Foster Care Experiences and Voice

Youth and young adults who have been in the foster care system are substantial risk of becoming homeless. Dworsky & Courtney (2009) found that as many as two-thirds of youth aging out of the foster care system experienced homelessness within the first six months of leaving care. In order to reduce the risk of homelessness among foster care youth and young adults, understanding and addressing the risk and protective factors is critical. Some of the risk factors that have been identified include the number of placement moves, prior running away, having a history of trauma, and becoming parents at an early age due to a lack of stability in their living arrangements (Courtney, Dworsky, Lee, & Raap, 2010: Lin, 2012; Heyman, Farmer, Gregory, White-Ryan, & Kelly, 2015; Svoboda, Shaw, Barth, & Bright, 2012). The importance of protective factors, such as stable foster care placements, the type of placement, and supports have been identified as ways to reduce the risk (Clark et al., 2008; Courtney et al., 2005). 

A core component of this research was developed in partnership with youth to help further understand their experiences and what they would identify as important risk and protective factors to prevent homelessness, as well as shape system redesign. A portion of this grant was funded by the Administration for Children and Families.  This qualitative study used focus groups as an approach to gain further insights about the risk and protective factors.  Purposeful sampling was used to recruit participants for eight focus groups, which were held with foster care youth aged 14-17; current and former foster care youth ages 18 to 24; agency representatives; and foster care caregivers.  A series of questions explored understanding participants’ experiences with foster care system, as well as perspectives about risk and protective factors to address homelessness of youth with foster care histories.  Transcripts were analyzed using Atlas-ti.  A first step of the analysis used open coding (Straus, 1987) which required an in-depth reading of the transcripts from each group.  Transcripts were then read and reread in an iterative process to gather emerging concepts, consider how they formed clusters, and ultimately develop primary themes. The following themes emerged: (1) autonomy, including the ability to participate in normal adolescent developmental; (2) connections, attachment and identification, including family and other significant relationships with adults and peers, (3) environmental influences, such as food insecurity, poverty, unsafe housing and neighborhoods,  and being exposed to abuse of alcohol and other mood alternating substances; and (4) placement instability, including the number of moves, type of placement, and consistent living situation. This session will discuss the themes that emerged from the focus groups and their impact on the welfare of youth and young adults in the foster care system, as well as the need for system redesign at the local, state, and national level to improve outcomes and prevent homelessness among this population.