| 1. |
- Berlin, Marie, et al.
(författare)
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School performance in primary school and psychosocial problems in young adulthood among care leavers from long term foster care
- 2011
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Ingår i: Children and youth services review. - : Elsevier BV. - 0190-7409 .- 1873-7765. ; 33:12, s. 2489-2494
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We used data from Swedish national registers for ten entire birth year cohorts (1972–1981) to examine psychosocial outcomes in young adulthood for youth that left long term foster care after age 17, comparing them with majority population peers, national adoptees and peers who had received in-home interventions before age 13. The population was followed in the registers from age 16 to 2005. Data were analyzed in Cox regression models.Youth who left long term foster care had six-to eleven fold sex and birth year adjusted excess risks for suicide attempts, substance abuse and serious criminality from age 20, and for public welfare dependency at age 25. Overrisks were considerably lower for the in-home intervention group and the national adoptees. Adjusting results for poor school performance in the final year in primary school (ages 15–16) reduced overrisks by 38–52% for care leavers from long term foster care.Irrespective of issues of causality, poor school performance seems to be a major risk factor for future psychosocial problems among youth who age out of long term foster care. The results suggest that promoting foster children's school performance should be given high priority by agencies.
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| 2. |
- Hedin, Lena, et al.
(författare)
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Settling into a new home as a teenager : about establishing social bonds in different types of foster families in Sweden
- 2011
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Ingår i: Children and youth services review. - : Elsevier BV. - 0190-7409 .- 1873-7765. ; 33:11, s. 2282-2289
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper provides a glimpse into young people's experiences and understandings of everyday life during their initial stages of placement in various types of foster families. The way family interactions strengthen or weaken the social bond between foster youth and foster family is focused upon. In this study the young people in kinship foster families reported the strongest social bonds to their foster families and the adolescents in traditional foster families the weakest. This is in line with previous research. However, youth in network foster families with whom they were not so close prior to placement also reported rather strong social bonds to the foster family, which is not well known. Including network foster families in the study sheds light on the importance of adolescents' active involvement and agency in choosing their foster family. Examples of family interactions which seem to be crucial in strengthening social bonds, also in traditional foster families, are e.g. fair treatment by other family members, mutual family activities, negotiating to find solutions, and, which is not so well known, humorous joking and laughing together. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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| 3. |
- Höjer, Ingrid, 1953, et al.
(författare)
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Procedures when young people leave care : Views of 111 swedish social services mangers
- 2011
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Ingår i: Children and youth services review. - : Elsevier BV. - 0190-7409 .- 1873-7765. ; 33:12, s. 2452-2460:33, s. 2452 - 2460
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In western societies, there is a general tendency towards a protracted transition to adulthood for young people, who thereby may become increasingly dependent on support from family. Young people leaving a placement in out-of-home care often lack such support, and will thus have a disadvantageous position compared to their peers. With the purpose of looking into the procedures when young people leave a placement in out-of-home care, telephone interviews were performed with 111 managers of social service units in two Swedish regions (West Sweden, and Stockholm Region), using a structured interview schedule. Answering rate was 99.1%. Only 6% of the managers had information of the young people's whereabouts once they had left care. 86-88% had general support programmes for all young people concerning housing, employment etc. but only 2-4% had specific programmes for young people leaving care. A majority of the managers were attentive of the difficulties the young people leaving care may encounter, but displayed little awareness of the consequences of a prolonged transition to adulthood, and the need for continued support after leaving care. Several managers referred to the general support of the Swedish welfare state, meaning that young people leaving care had the same access to support as all other young people in Sweden. Consequently, young people leaving care are at risk of being invisible in the welfare system and facing a compressed transition to adulthood.
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| 4. |
- Lindqvist, Erik
(författare)
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Planned treatment and outcomes in residential youth care : Evidence from Sweden
- 2011
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Ingår i: Children and Youth Services Review. - : Elsevier. - 0190-7409. ; 33:1, s. 21-27
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A recurring theme in evaluations of Swedish residential youth care is that treatment is often unplanned. Using a data set of teenagers placed in youth care in 1991 (N = 357), we show that planned treatment — in the sense of a known expected duration of treatment — is strongly positively associated with treatment outcomes. In the short term, teenagers with planned treatment are 32% less likely to experience a treatment breakdown and 25% less likely to be reassigned to other forms of residential care after completed treatment. In the long term, teenagers with planned treatment are 21% less likely to engage in criminal behavior and 40% less likely to be hospitalized for mental health problems. The results are robust to controlling for a rich set of potentially confounding factors: Even though observable pre-treatment teenager characteristics explain about one fifth of the variation in criminal behavior 5–10 years after treatment, they have almost no predictive power for whether treatment is planned or unplanned.
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| 5. |
- Vinnerljung, Bo, et al.
(författare)
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Cognitive, educational and self-support outcomes of long-term foster care versus adoption : A Swedish national cohort study
- 2011
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Ingår i: Children and youth services review. - : Elsevier BV. - 0190-7409 .- 1873-7765. ; 33:10, s. 1902-1910
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The benefits and pitfalls of different forms of substitute care have rarely been evaluated in comparison with each other. In this study we compared outcomes in youth and young adulthood of long-term foster care and adoption for children who came into the Child Welfare system at a young age. We linked ten national registers with data covering ten national birth cohorts to compare cognitive, educational and self-support outcomes for 900 adoptees with 3100 who grew up in foster care. Outcomes for 900 000 majority population peers were assessed for descriptive purposes. Comparisons adoptees/foster children were done in linear regression models and in Cox regression models with fixed person time. We adjusted the analyses for birth parental related selection/confounding factors (mental health problems, substance abuse and maternal education), and age at placement in substitute care. Crude outcomes for both groups were substantially weaker than for majority population peers. The foster children fell clearly short of adoptees on all outcomes; school performance at 15, cognitive competence at 18, educational achievement and self-support capability in young adult years, also after adjustments for birth parent related confounders and age at placement in substitute care.
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