Digital Commons Network^™

Breaking Barriers And Cultivating Collaborative Partnerships For The Torero Renaissance Scholars Program, Ti'shaun Allen

M.A. in Higher Education Leadership: Action Research Projects

There is a high global demand for institutions to implement and maintain supportive programming for system-impacted students. System-impacted students are those who identify as former foster youth, homeless or at risk for homelessness, emancipated minors, or students in legal guardianships. My action research aimed to understand how to improve the Torero Renaissance Scholars (TRS) program model, delivery, and infrastructure to increase student engagement, program awareness, and partner collaboration at the University of San Diego (USD). TRS is a supportive program that assists students who are system-impacted. Findings from qualitative semi-structured 1:1 interviews, group conversations, and focus groups suggested increased employment …

The Contributing Factors Of Placement Instability For Pregnant Foster Youth, Amanda Garza, Shayneskgua Colen

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Objective: This systematic review examined the myriad challenges that pregnant foster youths experience in securing stable placements within the foster care system. Methods: Employing the PRISMA methodology, a literature search spanning September 2013 to May 2024 was conducted across various databases. The search strategy used keywords relating to foster care, pregnancy, placement stability, and associated factors contributing to instability. Results: Twenty-two relevant studies were identified, representing diverse research methodologies and geographic locations. A synthesis of the findings revealed that systemic issues inherent in the foster care system, including bureaucratic inefficiencies and resource constraints, exacerbate placement difficulties among pregnant foster youths. …

How And Why Foster Care Impacts Maltreated Youths' School Performance, Mallory Constantine

Lincy Institute Events

Youth mistreated within the foster care system are more likely to miss school as compared to non-maltreated peers. A single report of child maltreatment has a rapid and negative effect on school attendance and causes serious, long-term effects on school performance. A report of maltreatment substantiated by the department of family and child services removes a youth from a foster home and places the child in an alternative setting. These disruptions in foster care often result in additional problems with school behavior, achievement, and attendance. This lecture will explore how disruptions in foster care affect school behavior and performance and …

Promoting Child Rearing For Teen Mothers Within The Foster Care System, Monic Chavez, Rebecca King

Spring 2024 Virtual OTD Capstone Symposium

Teenage pregnancy in foster care is twice the national average, with one-third becoming pregnant by 17. There are limited programs available to assist teen mothers in foster care in developing healthy parent-child relationships and parenting skills despite their desire to break the cycle of trauma and improve their relationships with their children. The objective of the capstone program is to establish and operate a residential maternity home-based trauma-informed parenting program that assists teenage mothers in foster care in developing parenting skills and a healthy parent-child relationship by providing them with the necessary resources and support.

The Commodification Of Children And The Poor, And The Theory Of Stategraft, Daniel L. Hatcher

All Faculty Scholarship

Across the country, human service agencies, juvenile and family courts, prosecutors, probation departments, police officers, sheriffs, and detention and treatment facilities are churning impoverished children and adults through revenue operations with starkly disproportionate racial impact. Rather than being true to their intended missions of improving welfare and providing equal justice for vulnerable populations, the institutions are mining them with extractive practices that are harmful, unlawful, unconstitutional, and unethical. This Essay considers such commodification schemes under the lens of Professor Bernadette Atuahene’s excellent and important theory of stategraft. The examples discussed provide support for Atuahene’s theory, and this Essay simultaneously urges …

Relational Permanence For Individuals Adopted From Care, Darci Nelsen

Expressive Therapies Dissertations

This qualitative study explored how individuals adopted from foster care experience the concept of relational permanency using an arts-based storytelling process. Participants were eight young adults between the ages of 18 and 30 who were adopted from foster care as youth. All participants identified as cisgender women, 75% identified as Black/African American (n = 6) and 25% as white (n = 2). Participants completed a demographic survey and engaged in a single 60-to-90-minute interview session. The interview was comprised of three main components, a semi-structured interview regarding participant understanding of relational permanency, an embodied check-in focused on physiological …

Exploring The Needs Of College Students Experiencing Housing Instability, Sandy D. Dawoud

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This qualitative study explored the needs and experiences of college students who have aged out of the foster care system and facing housing instability at a large public institution. The study explores the participants' pre-college experiences and college journey to identify challenges they faced, sources of support, and unmet needs impacting their education. Analysis of 14 individual interviews highlighted key themes related to motivations, obstacles, and desired assistance across areas like finances, mental health, academics, and support systems. This work has implications for implementing tailored institutional support, community partnerships, transition programs, and advocacy efforts to promote resilience and success for …

