The Role of Foster Parents in Improving Educational Outcomes for Youth in Foster Care

213 Pages·2017·1.42 MB·English

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Doctoral Dissertations Dissertations and Theses
March 2017
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Gwen Bass
University of Massachusetts Amherst
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Bass, Gwen, "The Role of Foster Parents in Improving Educational Outcomes for Youth in Foster Care"
(2017). Doctoral Dissertations. 862.
https://doi.org/10.7275/9456150.0 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/862
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The Role of Foster Parents in Improving Educational Outcomes for Youth in Foster Care

A Dissertation Presented
by
GWENDOLYN BASS

Submitted to the Graduate School of the
University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

February 2017

College of Education
©Copyright by Gwendolyn Bass 2017
All Rights Reserved
The Role of Foster Parents in Improving Educational Outcomes for Youth in Foster Care

A Dissertation Presented
by
GWENDOLYN BASS

Approved as to style and content by:

__________________________________
John Carey, Co-Chair

__________________________________
Michael Krezmien, Co-Chair

__________________________________
Janette Dolan, Member

__________________________________
Sarah Fefer, Member

__________________________________
Sharon Rallis, Member

__________________________________
Joseph B. Berger, Senior Associate Dean
College of Education
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my advisor Dr. Jay Carey for the opportunities he has offered me
throughout this experience, for the endless support, and for calmly communicating his belief in
me. I am also grateful for the dedication of my committee members, Dr. Janette Dolan, Dr.
Sarah Fefer, Dr. Michael Krezmien, and Dr. Sharon Rallis, whose wisdom and expertise inspired
me and helped guide this research. I extend my appreciation to Karen Harrington for her
immense assistance with the data collection, analysis, and refinement of this manuscript. I am
also appreciative to the social workers at the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families
who see value in this project and aided with recruitment.
I wish to thank the foster parents whose tireless commitment to children makes a
difference every day. This project was founded on a deep belief in foster parents’ skill and
ability to improve the lives of our most vulnerable children. A special thank you to those who
shared their perspectives and assisted with this work by participating in the focus group and
interviews. I believe that this research is infinitely more meaningful because it has been
informed by the brilliance of such intelligent and dedicated foster mothers.
I am forever grateful to the dozens of young people whom I have come to know through
my own experiences as a foster parent and educator. Many thanks to my three spirited children
children, who entered my life through adoption and who inspire me daily. These relationships
remind me of the tremendous resilience of the human spirit and the power we all have to make
meaning of our challenges, and to forge new and more intentional paths.

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ABSTRACT

THE ROLE OF FOSTER PARENTS IN IMPROVING EDUCATIONAL OUTCOMES FOR
YOUTH IN FOSTER CARE

FEBRUARY 2017

GWENDOLYN BASS, B.A., MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE
M.A., THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY
M.Ed., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST
Ph.D, UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST

Directed by: Professor John Carey and Professor Michael Krezmien

Foster parents have been excluded from efforts to improve educational outcomes for foster
children, yet they have the potential to serve as powerful advocates for youth in schools if they
are adequately trained and supported on how to do so. The purpose of the present study is to
identify key skills and to develop an instrument that can be used to assess competence among
Massachusetts foster parents in parenting skills that have been identified in the literature to
underlie academic engagement. This research is based on the idea that foster parents have the
potential to contribute positively to youth engagement and success in school if they are trained to
implement parenting practices that support youth development in ways that improve school
performance. While foster parent training is required in several states, extant research suggests
that there is limited benefit of the most commonly adopted training curricula (Dorsey et al.,
2008; Festinger & Baker, 2013). No surveys to date specifically evaluate foster parents’
preparedness to meet the unique developmental and educational needs of youth in foster care.
This instrument was informed through a comprehensive synthesis of literature on foster parent
training outcomes and an analysis of the Massachusetts Approaches to Partnerships in Parenting
(MAPP; Department of Children and Families, 2001) curriculum. Through these analyses, six
domains of parenting skills emerged: building relationships with youth, empathy towards youth,
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educational process and role, developmentally appropriate expectations, behavior management,
and social-emotional development. The instrument was then refined through an iterative process
that was informed by a focus group with expert foster parents and cognitive interviews with
foster parents. Findings from the focus group were used to explore the relevance of the
underlying constructs. The cognitive interviewing led to the refinement of the questions based
on foster parents’ feedback on the appropriateness and clarity of the content. The resultant
measure is intended for use improving foster parent training content and pedagogy, to ensure
foster parents’ preparedness to parent in ways that set the stage for educational attainment and
success in adulthood, and in future research on long-term outcomes for youth in foster care.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................... iv
ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... v
LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................................... viii
LIST OF FIGURES………………………………………………………………………………ix
CHAPTER
1. LITERATURE SYNTHESIS ON FOSTER PARENT TRAINING OUTCOMES .................. 1
Background ................................................................................................................................. 1
Method ...................................................................................................................................... 29
Results ....................................................................................................................................... 37
Discussion ................................................................................................................................. 50
2. ANALYSIS OF THE MASSACHUSETTS APPROACHES TO PARTNERSHIPS IN
PARENTING (MAPP) TRAINING FOR THE PRESENCE OF EDUCATIONAL PARENTING
SKILLS ......................................................................................................................................... 67
Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 67
Method ...................................................................................................................................... 77
Results ....................................................................................................................................... 87
Discussion ................................................................................................................................. 90
3. THE REFINEMENT OF AN INSTRUMENT FOR ASSESSING FOSTER PARENTS’
EDUCATIONAL PARENTING SKILLS USING FOCUS GROUPS AND COGNITIVE
INTERVIEWS ............................................................................................................................ 113
Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 113
Methods ................................................................................................................................... 117
Focus Group ............................................................................................................................ 125
Cognitive Interview ................................................................................................................. 138
Discussion……………………………………………………………………………………146
Conclusion…...…………………………………………………………………………………153
APPENDICES
A. COGNITIVE INTERVIEW REPORT AND
COGNITIVE INTERVIEW REPORT FORM ....................................................................... 160
B. DRAFT INSTRUMENT .................................................................................................... 181
REFERENCE…………………………………………………………………………………...186
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LIST OF TABLES

Table Page

1.1 Overview of foster parent training curricula……………………………………..58
1.2 Foster parent training outcome domains…………………………………………59
1.3 Foster parent training type, outcomes by category, and measure………………..60
1.4 Summary of foster parent measures……………………………………………...65

2.1 Instructional practice domains, corresponding MAPP instructional practices,
and participation types associated with each...…………………………...85, 97
2.2 MAPP Principles, Modules, Core Values, and Tenets of Adult Education……...97
2.3 Curriculum overview, activity types, and summaries ……………………………99
2.4 Presence and type of content related to six skills associated with the domains
of educational parenting……………………………………………….....110

3.1 Summary of foster parent measures……………………………………………...116

viii
LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Page

1. Logic model for the role of foster parent training in improving educational
outcomes for foster youth…………………………………………………….…66
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