No abstract

The aim of the study was to conduct a longitudinal, randomized clinical trial of the efficacy of TAKE CHARGE, a self-determination enhancement intervention, for promoting the school performance of youth in special education and foster care. A total of 133 youth were randomized to either a control group that received typical services, or to the intervention group that received coaching in the application of self-determination skills to achieve their goals, as well as participating in group mentoring workshops with successful young adult alumni of foster care. Findings on the outcomes of 123 youth who completed the study suggest gains for the intervention group in elements of self-determination, engagement in educational planning, school performance, and reduced anxiety and depression.

Efforts to evaluate foster care outcomes must avoid systematic exclusion of particular groups. Although often unrecognized as such, youth with disabilities are highly overrepresented in the U.S. foster care system, and yet youth with some disabilities, including those with intellectual, serious emotional, and physical impairments may be underrepresented in research and evaluation studies evaluating foster care outcomes. The recruitment and retention of youth with various disabilities in such studies can be impeded by under-identification of disability and relatively high placement and school mobility. Furthermore, youth with various disabilities may experience more disappointing outcomes than foster youth overall, underscoring the importance of including these youth in outcome tracking efforts. This is especially relevant given the recent implementation of the National Youth in Transition Database (NYTD), which requires that state child welfare agencies gather baseline information about youth in foster care at age 17, and then survey outcomes at 19 and 21. To promote the full participation of foster youth with disabilities in such outcome evaluation, this paper describes successful strategies for identifying and retaining participants that were used in three separate longitudinal intervention studies. These strategies include the systematic recruitment of foster youth by special education status, and creative use of validated tracking and retention strategies incorporating minor accommodations as needed.

Youth in foster care who experience disabilities face many challenges as they transition out of foster care and into adulthood. In order to assist these youth, it is crucial to understand factors that may impact their self-determination, which research links to positive transition outcomes for youth with disabilities (Wehmeyer, Palmer, Agran, Mithaug, & Martin, 2000). While much of the existing research on the correlates and outcomes of self-determination focuses on young people with disabilities overall, and little is known about whether factors such as abuse, family stressors and extended length of time in care, and frequent placement changes influence self-determination. Exploring predictors of self-determination in youth with disabilities in foster care can be beneficial to researchers and child welfare practitioners who seek to identify effective approaches for helping youth accomplish successful transitions into adulthood. This dissertation examined the extent to which physical and sexual abuse and family stressors, such as unemployment, domestic violence, and homelessness prior to entering care; as well as foster care placement instability and total length of time in care, impact a youth's self-determination. In addition, the influence of demographic features such as race and gender on these associations was examined. Increased understanding of factors that contribute to self-determination can facilitate targeted interventions and services that enhance the lives of youth as they exit out of the foster care system and into adulthood. Overall, the findings did not reveal significant associations between selfdetermination and physical and sexual abuse, family stressors, length of time in foster I would also like to thank the project staff for My Life and Project Success who assisted me in this work by providing many hours and miles driven for study recruitment and data collection. A personal acknowledgement to my closest colleague, Melanie Sage for her emotional and technical support throughout this research and throughout the PhD program. Most of all, I'd like to acknowledge the youth represented behind the numbers in this dissertation. May they someday be able to achieve their goals and realize their dreams. v TABLE OF CONTENTS