How Foster Youth Come to See Themselves As More Responsible through Participation in a Foster Youth Advisory Board

Background    This qualitative study is aimed at developing a theory about the process underlying the development of social responsibility that is grounded in the accounts of elected officers of a state youth advisory board (YAB) who reported experiencing this change. Social responsibility is defined as having a sense of duty or obligation to contribute to the greater good. It implies feeling accountable for one’s decisions and actions, reliable and dependable to others, and empowered to act on issues within one’s control. Foster youth approaching adulthood in child welfare systems, for many good reasons, are often viewed by child welfare professionals and researchers as being in need of help to become responsible adults. Rarely are they viewed as being in a position to offer help to other foster youth. At least one study describes the helping roles that former foster youth take in adulthood and finds that giving back provides strong sense of purpose, social connectedness, and coping. Less is known about how social responsibility develops from participation on YAB, or which program features shape a responsibility to help others.

 

Methods          In-depth qualitative interviews with 33 current and former elected officers of a Statewide YAB in a Mid-western state were conducted between August 2013 and June 2014. These interviews were a part of a larger study that investigated what current and former members learn from participation in a YAB, which included interviews with 13 program staff and child welfare facilitators, and a review of historical documents. Each interview lasted between 1-1/2 to 2- hours. The analytic process was based on immersion in the data and repeated sorting, coding, and comparisons that characterize the grounded theory approach (Charmaz, 2006). Analysis began with open coding of professionally transcribed transcripts (Straus & Corbin, 1990) and was followed by axial and selective coding.

 

Results Over a dozen types of social responsibility were coded and analyzed (i.e., bringing back information, inspiring other foster youth with my story, showing up to a meeting to be there for another young person, etc.). A theoretical model was developed describing: 1) the causal conditions that underlie the development of social responsibility; 2) the phenomena that arose from the causal conditions, 3) the context that influenced the development of social responsibility; 4) the intervening conditions that influenced social responsibility; 5) the actual helping strategies, and 6) the consequences of those strategies.

 

Implications   This study is distinctive in its examination of the process leading to a sense of social responsibility among foster youth participating in a YAB. In one way or another, these young people describe the ways that they became more self-confident and competent. The model establishes a framework for understanding the ways that youth advisory boards are organized to bring youth together; create a sense of belonging, and provide stabilizing resources from which youth can craft a clear identity and purpose to give back to other foster youth.