Family Relationships and Mental Health Trajectories of Youth in Foster Care

项目摘要/摘要 寄养家庭中青少年的家庭关系与心理健康轨迹 该项目的目标是确定(A)生物家庭探视是否与 更快地脱离寄养；(B)生物家庭探视如何预测水平和 随着时间的推移心理健康症状的模式；以及(C)独特的、相加的和交互的 与亲生父母、兄弟姐妹和养父母的关系对生活质量变化的影响 心理健康症状轨迹的水平和模式。这个提议的项目将使用数据 来自具有全国代表性的全国儿童和青少年福祉调查II， 对青少年参与儿童福利制度的纵向研究。使用所有3个波的 NSCAW II数据，我们将应用依恋原则和模糊损失理论来检验 生物家庭探视对寄养家庭退出和青年的潜在有益影响 3年来11-18岁青年症状的内化和外化(n=375， 第一波)。这项研究将使用创新的多信息者多变量分析，生存 分析、纵向潜在增长曲线和以人为中心的增长混合建模 克服了以往研究的局限性。通过使用具有全国代表性的样本， 拟议中的研究将产生关于生物家庭探视对 寄养存在与寄养青少年的纵向心理健康结果。知识 关于寄养出口、心理健康模式和轨迹的信息是必要的 儿童福利政策和实践中有意义的循证转变。

Project Summary/Abstract Family Relationships and Mental Health Trajectories of Youth in Foster Care The goals of this project are to determine (a) if biological family visitation is associated with swifter exits from foster care; (b) how biological family visitation predicts changes in levels and patterns of mental health symptoms over time; and (c) the unique, additive, and interactive effects of relationships with biological parents, siblings, and foster parents on changes in the levels and patterns of mental health symptom trajectories. This proposed project will use data from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being II, a nationally representative, longitudinal study of youth involved with the child welfare system. Using all 3 waves of the NSCAW II data, we will apply tenets of attachment and ambiguous loss theories to test the potential beneficial effects of biological family visitation on foster care exits, and youth internalizing and externalizing symptoms of youth ages 11-18 over a 3-year period (n = 375, Wave 1). This study will employ innovative multiple-informant multivariate analyses, survival analysis, longitudinal latent growth curve, and person-centered growth mixture modeling to overcome limitations of previous research. By using a nationally representative sample, the proposed study will yield important findings regarding the effects of biological family visitation on foster care exits and the longitudinal mental health outcomes of youth in foster care. Knowledge about foster care exits, mental health patterns, and trajectories is necessary for informing meaningful evidence-based shifts in child welfare policy and practice.