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While safety, permanency and child well-being have been identified as the primary goals of child welfare (ASFA, PL 105-89;CSFR), research has focused upon the measurement of safety and permanency (Rosenbalm et al., 2016), which are arguably easier to operationalize compared to the multi-faceted concept of well-being. Recent conceptual studies, however, have synthesized existing well-being frameworks and provided a roadmap for child welfare researchers to use when constructing original measures (Semanchin Jones et al., 2015). This investigation sought to develop and test a multi-dimensional and multi-informant construct of child well-being (MDMIC-WB) among youth in foster care.
Methods
Secondary data were examined among a sample of youth in foster care universally recruited from the Oregon Department of Human Services (Supporting Siblings in Foster Care study (SIBS-FC); Kothari et al., 2017). 164 older siblings participated. Youth were 13.1 (SD=1.4) years old on average; slightly over half were non-White. This investigation focuses on data collected from youth, their foster caregivers, and outside observers. Instruments and global measures developed by the SIBS-FC study investigators to assess youth health and well-being from multiple perspectives were utilized to create the MDMIC-WB. These items were then conceptually mapped onto the well-being domains presented in Semanchin Jones et al. (2015): Behavioral and Emotional Functioning/Mental Health, Relationships/Social Functioning, Physical Health, and Environment/Purpose/Spirituality/Community. Descriptive statistics and frequencies were examined to ensure variation existed on each item. Bivariate analyses were conducted to examine associations between items within each informant and within each domain. Then items were combined across domains into one MDMIC-WB. Reliability was examined, and four standardized measures were utilized to examine validity (Child Behavior Checklist [CBCL], Achenbach, 1991; Quality of Life [QOL], Topolski, Edwards, & Patrick, 2002); and the Child- and Parent- Report of Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms (CROPS & PROPS, Greenwald & Rubin, 1999).
Results
The resulting MDMIC-WB consisted of 25 items across the three informants and four domains. The construct demonstrated strong reliability (α=.87) as well as good concurrent and predictive validity. MDMIC-WB was significantly associated with Quality of Life (r=.65), CBCL (r =-.54), PROPS (r =-.54) and CROPS (r =-.49) at Baseline and 6-months Post-Baseline (QOL r =.30; CBCL r =-.34; PROPS r=-.30; CROPS r=-.31) as hypothesized.
Conclusion and Implications
This investigation demonstrated that a reliable and valid multi-informant and multi-dimensional measure of child well-being is possible for youth in foster care. Furthermore, this multi-faceted approach to measuring well-being is arguably a more robust way to measure the overall wellness of young people in foster care, and is potentially more relevant to practitioners and policy makers familiar with the complex interplay of environmental and individual factors influencing well-being. Additionally, this approach places less burden on any one informant, which may add to its practical utility. Given that child-well-being is a critical goal of child welfare, there is an obligation to holistically assess and track youth well-being, and the MDMIC-WB tested here is an important step in that direction. Opportunities, limitations and future directions will be discussed.