This book draws together for the first time some of the most important international policy practice and research relating to education in out-of-home care. It addresses the knowledge gap around how good learning experiences can enrich and add enjoyment to the lives of children and young people as they grow and develop. Through its ecological-development lens it focuses sharply on the experience of learning from early childhood to tertiary education. It offers empirical insights and best practices examples of learning and caregiving contexts with children and young people in formal learning settings, at home and in the community. This book is highly relevant for education and training programs in pedagogy, psychology, social work, youth work, residential care, foster care and kinship care along with early childhood, primary, secondary and tertiary education courses.

Child abuse is typically considered to be the most severe form of early adversity to which children or adolescents can be subjected. Maltreated young people seen as at the highest risk are likely to be placed in out-of-home care for their own protection, including foster care, kinship care, group care, or independent living. Young People in Out-of-Home Care is based on more than two decades of applied research and evaluation, conducted since 2000, as part of the ongoing Ontario Looking After Children (OnLAC) Project. The OnLAC project was based on a new child welfare approach known as Looking After Children, developed in the UK in the late 1980s and 1990s, to reform and improve services to vulnerable young people who were being looked after in out-of-home care. When launched in 2000, the OnLAC project “Canadianized” the UK approach and partnered with the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies (OACAS) and some 20 children’s aid societies in the province. Since 2007, the Ontario government has mandated that local societies use the OnLAC method to plan services and monitor outcomes. Since 2000, the Ontario Looking After Children (OnLAC) project has gathered information on results and well-being from interviews with more than 35,000 young people in care, their caregivers, and their child welfare workers. Young People in Out- of-Home Care presents major project findings and lessons that promise to improve young people’s education, development, health, social and family relationships, mental health, and preparation for transition to community life.

This book challenges and revises existing ways of thinking about leaving care policy, practice and research at regional, national and international levels. Bringing together contributors from fifteen countries, it covers a range of topical policy and practice issues within national, international or comparative contexts. These include youth justice, disability, access to higher education, the role of advocacy groups, ethical challenges and cultural factors. In doing so it demonstrates that, whilst young people are universally a vulnerable group, there are vast differences in their experiences of out-of-home care and transitions from care, and their shorter and longer-term outcomes. Equally, there are significant variations between jurisdictions in terms of the legislative, policy and practice supports and opportunities made available to them. This significant edited collection is essential reading for all those who work with young people from care, including social workers, counsellors, and youth and community practitioners, as well as for students and scholars of child welfare.

This book is a valuable source of information on the long-term effects of early intervention programs on the education of children living in economically disadvantaged areas and in other contexts. Early intervention programs such as Head Start enjoy popular and legislative support, but until now, policymakers and practitioners have lacked hard data on the long-term consequences of such locally and federally mandated efforts. Success in Early Intervention focuses on the Child-Parent Center (CPC) program in Chicago, the second oldest (after Head Start) federally funded early childhood intervention program. Begun in 1967, the program currently operates out of twenty-four centers, which are located in proximity to the elementary schools they serve. The CPC program?s unique features include mandatory parental involvement and a single, sustained educational system that spans preschool through the third grade. Central to this study is a 1986 cohort of nearly twelve hundred CPC children and a comparison group of low income children whose subsequent activities, challenges, and achievements are followed through the age of fifteen. The lives of these children amply demonstrate the positive long-term educational and social consequences of the CPC program.