Letting The Kids Run Wild: Free-Range Parenting And The (De)Regulation Of Child Protective Services, Fenja R. Schick-Malone

Washington and Lee Law Review

Families in the United States suffer from a removal epidemic. The child welfare framework allows unnecessary and harmful intervention into family and parenting matters, traditionally left to the discretion of the parent. Many states allow Child Protective Services (“CPS”) to investigate, intervene, and permanently separate a child from their parents for innocuous activities such as letting the child play outside unattended. This especially affects low-income and minority families.

To prevent CPS from unnecessarily intervening in a family’s decision to let their children engage in independent, unsupervised activities, Utah passed a “free-range” parenting act (“Act”) in 2018. The Act explicitly excludes …

Applying Social Bond Theory To Foster Care Instability And Justice System Contact, Therin P. Foley

Honors College Theses

While placing a child in foster care is often in an effort to protect them and their future, it does not always fully succeed. Placement in foster care has been found to be highly unstable. Additionally, it has been linked to an increase in individuals’ likelihood to engage in delinquent and criminal behavior. This thesis looks at the possibility that these two aspects may be related through Hirschi’s (1969) Social Bond theory. It examines available data from ten different states in order to explore this idea. The results of this investigation show that the instability of the foster care system …

Chaotic Childhoods, Stephanos Bibas

Articles

Rob Henderson’s breakout memoir, Troubled, gives us a window on troubled youth. Henderson, a brilliant young psychologist, illumines how harmful childhood instability is by reflecting on his own experience. He never knew his father, was abandoned by his drug-addicted mother, and bounced around foster care. After squandering much of his early education and drowning his rage in alcohol, drugs, fights, and vandalism, he made his way through the Air Force to Yale and now Cambridge. But few of his friends escaped the wounds from their childhoods; many wound up unemployed, in prison, or dead. As an outsider to the elites …

Nudging Improvements To The Family Regulation System, Joshua Gupta-Kagan

Faculty Scholarship

The Restatement of Children and the Law features a strong endorsement of parents’ rights to the care, custody, and control of their children because parents’ rights are generally good for children. Building on that foundation, the Restatement’s sections on child neglect and abuse law would resolve several jurisdictional splits in favor of greater protections for family integrity, thus protecting more families against the harms that come from state intervention, especially state separation of parents from children.

But a close read of the Restatement shows that it only goes so far. It is not likely to significantly reduce the wide variation …

Per Capita Gdp’S Potential Effect On The Percentage Of Children In Foster Care, Jenna Mcclain

Honors College Theses

Few studies have been conducted on the presence of a direct connection between per capita gross domestic product (GDP) and the percentage of children in foster care in a given region. GDP is a known indicator of economic growth (Powers, 1995; Roshaniza & Selvaratnam, 2015), as is a child’s potential for foster care placement associated with a parent or family’s financial status (Bald et. al, 2022; Barth et. al, 2010). Poverty is the bridge in many of these scenarios – low GDP can be indicative of higher poverty rates, and financial hardship under poverty classification can lead to child maltreatment …

Investigating The Relationship Between Foster Care And Sex Trafficking: What Factors Are Maintaining The Cycle Of Abuse, Shannon M. Budgell

Student Theses

Sex trafficking is a global crime and human rights issue that benefits abusers at the detriment of vulnerable groups, including children involved in the United States welfare system. This meta-synthesis explored the risk factors present within the United States foster care system that expose children to potential victimization. Using qualitative research, the purpose of this study was to review sex trafficking exploitation and analyze the current policies creating this vulnerability in the nation’s child welfare services. Upon completing a systematic literature search, nine studies were included by meeting the following criteria: qualitative or quantitative research studies published in English any …

Program Evaluation On 4kids On Foster Parent Retention, Brittany Morton

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The number of children coming to the foster care system is increasing while the individuals willing to be foster parents and take these children in their care is rapidly decreasing. There are some aspects that play a crucial part in foster parents’ choice to foster children, including available resources and motivation. Research has studied why foster parents elect to foster and what leads foster parents to close their doors. For the foster care programs that provide services to foster parents, there is minimal research on foster care program evaluation regarding foster parent retention. The program evaluation aims to assess 4Kids …

Review Of Inju$Tice, Inc.: How America’S Justice System Commodifies Children And The Poor, Thomas Hansen

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

Book review of this title explaining the corruption and the lack of ethics in Ohio and some other states involved in juvenile justice system, foster care placement, fines, fees, and jail.

