Professional and youth perspectives on higher education-focused interventions for youth transitioning from foster care

Abstract

Youth transitioning from foster care to adulthood access and succeed in college at much lower rates than the general population. A variety of services exist to support youth with their postsecondary goals, but few if any have evidence for their effectiveness. As part of a National Institute on Drug Abuse-funded intervention development project to design Fostering Higher Education, a structured, testable postsecondary access and retention intervention for youth transitioning from foster care to adulthood, focus groups were conducted with community stakeholders to collect recommendations for how to most effectively structure the intervention. Analyses of focus group findings resulted in four theme groups: (1) general recommendations for intervention development; (2) recommendations for an educational advocacy intervention component; (3) recommendations for a mentoring intervention component; and (4) recommendations for a substance abuse prevention intervention component. These themes offered a variety of important insights for developing interventions in a way that is usable for youth and feasible for communities to implement.

Fostering Higher Education: A postsecondary access and retention intervention for youth with foster care experience

“…The youth theater test participants found all FHE intervention components to be both interesting and comfortable to participate in. It is noteworthy that youth participants found the substance abuse module most interesting, despite some of the concerns from practitioners in the focus groups that discussing substance abuse could potentially be triggering for youth (see more on this in Salazar et al (2016)). This suggests that providing young people with objective information about college substance abuse in general and how their own use relates to this, if done thoughtfully and intentionally, may not be as troubling to youth as practitioners fear and that the information may be important in helping youth make informed decisions about their behavior and how it relates to achieving the postsecondary goals they have set for themselves.…”

“…The Deployment-Focused Model guides intervention development in the context of the actual settings in which they would take place, so that they fit easily into practice once tested and ready for dissemination. More about this framework can be found in Salazar et al (2016).…”

“…The current paper details Steps 1 and 3 through 6; Step 2 is summarized in the current paper, but is described in detail in Salazar et al (2016). Future work will involve rigorous efficacy testing (Step 7).…”

“…Participants were asked to provide feedback on each intervention component and specific recommendations regarding program structure and delivery. Detailed focus group findings are reported in Salazar et al (2016). Table 3, which can also be found in Salazar et al (2016), provides examples of focus group findings that informed the FHE intervention design.…”

“…More information about the challenges youth face in accessing and succeeding in higher education, the background of the intervention elements chosen to be part of the intervention, and detailed findings of the focus groups informing part of the intervention development process can be found in Salazar et al (2016).…”