Obstacles to involving children and young people in foster care research

Abstract

Despite increasing recognition of the importance of including the perspectives of children and young people in care in alternative care research, in practice this is not always a straightforward matter. This paper describes the recruitment of disruptive young people in care under the jurisdiction of the South Australian statutory authority to three studies on placement instability. Non‐response rates of 72.5% and 82% are reported. A large number of subjects were excluded because agency social workers did not cooperate with the project, and more subjects were excluded for reasons which suggest high levels of distress in this population. The dilemma of providing a voice to distressed subjects when distressed subjects are excluded from research is discussed, and the appointment of an independent representative for children in care to review research proposals and to negotiate research access to children is proposed.

The Special Youth Carer Program: An Innovative Program for At-Risk Adolescents in Foster Care

“…Further, there were no formal measures of psycho-social functioning and, most importantly, the views of all of the carers and the program participants were not represented (for problems in involving children and young people in foster care research in this jurisdiction, see Gilbertson and Barber, 2002). These limitations notwithstanding, findings permitted the tentative conclusion that SYC may be effective in meeting its primary goals.…”

Speaking Out: Youth Led Research as a Methodology Used with Homeless Youth

“…Participants also reported they believed the data was richer due to their work as peer researchers. It is traditionally extremely difficult to engage high risk youth in research because they are leery of any involvement with systems; and tend to view researchers as part of the system (Gilbertson & Barber, 2002). By having youth lead the research, this project was able to engage participants and encourage them to open up about challenges they might be hesitant to share with traditional researchers.…”

Measuring Client Satisfaction with Child Welfare Services

“…While telephone and interview methods have both been used successfully, Kapp & Vela (2004) reported difficulties contacting clients because telephone numbers provided were inaccurate or out-of-date. Consequently low return rates must be considered a reliability problem, because non-returns are open to being interpreted as dissatisfaction and unrepresentative samples limit generalizability (Gain & Young, 1998;O'Neal, 1999;Gilbertson & Barber, 2002). In addition to the ethical issues raised about quantitative measures (noted previously), it is suggested that a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods may optimize the quality and depth of data obtained (Berrick et al, 2000).…”