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Paper

Family reunification of adolescents placed in foster care: intervention and research perspectives

abstract

Background. In Quebec, the Youth Protection Act was recently revised. One of the major change of the Act is to determine timelines for terminating the rights of biological parents and for developing permanency plans. In this context, the pressure to rapidly reunify foster children with their parents of origins will be made. Which children are we going to reunify and which one are we going to provide with an another permanency plan. The research on the family reunification of the placed adolescents informs us about the characteristics of the youth and their family. It identify the predictors of the youth's family reunification. By doing so, it permits a better planning at the beginning of their placement. It prevents the youth to be adrift in the substitute care and to exit care without any family and social network.
In Quebec, few studies document the foster care experience. We observe a deficit of knowledge about the foster children and youth characteristics as well as the characte¬ristics of their living experience in foster care. The family reunification constitutes a big part of this experience, knowing that this is the prefer plan for the children and the youth at the end of their placement. The results of the research will permit to develop evidence-based family reunification programs, in other words to develop best family reunification practice.

Purpose. The identification of predictive factors regarding foster adolescents' family reunification represents a key element to a more efficient practice. Reuniting adolescents placed in foster care with their families presents many challenges, specifically due to parent-adolescent relationship difficulties, behavioral difficulties of the adolescent, and the need of individuality towards their family. As today, few research studies have investigated the family reunification of the adolescents.

Method. This exploratory research constitutes an analysis of the files of 102 adolescents, aged from 12 to 18, placed under the Quebec Youth protection Act and/or under the Youth offenders Act in a residential setting of the Centre jeunesse de Montréal - Institut universitaire (CJM-IU). The sample is divided in two groups: a group of reunified adolescents (n=51) who return with their family at the end of the foster care placement and a group of non reunified adolescents (n=51) who exit care by another routes such as: independent living, adoption, homelessness, imprisonment, suicide, mental health facility.

Key findings. The study pursues three objectives: define the portrait of the adolescents; explore and identify the factors associated with family reunification; elaborate a model of factors that predicts the family reunification of an adolescent. In accordance with the literature and the eco-systemic framework of the study, five categories of factors are analysed: the factors related to the adolescent, the parents, the family and environment, the intervention, the history and conditions of placement.
Many factors were find to be associated with the adolescents family reunification by conducting Student t-test or chi-square analysis (p≤0.05). The main associated factors are: ethnicity, number of behaviour problems, parental engagement, ambivalence of the mother, number of placement spells, duration, placement moves, parental visitation.
The results of the logistic regression analysis demonstrate that the observed differences between the reunified and the non reunified adolescents have more to do with factors linked to the intervention, placement history and placement conditions and less with the adolescent or the family characteristics. The logistic regression analysis has led to the elaboration of two predictive models of family reunification. The first model reveals that the likelihood of an adolescent to be discharge to the family decrease as the duration of the placement spell is getting longer (Exp(B) 0.909). We observed the same direction (the odds of return decreasing) when the youth doesn't have the possibility to visit his family (Exp(B) 0.125); when he experienced two placement spells instead of just one (Exp(B) 0.200); and when he is under the Youth Protection Act and the Young Offenders Act at the same time or one law after the other (Exp(B) 0.288). Only one predictor was found to increase the odds of family reunification: the ethnicity (Exp(B) 3.395). However, this model does have limits because it takes into account only factors that do not have missing value. Other logistic regression analysis was conducted to include all the statistically significant associated factors, even if one factor present some missing values. This second model reveals a configuration of three predictors: the parental involvement, ethnicity and ambivalence of the mother. Two factors were found to have an impact on the odds of family reunification in a positive way: parental involvement (Exp(B) 3.569) and ethnicity (Exp(B) 14.172). So the likelihood of an adolescent to return home increase if his parents are involved during the placement and if his ethnocultural background is different from the youth born and raise in Quebec. One predictor was found to have an opposite direction: the ambivalence of the mother (Exp(B) 0.132). When the mother shows ambivalence about the return of her child at the end of the placement, the odds of the adolescent to return home decrease.

Implications and recommendations. In terms of the research, these results demonstrate the necessity to pursue these works by undertaking longitudinal studies, employing event-history analysis; directly interrogating the actors in question; and exploring the relationship between ethnic origin and family reunification.
In terms of intervention, these results support the necessity to systemise the practice of family reunification; consolidate the youth's family network; develop family reunifica¬tion programs; and reconsider how residential centers should be organized.
Overall, this research is based on the conviction that family is a fundamental resource which prevents the youth from finding himself without a support network at the exit of substitute care.

Key references
Simard, M.C. (2007). La réunification familiale des adolescents placés en ressource de réadaptation: étude des facteurs prédictifs. Unpublished dictoral dissertation, École de service social, Université McGill e Université de Montréal, Montreal.

Contacts: Marie-Claude Simard, Ph.D., researcher, Centre jeunesse de Québec - Institut universitaire, 2915, Avenue Bourg-Royal, Québec (Québec), Canada, G1C 3S2, E-mail: marieclaudesimard.cj03@ssss.gouv.qc.ca, Phone 1-418-661-6951.

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