Safety and Stability for Foster Children: A Developmental Perspective

Autor/in	Harden, Brenda Jones
Titel	Safety and Stability for Foster Children: A Developmental Perspective
Quelle	In: Future of Children, 14 (2004) 1, S.31-47 (17 Seiten) PDF als Volltext (1); PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei (2) Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1054-8289
Schlagwörter	Personality Traits; Child Safety; Child Welfare; Foster Care; Child Development; Family Environment; Social Services; Child Rearing; At Risk Persons; Physical Health; Mental Health; Cognitive Development; Social Development + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Individual characteristics; Personality characteristic; Persönlichkeitsmerkmal; Kindeswohl; Pflegehilfe; Kindesentwicklung; Familienmilieu; Social service; Soziale Dienstleistung; Soziale Dienste; Kindererziehung; Risikogruppe; Gesundheitszustand; Psychohygiene; Kognitive Entwicklung; Soziale Entwicklung
Abstract	Children in foster care face a challenging journey through childhood. In addition to the troubling family circumstances that bring them into state care, they face additional difficulties within the child welfare system that may further compromise their healthy development. This article discusses the importance of safety and stability to healthy child development and reviews the research on the risks associated with maltreatment and the foster care experience. It finds: (1) Family stability is best viewed as a process of caregiving practices that, when present, can greatly facilitate healthy child development; (2) Children in foster care, as a result of exposure to risk factors such as poverty, maltreatment, and the foster care experience, face multiple threats to their healthy development, including poor physical health, attachment disorders, compromised brain functioning, inadequate social skills, and mental health difficulties; and (3) Providing stable and nurturing families can bolster the resilience of children in care and ameliorate negative impacts on their developmental outcomes. The author concludes that developmentally-sensitive child welfare policies and practices designed to promote the well-being of the whole child, such as ongoing screening and assessment and coordinated systems of care, are needed to facilitate the healthy development of children in foster care. (Contains 90 endnotes.) (Author).
Anmerkungen	Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and The Brookings Institution. 267 Wallace Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544. Tel: 609-258-6979; e-mail: FOC@princeton.edu; Web site: http://www.brookings.org/index/publications.htm
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10