Research Dilemma: Foster care research

["NICO TROCME" <nico@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Reply to :


> I need to know if there are any studies or research that has been 
> completed that demonstrate that children who were raised in long-term
> foster care are more successful than children who were either left at or
> returned home to the child's original parents or relatives.
> 
> There seems to be a trend developing in my agency that challenges many
> of the beliefs that we once held so dear.  Those beliefs pertain to the
> trauma that we caused when we removed a child from the parents.  Someone
> has quoted some research that points out that children who were raised
> in foster care are more likely to succeed (the success is measured in
> terms of employment, housing and income stability) than children who
> were raised by their parents.  If this accurate, I feel that the studies
> only measure half of the issues involved.  Success at work may be nice
> in a physical needs sense, but is it likely that the child will be
> successful in his/her marriage?  How about as a parent?  What about
> interpersonal relationships?
> 
> Any help you can provide would be most appreciated.
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> 
> Brian Ingram
> 

Your colleagues may be referring to the Wald, Carlsmith & Leiderman 
study (Protecting abused &  neglected chldren, 1988, Stanford 
University Press).  A quasi-experimental design (children in counties 
with experimental permanency planning legislation compared to 
matched children in counties using foster care as usual approach) 
which found a few marginal advantages for children in foster care.  
The most significant finding, however was that compared ot 
non-maltreated poor children, the home and foster care groups did 
considerably worse.  Lesson: neither foster care nor intensive family 
based interventions are particularly succesful in helping already 
maltreated children. As always in our business,  the needs of the 
children seem to be lost in these agency debates about foster care.



Nico Trocme

Centre for Applied Social Research
Faculty of Social Work
University of Toronto
246 Bloor St West
Toronto, Ontario
M5S 1A1, Canada

TEL:  (416) 978-5718
FAX:  (416) 978-7072
INTERNET: nico@fsw.utoronto.ca