Determinants of Resilience: Mental Health, Maltreatment and Adaptive Behavior

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Mental Health, Child Maltreatment and Adaptive Behavior Outcomes Exposure to maltreatment is a pervasive major life event and a tremendous mental health risk for children. For maltreated children placed in foster care, the risk for pathology is especially significant and understanding the pathways to positive outcomes for the foster-care population is crucial. Using a transactional model of stress and coping, wherein the mutual relationships among key personal and environmental variables operate to predict outcomes, this project addresses how children exposed to maltreatment and foster care display positive adjustment. The aims for the study are to (a) longitudinally examine the roles of resources, context, and appraisal of major life events in predicting adaptive behavior of children exposed to maltreatment living in foster care, and (b) determine the relative importance of appraisal on coping style for producing adaptive behavior. The results of this project will inform the literature on stress and coping by testing a theoretical model of the relations in a sample of children in foster care. This research will clarify our basic-science need to understand the relation between experiencing maltreatment, living in foster care, and mental health outcomes and our intervention-minded awareness of possible mechanisms for resilience and positive adjustment. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The study tests how resilience develops in children exposed to maltreatment.