Abstract
Child maltreatment and foster care placement are strong risk factors for delinquency and juvenile justice involvement, and there is substantial crossover between youth in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. This study examines the long-term impact of the Fostering Healthy Futures (FHF) program, a 30-week mentoring and skills group preventive intervention for preadolescent maltreated children in foster care. Participants included 426 children recently placed in out-of-home care who were randomized to intervention or control conditions. Outcomes included both self-reported delinquency, measured at multiple time points between 6 months and 12 years post-intervention, as well as court records of delinquency charges, which were measured for 7 consecutive years beginning 3 months after the intervention began. Results from multilevel models indicated that the intervention group self-reported 30–82% less total and non-violent delinquency than the control group between ages 14 and 18. Court charges for total and violent delinquency in mid-adolescence were also 15–30% lower for the intervention group. These findings indicate that a mentoring and skills training program in preadolescence can reduce delinquency and justice involvement for children who are at high risk for these outcomes.
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Acknowledgements
We wish to express our appreciation to the children and families who made this work possible and to the participating county departments of social services for their ongoing partnership in our joint clinical research efforts. We also thank Sara Culhane, JD, PhD, Robyn Wertheimer, LCSW, Orah Fireman, M.Ed., LCSW, Melody Combs, PhD, Rachel Bennett, MSW, and Jennifer Koch-Zapfel, LCSW, for their many years of work on the FHF program. Finally, this project would not have been possible without hundreds of exceptional research assistants, project interviewers, interns/mentors, group leaders, and skills group assistants.
Funding
This project was primarily supported by Grant No. 2017-JF-FX-0050 (H. Taussig, PI) funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and managed by the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The project also received funding from the National Institute of Justice (2013-VA-CX0002, H. Taussig, PI) and the National Institute of Mental Health (K01 MH01972, R21 MH067618, and R01 MH076919, H. Taussig, PI) as well as from the Kempe Foundation, Pioneer Fund, Daniels Fund, and Children’s Hospital Research Institute. Dr. Cooley was supported in part by a training fellowship from the National Institute of Mental Health (T32 MH015442). The opinions, charges, and conclusions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Justice or the National Institutes of Health.
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This study was performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments.
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Informed consent and assent were obtained at each interview time point. The Colorado Multiple Institutional Review Board reviewed and approved the protocol (02-516). The research involved human participants.
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The authors declare no competing interests.
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ClinicalTrials.gov, Identifiers: NCT00809315 & NCT00810056
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Taussig, H.N., Dmitrieva, J., Garrido, E.F. et al. Fostering Healthy Futures Preventive Intervention for Children in Foster Care: Long-term Delinquency Outcomes from a Randomized Controlled Trial. Prev Sci 22, 1120–1133 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-021-01235-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-021-01235-6