Building Resilience To Treat Trauma And Improve Social Participation With Youth In Foster Care, Rachel Greene, Keisa Boykin, Dana Madalon

Fall 2023 Virtual OTD Capstone Symposium

Childhood trauma is classified by adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) that caused the trauma. An ACE is a traumatic event that an individual has observed from birth to 18 years old (Atchison & Suarez, 2021). ACEs include but are not limited to physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, and neglect. ACEs also include household dysfunctions such as domestic violence, divorce, incarceration of family, substance abuse, food scarcity, poverty, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Building resilience promotes healthy coping skills, the ability to trust and engage with support systems, and the prevention of retraumatization (Bethell et al., 2017). Trauma and resiliency are invertedly related, …

Helping Hoodies Clothing Drive, Nicole Hawkinson

IPS/BAS 495 Undergraduate Capstone Projects

This service learning project recognized the needs for warmer clothing for disadvantaged children that they genuinely wanted and would wear. Oftentimes, children who are in the care of the state for any purpose are children that have suffered trauma and loss. Not only loss of their possessions, but their families, friends and stability. I partnered with a non-profit organization, The Closet, that gives these children back their ability to choose clothing items that fit their style and helps them to gain back a piece of their identity. I created the Helping Hoodies clothing drive that ran for a week in …

The Implementation Of A Career-Readiness Program For Youth In A Group/Foster Care Setting, Brianie Clarke, Brianie Clarke

Department of Occupational Therapy Entry-Level Capstone Projects

The transition from high school to any form of postsecondary education is often a challenging experience in and of itself. For individuals who are a part of the foster care system, it is increasingly difficult to traverse this transition due to decreased access to resources and support. Throughout this capstone experience at the group home, A Kid's Place, I created a career readiness program that focused on gauging what each individuals’ interests are, curating a realistic career pathway/plan that would aid in the accomplishment of their goals, and created resourceful materials that would prepare participants to begin their own postsecondary …

The Whole Child Initiative Model Of Care For Those Aging Out Of Residential Care, Ashley Nichole Davis

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate the type of relationship that exists between the implementation of The Whole Child Initiative model of care in the lives of individuals who have aged out of residential care and both the spiritual and developmental outcomes for these individuals. This study helps to determine if there is a relationship between the existence of the support of the Whole Child Initiative’s model of care for individuals who age out of residential care and their church attendance, use of private religious activities such as prayer or Bible study, experiences with the presence of …

Family First: Kinship Care As A Gold Standard, Ava Cloghessy

Washington Semester Program

This thesis seeks to address how kinship care can produce higher permanency outcomes for children. Building on selected sources, the author will introduce testimony and illustrations from three key stakeholder perspectives involved in kinship care: children, their caregivers and caseworkers in the Child Welfare system. Finally, the proposed rule from the Administration for Children and Families will be evaluated as a policy recommendation.

Relational Connections For Youth Aging Out Of Foster Care: A Policy Content Analysis, Heather Miller

Social Work Doctoral Dissertations

Social work professionals and policymakers are faced with the dilemma of older youth exiting foster care each year with poor outcomes, lacking resources and supports that make successful transitions a challenge. Research suggests that youth who have a supportive relationship with a consistent and trusted adult to help navigate the transition to adulthood supports a youth’s successful transition from care. The Federal John H. Chafee Foster Care Program for Successful Transition to Adulthood, initially birthed from the Foster Care Independence Act of 1999 and revised through the Family First Prevention Services Act of 2018, provides states with funding and guidance …

No Soy De Aquí, Ni Soy De Allá: U.S. Citizen Children Are Paying The Price For Our Nation's Broken Immigration System (Comment), Daisy J. Ramirez

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Current immigration polices continue to force mixed-status family separation and do not provide any attainable avenues for immigration relief. Modern immigration law is complex, filled with statutes and regulations that create waste, delay, and confusion among immigrants, their families, and the United States judicial system. As a result, U.S. citizen children are bearing the costs of a faulty immigration system.

