Placement disruption and negative placement outcomes among adolescents in long-term foster care: The role of behavior problems

Objective: This study examined risk of placement disruption and negative placement outcomes (e.g., residential treatment and incarceration) among adolescents placed in traditional family foster care for a year or longer. A foster parent's report of externalizing behavior problems was expected to be a stronger predictor of disruption and neoative outcomes than a caseworker's report. Additionally, the association between behavior problems and placement disruption was expected to be mediated by the youth's degree of belonging and integration in the foster home. Method: The caseworkers and foster parents of 179 randomly selected 12-13-year-old adolescents placed in traditional foster care were interviewed by telephone. Interviews included standardized measures of externalizing behavioral problems and several other variables that have been previously associated with placement movement. Disruption from the youth's foster home at the time of the interview was prospectively tracked for 5 years. Results: Over half of the youth experienced a disruption of their placement. Contrary to expectations, behavior problems as reported by caseworkers, but not foster parents, were predictive of placement disruption. However, the foster parent's report of behavior problems predicted risk of negative outcome after a period of 5 years. As hypothesized, integration in the foster home was highly predictive of placement stability and mediated the association between behavior problems and risk of disruption. Conclusions: Results suggest that integration in the foster home might be an important dimension of placement adaptation that should be considered during service planning for foster youth in long-term foster care. In addition, using standardized measures of behavior with both foster parents and caseworkers might be necessary to assess both long-term risk of negative outcomes and more immediate risk of placement disruption. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.