Paper
A case-control study of a representative sample of young adults who received child welfare services in Quebec during adolescence
- issue: Issue 3 / 2008
- authors: Eric Yergeau, Robert Pauzé and Jean Toupin
- keywords: Canada, foster care, child welfare
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- downloaded: 0
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abstract
Background. Every year, an approximate 5000 adolescents emancipate from Quebec's child welfare services when reaching adulthood. It is generally assumed that these children's futures can be uncertain regarding their integration as adults in society. In fact, few existing studies show that adolescents who transit through Quebec's child welfare services have multiple vulnerabilities when compared to normative samples of adolescents: they lived in poorer and less educated family environments, have more personal difficulties (school related problems, police contacts and substance abuse) and psychological problems (internalized and externalized behaviour problems) that make them especially at risk for adaptation problems in adulthood. These comparisons with normative populations are even more contrasting when adolescents present a history of one or more out-of-home placements.
While the psychosocial profile of these youths is beginning to be relatively well documented, there are almost no empirical research results focusing on how these adolescents make it through the first years of adulthood. The results available are fragmented and are mostly derived from samples of adolescents exclusively in foster care. Moreover, results of many studies are based on qualitative data with questionable generalizability. These facts highlight the need to gather information from representative samples of adolescents receiving psychosocial interventions through the child welfare system, either in out-of-home placement or still in their natural environment.
This study is aimed at describing the quality of the transition to adulthood of the youth reared in families who drained the most resources of the child welfare system in the province of Quebec.
In fact, the young adults participating in this research come in most part from families who dealt with multiple and often chronic problems leading them to receive specialized and legally imposed welfare services. Second, it gives solid and unique evidence-based results on many social, psychological and personal characteristics of these youths as they integrate society after their majority. Moreover, these findings are compared with the characteristics of a control group made out of young adults reared in similar socioeconomic backgrounds without contacts with the child welfare services.
Purpose. The aim of this study is to describe psychological, familial, social and employment data taken after the first year in adulthood of a representative sample of young adults who transited through Quebec's child welfare services during adolescence. These findings are compared with those of a control group.
This cross-sectional study is in fact the follow-up of a representative sample taken from the longitudinal work of Pauzé et al. (2004) who followed for five years 408 adolescents (12-17 years-old) and their families. Subjects were selected randomly over the first year of measurement from four youth centers each located in an administrative region of Quebec representing both urban (Montreal and Quebec City) and rural (Eastern Townships) social environments.
All these families were receiving child welfare services at the first time of measurement, some of them were placed in institutional or foster care (n=70) while some remained with their parents (n=79). All interventions were legally constrained on the youth and their parents. The sample of the present research consists of 149 young adults (129 men and 39 women) interviewed after they reached 18 years-old at a mean age of 19.3 and a normative group (n=50) equivalent on main sociodemographic variables.
Interviewers gathered informations with a structured protocol containing questionnaires regarding economical, social, psychological, familial and employment contexts of the participants. All results are compared with those of the control group.
Key findings. Overall, results show that most adolescents with a history of out-of-home placements are less socially adjusted in their transition to adulthood than normative youth. Socioeconomical data demonstrate that more than half of these youths have not returned to live with their parents after foster care (54%) while the normative sample youths are mostly staying with their parents (84%). An important proportion of them are in a socioprofessional void (33%) while almost all the normative sample is either at work or attaining school (96%). Their rate of homelessness episodes is eight times higher than for normative youths.
Data from the psychological evaluation are troubling. In spite of the fact that all youths report having a good physical health, the young adults with foster care history show a significantly higher rate of mental health and substance abuse problems as diagnosed with DSM-IV based interviews.
Results indicate they have higher incidence of alcohol dependence and abuse diagnosis (26% vs 2%) and also a much higher rate of toxic substance dependence and abuse diagnosis (37% vs 14%). Moreover, they report significantly more signs of psychological distress than the normative sample. It is then not surprising to observe significantly higher mean scores on the antisocial attitudes scale for youths with foster care history. They also perceive experiencing significantly more negative life events than the normative sample.
Regarding social and relational variables, data suggest youths with a foster care history complain significantly more about having received not enough caring from their mother and their father during their childhood. They also perceive that their parents didn't support them adequately toward developing their autonomy as a child. As for the actual relationship with their parents, there is no statistical evidence of differences between foster care youths and the normative sample. Secondary analysis based on gender were conducted and showed only modest differences. Globally, these evidences suggest that these young adults are already at-risk for social exclusion when compared to same age youths from the general population.
These findings call for specific and more widespread programs aimed at better preparing these adolescents with special social needs to the transition to adulthood during and after their passage in child welfare services. Data from this representative sample point to the need for interventions not solely based on job and social insertion. In fact, based on the results of this study, intervention programs for young adults with a foster care history should consider the psychological difficulties confronting these youths such as alcohol and substance dependence and abuse and also the psychological distress expressed by many of them.
These problems need to be addressed by professionals at the same priority level than social insertion objectives in order to guarantee optimal intervention results. Results also show that such programs could benefit youth who have transited through the child welfare system without experiencing foster care.
Further research should focus on the quantitative impact of new programs implanted in Quebec and on the follow-up of the trajectories of the young adults who did and did not receive such interventions.
Key references
Pauzé, R., Toupin, J., Déry, M., Mercier, H., Cyr, M., Cyr, F., Frappier, J. Y., Robert, M., & Chamberland, C. (2004). Portrait des jeunes âgés de 0-17 ans récemment inscrits à la prise en charge des Centres jeunesse du Québec, leur parcours dans les services et leur évolution dans le temps. Rapport de recherche. Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Canada.
Contacts: Eric Yergeau, University of Sherbrooke, 2500 University Boulevard, Sherbrooke, QC, Canada J1K 2R1, Eric. E-mail: Yergeau@USherbrooke.ca, Phone 1-819-821-8000.