Exploring Permanency Rates Within The Southern California Counties Of Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino And San Diego, Karrene Turner

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The term permanency within child welfare is the right for all children to have a childhood with a nurturing and permanent family. For children within foster care, it means a permanent family-based living situation with one of the following: parents, permanent placement with relatives, reunification with parents or adoption (Freundlich et al., 2006). The purpose of this study is to examine the perceived differences in permanency rates within 12 months of entry in child welfare within the Southern California counties of Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego within a 10-year time span. The study will use pre-existing data …

Crossing Over: A Description Of Dual Status Youth In Taylor County, Texas, Kimberly S. Putnam

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study explores and describes the experiences of ten dual status youth in Taylor County, Texas by examining the factors of race, sex, child welfare allegation, and juvenile justice offense. A review of the literature suggests that this population has unique challenges in and outside the courtroom, including being at increased risk for disparate outcomes in later adolescence and adulthood. This study compared single-system child welfare and juvenile justice data from Texas DFPS Region 2 and Taylor County to raw data provided on a sample of ten dual status youth identified in Taylor County from 2017–2021. Findings included a disproportionately …

“You’Re On Your Own”: Examining The Wellbeing Of Unaccompanied Refugee Minors Who Have Transitioned Into Adulthood In The United States, Hannah E. Taverna

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

The United States' Unaccompanied Refugee Minor (URM) Program, which has served around 13,000 foreign-born children since the 1980s, aims to incorporate unaccompanied refugee minors (URMs) in need of international protection into the child welfare systems of 15 individual states. Despite the fact that children accepted into the URM program have access to the same benefits as those in state custody, URMs face unique challenges from their non-refugee peers. Limited research exists regarding the wellbeing of URMs who have transitioned out of the URM program and into adulthood. This study aimed to explore the experiences of participants who have transitioned out …

Pathology Logics, S. Lisa Washington

Northwestern University Law Review

Every year, thousands of marginalized parents become ensnared in the family regulation system, an apparatus more commonly referred to as the child welfare system. In prior work, I examined how the coercion of domestic violence survivors in the family regulation system perpetuates harmful knowledge production and serves to legitimize family regulation intervention. This Article focuses on another logic deeply embedded in the family regulation system: the pathologizing of impoverished and racialized groups. Scholars have discussed the pathologizing of marginalized groups to describe a host of different phenomena. In this Article, “pathology logic” refers to a logic that produces notions of …

Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome's Interaction With Foster Care: Exploring Challenges And Improving Outcomes, Kennedy E. Bradshaw

Senior Capstone Papers

Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) diagnoses in the United States, especially in rural areas have skyrocketed in recent years in conjunction with the increase in opioid use disorders. Neonates born with this condition possess a plethora of needs. The literature indicates the effects of NAS on substance-exposed infants are shown to have negative physical, cognitive, behavioral, and educational effects throughout the life course. Children with a NAS diagnosis are more likely to be involved in the foster care system due to stigma and legal implications facing the biological mothers of this population. The proposed intervention setting is AGAPE, which employs social …

Occupational Therapy's Value In A Campus Support Program For Former Foster Youth, Autumn Blatt

Occupational Therapy Doctoral Student Capstone Posters

This capstone focused on students at Cleveland State University's Pratt Center, which provides support for students with a history in foster care. Capstone activities included implementing workshops focused on important life skills and psychosocial development. The final product was a grant proposal on behalf of the Pratt Center.

A Phenomenological Study Of The Lived Experiences Of Former Foster Students Learning Through Online Educational Environments, Tiffany Sue Beckwith

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to describe the experiences of former foster students in online educational environments. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs acted as the theory guiding this study, as it was essential when investigating how unmet needs for foster children affected their motivation to learn and feelings of belongingness with their school. This study was designed to answer the following central research question: What are the experiences of former foster students who have taken part in online education? Using a transcendental phenomenological approach, I collected the lived experiences of the participants to uncover emerging themes during online …

Experiences Of Elementary School Counselors Treating Anger Issues In Elementary School-Aged Foster Children, Dr. Clarissa Y. Alderman

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The purpose of this study was to examine in detail the experiences of school counselors with treating anger issues in school-age children from foster care homes. In particular, the study determined the counselors’ experiences using cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to treat anger and whether the interventions were effective. The aim was to shape policy regarding handling children in foster care and overall child social services. Using two methods, the study employed a generic qualitative research design to cover the topic. One method was the narrative literature review, and the other was collecting data using interviews with five counselors adept at …