Extrafamilial Support and Positive Expectations As Protective Factors for Maltreated Youth

Background and Purpose: Adolescents impacted by the Child Welfare System (CWS) frequently struggle during the transition to adulthood. They are more likely to engage in early tobacco and alcohol use, experience academic struggles, and have challenges sustaining stable relationships. Research has shown that having social support and positive expectations for the future can serve as protective factors that promote resilient responses among youth with early adversities. Although significant research points to connections between some kinds of social support—particularly from peers and parents—and positive outcomes, minimal study has explored the relationship between non-relative support, youth expectations, and positive outcomes. We explore how extrafamilial (non-relative) support and positive future expectations predict preparation for adulthood cross-sectionally, and internalizing and externalizing behaviors cross-sectionally and in later years, among youth with CWS involvement, ages 14 or older. We hypothesized that youth with extrafamilial support and positive expectations would demonstrate lower internalizing and externalizing behaviors and higher levels of preparation for adulthood.

Methods: The study is a secondary analysis of the National Survey on Child and Adolescent Well-being II (NSCAW II), a longitudinal study of children involved with the U.S. child welfare system. Based on the variables of interest, NSCAW II data were available for 451 youth between the ages of 14 and 17.5 during sampling. In third-wave regressions, 338 of the original participants remained (75% of those in wave one). The study relied on several self-report modules of the NSCAW II Child Instrument. Extrafamilial adult support and future expectations were assessed at wave one using a subsection of the LongSCAN Resiliency Scale and an adaptation of Bearman and colleagues’ work. Preparation for adulthood was assessed at wave one using a researcher-developed module. Internalizing and externalizing behaviors were measured in three waves using Achenbach’s Youth and Adult Self-Reports. Several multiple linear regression models were assessed. Youth age, gender, race, alleged maltreatment type, and substantiation were controlled for in the analyses.

Results: Extrafamilial support predicted lower internalizing and externalizing scores cross-sectionally and 18 months later, but not three years later. Extrafamilial support did not predict preparation for adulthood. Positive future expectations predicted lower internalizing and externalizing behaviors cross-sectionally, but not 18 months later. Higher expectations predicted decreased internalizing behaviors three years later. Future expectations also predicted greater preparation for adulthood cross-sectionally.

Conclusions and Implications: Findings suggest that having extrafamilial support could improve socioemotional well-being for CWS-involved youth by decreasing their internalizing and externalizing behaviors, and that positive future expectations could improve behaviors and enhance preparation for adulthood. As standard practice, professionals working with CWS-involved youth should continue to promote and maintain youth’s social supports; however, given challenges that remain for many youth in this regard, additional research is needed to determine which strategies are most successful for maintaining non-relative connections and what practice adaptations may be required. Practitioners should also consciously move beyond promoting realistic expectations for youth, which may be construed as “tough love” or “reality checking” youth’s expectations, to bolstering youth’s positive expectations in order to support their successful transition to adulthood.