Children in out-of-home care (OHC) have higher risks for developing poorer health and school achievement, being subjected to more abuse experiences, as well as negative long-term outcomes related to occupational performance, socioeconomic status, addiction, and criminality. Research related to OHC children is fragmented and the effects of interventions are under-studied. This thesis aimed to explore health, abuse, support, and preconditions for school among children in OHC and to assess changes after an intervention targeting foster children’s school performance. Paper I compared OHC pupils in last year high school to non-OHC peers in a national survey with 5 839 pupils. The study showed that risks of abuse and poor mental health are evident for adolescents in out-of-home care. Also, results indicated a lower disclosure rate of sexual abuse, particularly to police or social services. Paper II compared OHC pupils to peers in birth parent care by analyzing responses in four consecutive year surveys in a regional sample comprising 23 798 pupils in 8th-year compulsory and 2nd-year high school. Responses from the 311 pupils in OHC showed poorer outcomes than did birth-parent care peers in perceived satisfaction with social life and relations, trust to other persons in different relations, abuse experiences online, and sense of security in the school and at home. These results also applied when compared to a subset of pupils living with a single birth parent. Paper III analyzed prospective test and questionnaire data of intelligence, adaptive behavior, mathematics, literacy skills, and psychosocial wellbeing from 856 children in foster care. Results revealed poorer preconditions for school performance of between 0.5 and 1.0 standard deviations below age-standardized norms. The analysis also provided results regarding different intelligence domains, where working memory showed the lowest scores while perceptual functioning were close to norms. Boys generally scored poorer than girls except in mathematics. Paper IV explored the effects of a school-based intervention, Skolfam, on a subset of Paper III cohort (n= 475). Results showed improved skills in higher-order cognitive executive functions such as reading comprehension, sentence chains, mathematics, and intelligence. For less complex cognitive functions, affective functioning or psychosocial symptoms, no improvements were seen, except for reduced hyperactivity. Conclusion: The studies confirm that children in OHC have poorer mental health, are less satisfied with social life, have more adverse experiences both online and in real life and have poorer preconditions for school performance than do non-OHC peers. Importantly, Skolfam intervention can partially enhance preconditions for school performance. Further studies on longitudinal risk, with a design to identify specific protective factors, development of school-related competencies and ways to support OHC children in school are needed. Barn i social heldygnsvård har som grupp högre risker för att utveckla sämre hälsa och skolresultat, vara mer utsatta för övergrepp samt ha sämre långtidsutsikter relaterat till arbetsmarknad, socioekonomisk status, drogberoende och kriminalitet. Forskning om barn i social heldygnsvård är ofta fragmenterad och effekter av olika interventioner är sparsamt utvärderade. Syftet med avhandlingen var att utforska hälsa, stöd, övergrepp och förutsättningar för skola för barn i social heldygnsvård, samt att bedöma hur förutsättningar för skolprestation förändras genom en intervention som inriktas mot skolresultat för barn i familjehem. Artikel I jämförde samhällsvårdade studenter i tredje året på gymnasiet med icke samhällsvårdade jämnåriga studenter. 5 839 elever besvarade en nationell enkät. Resultatet visade att risker för övergrepp och sämre psykisk hälsa var mer frekvent för ungdomar i samhällsvård. Dessutom var andelen som berättar om övergrepp lägre bland de samhällsvårdade ungdomarna, i synnerhet till polis och socialtjänst. Artikel II jämförde samhällsvårdade elever med jämnåriga som bor med föräldrar, genom att analysera svaren från fyra på varandra följande års enkäter i ett regionalt urval som omfattade 23 798 elever från grundskolans åttonde och gymnasieskolans andra år. Svaren från de 311 eleverna i samhällsvård visade sämre utfall än icke samhällsvårdade i upplevd tillfredsställelse med socialt liv och relationer, tillit till andra personer i olika relationer, erfarenhet av nätövergrepp, samt upplevd säkerhet såväl i skolan som i hemmet, även i jämförelse med en undergrupp av studenter som bor med bara en förälder. Artikel III analyserade test- och formulärdata av intelligens, adaptivt beteende, matematik, läsfärdigheter och psykosocialt mående av 856 barn i familjehem. Resultaten visade sämre förutsättningar för skolprestation mellan 0.5 och 1.0 standardavvikelser under åldersstandardiserade normer. I analysen från olika domäner av intelligens, visade arbetsminne de lägsta resultaten, medan perceptuell funktion visade sig ligga nära medelvärdet från normeringsstudier. Pojkar hade generellt lägre poäng än flickor, förutom i matematik. Artikel IV undersökte effekter av en skolbaserad intervention, från ett antal elever från Skolfam kohorten (n = 475). Resultaten visade förbättrade färdigheter i högre exekutiva funktioner som läsförståelse, meningskedjor, matematik, samt intelligens efter intervention. För mindre komplexa kognitiva funktioner, affektiv funktion eller psykosomatiska symptom noterades inga förändringar, med undantag för lägre hyperaktivitet. Slutsatserna från dessa studier bekräftar bilden av att barn i samhällsvård har sämre psykisk hälsa, är mindre tillfreds med sitt sociala liv, har mer erfarenheter av övergrepp såväl på nätet som i verkliga livet och har sämre förutsättningar för skolresultat än sina icke samhällsvårdade jämnåriga. Ett viktigt bidrag är att interventionen Skolfam till del kan stärka förutsättningar för bättre skolprestation. Fortsatta studier av longitudinella risker, med möjlighet att identifiera specifika skyddsfaktorer, modeller för att utveckla skolrelaterade kompetenser och sätt att ytterligare stödja barn i samhällsvård behövs.