Implications for music therapy research, theory, and practice were drawn based on the conclusions. / Music Therapy

Using grounded theory methodology anchored within a life course perspective, this study explored former youth-in-care's sense of belonging and its impact on the transition to adulthood. The findings emphasized the importance of a sense of belonging to creating positive outcomes for young adults during their transition to adulthood. / Youth growing up in foster care tend to have poorer outcomes after reaching adulthood than youth in the general population, such as lower educational attainment, lower rates of employment, and more mental/emotional health difficulties than their peers. Although several factors have been suggested to explain this difference in outcomes, most studies have focused on youth’s negative experiences in-care as being the determinant factor. My study adopted an alternative approach and focused on youth who have had positive experiences during care, in hopes of learning from their experience. Using grounded theory methodology anchored within a life course perspective, this study explored how some youth developed a sense of belonging and what impact this had on their transition to adulthood. Each of the four young adults who participated in this studied shared their experiences of growing up in foster care and the impact this had on their transition to adulthood. The findings emphasized the importance of a sense of belonging to creating positive outcomes for young adults during their transition to adulthood. Five categories emerged from the data: “lack of control”, “realizing a stable, loving, and secure home”, “navigating multiple attachments”, “gaining a sense of belonging”, and “successful transition to adulthood”. These findings suggest that gaining a sense of belonging may be foundational to a successful transition to adulthood, especially when success is defined in terms of interdependence rather than independence. / Thesis / Master of Social Work (MSW)