Pregnancy and parenting among youth in foster care: A review

Svoboda, Deborah V.; Shaw, Terry V.; Barth, Richard P.; Bright, Charlotte Lyn

doi:10.1016/j.childyouth.2012.01.023

Cited by 95 publications

(87 citation statements)

References 27 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…There are two earlier smallscale follow-up studies from NSW that report on this issue and indicate the high prevalence of early parenthood among young women recently discharged from care (Cashmore & Paxman, 1996. A recent article about pregnancy and parenting among youth in foster care indicate that this is a neglected issue in the US (Svoba, Shaw, Barth, & Bright, 2012).…”

Section: Early Parenthood (For Both Males and Females)mentioning

confidence: 98%

Family Foster Care: Can it Survive the Evidence?

Ainsworth

Hansen

2014

Children Australia

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The media coverage of foster care in Australia is replete with adoration for foster carers who look after disadvantaged and difficult children and youth. As this article is being written, New South Wales is holding a 'foster care week' with enhanced media coverage and praise for foster carers, the recruitment of new foster carers and acclaim for the 'foster carer of the year'. Yet, there is another side to foster care that offers less than ideal circumstances for children in care. There is the worrying issue of multiple placements, the problem with children and young people running away from foster care before they reach the legal age for discharge, and evidence of increased incidence of poor educational attainment and involvement in juvenile offending for young people in foster care. In addition, there are cases of foster children being abused by foster carers. As adults, former foster-care children and youth are over-represented among the homeless, in adult correction centres, the unemployed and the users of mental health services. This article documents these negative outcomes of entering the foster-care system, and asks whether family (or non-relative) foster care can survive this evidence. For too many children and young people, family foster care may not provide better outcomes than less-than-optimal parental care from which the children were removed. An alternative is to reduce the use of family foster care and increase intensive support and parenting education services for birth parents who have limited parenting capacity. The aim should be to limit the number of children being taken into care.

show abstract

Section: Early Parenthood (For Both Males and Females)mentioning

confidence: 98%

Family Foster Care: Can it Survive the Evidence?

Ainsworth

Hansen

2014

Children Australia

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This is in contrast with both the UK and US where there is some limited data that addresses this important issue (SCIE, 2004;Knight, Chasa, & Aggleton, 2006: Svoboda, Shaw, Barth, & Bright, 2012. Even then Svoboda et al (2012) citing Constantine, Jerman, & Constantine (2009) and Love, McIntosh, Rosst, & Tertzakian (2005) state that:…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 80%

“…The authors do not know of any such programmes in NSW that are provided by either FaCS or the non-government sector. Elsewhere there are programmes that seek to provide foster care families for both mother and child and others that support young mothers to complete their education (Svoboda, Shaw, Bright, & Barth, 2012). …”

Section: Amending the Legislationmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

From the Front Line: The State as a Failed Parent

Ainsworth

Hansen

2013

Children Australia

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The focus of this article is young women aged 16–17 years who, while in State care in New South Wales gave birth, and from whom the child was then removed by the same department that is responsible for the mother's care. This topic is rarely examined due to two constraints. One is the lack of available data about the incidence of events of this kind. The second is the confidentiality provision in the New South Wales Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998 which defines the Children's Court as a closed court and prohibits the reporting of identifiable case information.As a consequence much of this article is based on the authors' direct observation of cases involving young women of this age that they have encountered while undertaking professional duties in the Children's Court. The article also explores the further issue of the adoption of children removed from mothers who are still in State care.Because of the lack of data this article can be classified as an opinion piece which attempts to raise awareness about an important care issue. The article has a New South Wales focus but the authors expect that the same concerns are echoed in other Australian states and territories.

show abstract

“…For example, despite within-group declines, Latinas, African American and Native American girls continue to face disproportionate risk of pregnancy; births to teens in impoverished rural areas have risen sharply; and girls in foster care are twice as likely to give birth as those in the general population [2,3]. The clear association of teen pregnancy and childbearing with the complex dimensions of disadvantage led Sarah Brown, former Director of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy to observe that we may already have achieved the "easy wins" in bringing down rates of pregnancy and childbearing among American adolescents [2].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Special Issue: Adolescent Pregnancy: Past, Present and Future Trends and Issues

Farber

2016

Societies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The dramatic overall decrease in rates of pregnancies and births to American teenagers over the last few decades should be counted among contemporary success stories in systematic efforts to reduce bio-psychosocial risks to youth. Since the modern peak in 1991, fertility among all major racial and ethnic groups of teens has, with a few brief reversals, steadily and sharply declined: births by about 64% and pregnancies 55% [1]. Though the rate of births to teens remains among the highest in developed nations, approaching twice that of the next-highest, the U.K., the consistency of the trends suggests that the modern tide of high-risk sexual activity associated with unplanned conception among ever-younger American youth has been at least somewhat curtailed [1]. While we see broad changes in young people's sexual behavior that resulted in reduced risk overall of unplanned pregnancy and childbearing, continuing stark disparities in the incidence of early pregnancy among adolescents reveal the profound impact of social and economic inequality on youth's wellbeing in American society. For example, despite within-group declines, Latinas, African American and Native American girls continue to face disproportionate risk of pregnancy; births to teens in impoverished rural areas have risen sharply; and girls in foster care are twice as likely to give birth as those in the general population [2,3]. The clear association of teen pregnancy and childbearing with the complex dimensions of disadvantage led Sarah Brown, former Director of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy to observe that we may already have achieved the "easy wins" in bringing down rates of pregnancy and childbearing among American adolescents [2]. After several years of significant public investments in reducing fertility among teenagers though research, policy, services, and education, the result is that more teens are delaying sexual initiation; many teens are less sexually active; more of those teens who do have sex use contraception effectively; and many of those teens who become pregnant have abortions. Though there remain both empirically-and ideologically-based debates over the relative value of abstinence-only interventions and comprehensive sex education, research suggests that many teenage pregnancy prevention programs are quite effective, and that some programs are more effective for certain teens than for others. That is, if we employ a comprehensive and multi-faceted rather than one-size-fits-all strategy to preventing teen pregnancy, we have significant impact on diverse youth's sexual behavior. The largest proportion of adolescents falls into whom Brown includes as the "easy wins". In other words, the category of youth who were, and remain, at lowest risk of early conception have benefitted most from efforts at teen pregnancy prevention, while others at higher risk will require interventions that target more closely the particular sources of their vulnerability. Most American teenagers are unlikely to become parents bec...

show abstract

Pregnancy and parenting among youth in foster care: A review

Cited by 95 publications

References 27 publications

Family Foster Care: Can it Survive the Evidence?

Family Foster Care: Can it Survive the Evidence?

From the Front Line: The State as a Failed Parent

Special Issue: Adolescent Pregnancy: Past, Present and Future Trends and Issues

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About