An Exploratory Study of Foster Parent Retention, Secondary Traumatic Stress, and Post-Traumatic Growth

Background: 

The child welfare field is one that is embedded with trauma.  As such, the field poses unique challenges and opportunities related to secondary traumatic stress and post-traumatic growth.  The literature includes a beginning examination of stress and growth in samples of child welfare workers (Bride, Jones, & Macmaster, 2007; Nelson-Gardell, & Harris, 2003; Regehr, Hemsworth, Leslie, Howe, & Chau, 2004; Rhee, Ko, & Han, 2013; Sprang, Craig, & Clark, 2011). However, research regarding these two concepts in the foster parent population is scarce.  With the goal of assessing the roles that secondary traumatic stress and post-traumatic growth play in the lives of foster parents, an exploratory study was conducted. This study was guided by the following research questions: Does secondary traumatic stress have a relationship with foster parent retention? Does post-traumatic growth have a relationship with foster parent retention?

Methods:

A cross-sectional survey design was employed to gather data from foster parents.  Recruitment was conducted online through the websites, email listservs, and Facebook pages of foster parent associations. The final sample contained 34 foster parents.  The survey included measures of secondary traumatic stress, post-traumatic growth, and retention.  Secondary traumatic stress was measured using an adapted version of the Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale (Bride, Robinson, Yegidis, & Figley, 2004). Post-traumatic growth was measured using an adapted version of the Post-Traumatic Growth Inventory (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1996).  Respondents were also asked whether they considered leaving the foster parent system in the last year.  Independent samples t-tests were computed to assess relationships between variables.

Results:

While no relationship was identified between retention and any dimension of secondary traumatic stress, significant relationships were identified between retention and post-traumatic growth.  Foster parents who considered leaving had significantly lower scores on the New Possibilities subscale of the Post-Traumatic Growth Inventory (t(32)=-2.816, p=.008).  This subscale represents respondents’ optimism for their life path.  The portion of the sample that considered leaving also had lower scores on the total scale (t(32)=-1.895, p=.067), the Related to Others subscale (t(32)=-1.752, p=.089), and the Personal Strength subscale (t(32)=-1.981, p=.056).  However, these differences were only marginally significant at the .10 level.  These last two subscales represented the value respondents placed on relationships and respondents’ optimism for their own abilities. 

Conclusion:

This study provides promising results regarding the possible influence of post-traumatic growth, which was found to be associated with commitment to remain as a foster parent. Further research is needed to identify the exact nature of post-traumatic growth’s effects on foster parenting and methods by which growth can be fostered. In addition, research is needed to identify why secondary traumatic stress did not play a more important role. One possibility, as evidenced by past research (Geiger, Hayes, & Lietz, 2013) and comments from respondents, is that grief caused by reunification and stress caused by bureaucratic tape play larger roles in foster parents’ lives than secondary traumatic stress.