1 / 23

Resilience in Aboriginal Children and Adolescents in Out-of-Home Care: A Test of an Initial Explanatory Model

Resilience in Aboriginal Children and Adolescents in Out-of-Home Care: A Test of an Initial Explanatory Model. Katharine M. Filbert School of Psychology Centre for Research on Educational and Community Services (CRECS) University of Ottawa, ON, Canada. Presentation Overview.

lel
Download Presentation

Resilience in Aboriginal Children and Adolescents in Out-of-Home Care: A Test of an Initial Explanatory Model

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. Resilience in Aboriginal Children and Adolescents in Out-of-Home Care:A Test of an Initial Explanatory Model Katharine M. Filbert School of Psychology Centre for Research on Educational and Community Services (CRECS) University of Ottawa, ON, Canada

  2. Presentation Overview • Background Information: • Aboriginal children and adolescents • Resilience • Developmental assets • High levels of functioning • Methodology • Results • Implications • Limitations • Future Research

  3. Aboriginal Children and Adolescents • 30-40% (80,000) of young people in foster care in Canada • < 5% (27,000) of the general youth population (Gough, Trocmé, Brown, Knoke, & Blackstock, 2005) • Have heightened risks

  4. Resilience • Positive adaptation during or following adversity or serious threats to development • Inferred from judgments about: • quality of an individual’s functioning or development • exposure to a threat to functioning or development • Not a personality trait or attribute

  5. Developmental Assets(http://www.search-institute.org/assets/) • 40 developmental assets organized into eight categories and further divided into external and internal factors: • External assets: • Support • Empowerment • Boundaries and Expectations • Constructive Use of Time • Internal assets: • Commitment to Learning • Positive Values • Social Competencies • Positive Identity

  6. Comparison of Average Number of Developmental Assets Per Youth • In United States (Search Institute sample): 18 • In Canada (OnLAC sample): 27.5 • Differences between samples in: • measures • rating sources • average quality of placement homes • ratings

  7. High Levels of Functioning in Aboriginal Youth • Research has indicated that developmental assets explained 47% of the variance in high levels of functioning (Scales et al., 2000) • Important developmental assets: • other adult relationships • personal power • sense of purpose • caring • cultural competence • responsibility • valuing diversity • leadership • school success

  8. Resilience of In-Care Youth • % of youth identified as resilient varies widely within and across studies • Small to moderate number of maltreated youth are typically competent in one or more developmental tasks within at least one point in time • In general, resilient functioning is less common in maltreated children than those who have experienced other familial adversities (Legault, Anawati, & Flynn, 2006)

  9. Resilience of Aboriginal Youth (Lalonde, 2006) • Promotion of culture is related to increased resilience • Aboriginal communities with restored self-government had 85% lower risk of youth suicide than those communities without • In communities that controlled and implemented plans for children in care, youth suicide rate was 25% lower than communities without this control

  10. Purpose of the Present Study • To examine resilience-promoting factors (Masten, 2006) on the child, family, and community level that are associated with positive mental health and educational outcomes in an Aboriginal sample of youths living in out-of-home care.

  11. Participants • 103 First Nations youths • 48 females (M = 13.40 years; SD = 2.05) • 55 males (M = 13.16 years; SD = 1.92) • aged 10-17 years • drawn from year five (2005-2006) of the larger Looking After Children in Ontario (OnLAC) project

  12. Assessment and Action Record (second Canadian adaptation; AAR-C2; Flynn et al., 2006) • Mandated by the Ontario Ministry of Children and Youth Services for use every year, with all young people who have been in foster care in Ontario for a year or more • 7 outcome domains: (1) health (2) education (3) identity (4) family and social relationships (5) social presentation (6) emotional and behavioural development (7) self-care skills

  13. Predictor Variables • Age(M = 13.27 years; SD = 1.98) • Gender(48 females; 55 males) • Cumulative risk(M = 6.09; SD = 3.34 ) • First Nations cultural opportunities (M = 1.37; SD = 1.34 ) • Developmental assets(M = 27.00; SD = 7.84)

  14. Outcome Measures • Pro-social • Total Difficulties Score • General Self-Esteem • Education

  15. Pro-social Scale (N = 102) *

  16. Total Difficulties Score (N = 102) * * * *

  17. General Self-Esteem Scale (N = 101) *

  18. Education Scale (N = 101) *

  19. Implications • Developmental assets was consistently the strongest predictor • Consistent with resilience theory • Importance of First Nations cultural opportunities • Incorporation of assets into plan-of-care • Strategies to offset risk factors

  20. Limitations • Small sample size of only First Nations in-care youths • No comparison group

  21. Future Research • Métis and Inuit in-care youths • Methods to increase developmental assets • Ways to offset the consequences of having few assets

  22. References Flynn, R. J., Dudding, P. M., & Barber J. G. (Eds.).(2006a). Promoting resilience in child welfare. Ottawa, ON: University of Ottawa Press. Flynn, R. J., Ghazal, H., & Legault, L. (2006b). Looking After Children: Good parenting, good outcomes, assessment and action records (second Canadian adaptation). Ottawa, ON & London, UK: Centre for Research on Community Services, University of Ottawa & Her Majesty’s Stationary Office. Goodman, R. (1997). The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire: A research note. Journal ofChild Psychology and Psychiatry, 38, 581-586. Gough, P., Trocmé, N., Brown, I., Knoke, I., & Blackstock, C. (2005). Pathways to the overrepresentation of Aboriginal children in care. CECW Information. Retrieved from http://www.cecw-ceph.ca Lalonde, C. E. (2006). Identity formation and cultural resilience in Aboriginal communities. In R. J. Flynn, P. M. Dudding, & J. G. Barber (Eds.), Promoting resilience in child welfare (pp. 52-71). Ottawa, ON: University of Ottawa Press. Legault, L., Anawati, M., & Flynn, R. (2006). Factors favoring psychological resilience among fostered young people. Children and Youth Services Review, 28, 1024-1038. Masten, A. S. (2006). Promoting resilience in development: A general framework for systems of care. In R. J. Flynn, P. M. Dudding, & J. G. Barber (Eds.), Promoting resilience in child welfare (pp. 3-17). Ottawa, ON: University of Ottawa Press. Scales, P. C., Benson, P. L., Leffert, N., & Blyth, D. A. (2000). Contribution of developmental assets to the prediction of thriving among adolescents. Applied Developmental Science, 4, 27-46. Scales, P. C. (1999). Reducing risks and building developmental assets: Essential actions for promoting adolescent health. Journal of School Health, 69, 113-119.

  23. Questions/Comments?

More Related