Older Adolescents in Foster Care and Non-Familial Mentors: Effects on Self-Esteem and Social Competence during Transition to Adulthood
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Authors
Bashnick, Elizabeth E.
Issue Date
2013
Type
Dissertation
Language
en
Keywords
"Mentor","Foster Care","Adolescent Development","Social Skills"
Alternative Title
Abstract
In 2011, the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) noted that there were 55,409 children in the foster care system within the state of California. Reuniting foster youth with their families is an important goal of the foster care system. A subset of the foster care system, group-home adolescents, will not achieve the permanency goal of being adopted or reunited with their families of origin. A review of the effects of disrupted adult relationships from an attachment and psychosocial theory perspective is presented and is used in the present study to determine whether non-familial mentors, or natural mentors, influence group-home adolescents' levels of self-esteem and social competence towards the goal of
successful transitioning into young adulthood. A sample of 16, 18-21 year-old male and female group-home participants was selected to participate in the study. A self-report survey and the California Psychological Inventory were utilized to assess the group-home adolescents' mentoring experience and-to measure the adolescents' degree of self-esteem and social competence. The goal was to determine the association of self-esteem and social competence characteristics, as defined by the CPI, to various components of the mentoring relationship. An additional goal was to determine possible differences in the degrees of self-esteem and social competence between the group-home adolescents and a normative high school sample reported in the CPI. While the study provided information regarding the mentoring relationships, results suggested that these relationships did not strongly influence adolescents' level of self-esteem and social competence. The research showed a positive relationship between self-esteem and social competence and suggested that group-home adolescents may demonstrate lower levels ofthese characteristics as compared to high-school adolescents in natural families . Previous research on mentoring and its effects on general adolescent and foster-care adolescents has revealed that this service leads to more positive emancipation outcomes than for those youth who do not receive these services. More information is needed on the specific group-home adolescent population in order to determine how to optimize this service for youth who will not meet their goal of reuniting with their families.