Psychological Well-Being Among Black Adolescents in Foster Care: The Role of Relational Permanence

Background/Purpose: The field of child welfare has historically focused on physical safety and legal permanency with little emphasis on child well-being or the importance of social relationships in positive youth development. This study adds to the literature regarding child well-being among Black adolescents in care—a group that is often overrepresented within the foster care system. Specifically, this study asks: 1) what is the prevalence of relational permanence? 2) does the level of relational permanence change over time? 3) what factors predict to relational permanence? and 4) is relational permanence correlated with psychological well-being?

Relational permanence is a form of social support that is operationalized as the presence of an ongoing caring and supportive relationship with parental figures, extended family, foster parents, foster care workers, friends, and other important non parental adults. Relational permanence is important because adolescents transitioning to adulthood in the foster care system often lack the social capital of parented youth and face a wide variety of risk factors as a result. The predictors of relational permanence and psychological well-being are measured at the individual, caregiver, and system levels. The purpose of measuring predictors at different levels is to examine positive adaptation in the face of risk in a multilevel manner—an important step in understanding the mechanisms involved in adaptive development and in creating effective interventions that foster adaptive development.

Methods: Data were drawn from the Black subsample (N = 534) of the Child and Adolescent Needs Assessment (CANS) and Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (IDCFS) Integrated Assessment. The study spanned the time between the first and second assessment of the CANS while youth were still in foster care. The average amount of time between assessments was eight months. Interpersonal skills and school achievement were individual level predictors in the model. Caregiver resources were caregiver level predictors in the model. The number of placement changes and duration of time in care were system level predictors in the model.

 

Results: Findings indicate that Black adolescents in foster care have varying levels of relational permanence. Additionally, relational permanence did not significantly change between Time 1 and Time 2. Maltreatment type had the largest influence on predicting to the attainment of relational permanence over time. As hypothesized, relational permanence was positively correlated with higher psychological well-being among Black foster care youth.

 

Conclusion and Implications: These findings support the literature that social support from a variety of different sources aid foster youth in staying mentally healthy despite major deficits in support from biological parents. These findings also give clinical significance to the importance of developing a wide variety of social support networks to improve developmental outcomes.