Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Role Of Foster Parents In Improving Educational Outcomes For Youth In Foster Care, Gwen Bass

Doctoral Dissertations

Foster parents have been excluded from efforts to improve educational outcomes for foster children, yet they have the potential to serve as powerful advocates for youth in schools if they are adequately trained and supported on how to do so. The purpose of the present study is to identify key skills and to develop an instrument that can be used to assess competence among Massachusetts foster parents in parenting skills that have been identified in the literature to underlie academic engagement. This research is based on the idea that foster parents have the potential to contribute positively to youth engagement …