Abstract
Youth and young adults with a history of out-of-home care are at the center of a constellation of factors associated with young parenthood, including experiences of maltreatment, caregiver and school instability, poor access to preventive health care, and high rates of mental health problems. Although correlates of early parenthood among this population have been examined, few studies have examined factors at entry to care or included males when examining young parenthood. This study explores early predictors of parenthood among a sample of young adults (N = 206), ages 18 to 22, who were enrolled in the Fostering Healthy Futures study between the ages of 9–11 following recent removal from their homes. At baseline, youth and their caregivers were interviewed and child welfare records were coded, providing data on child welfare and family factors, children’s school functioning, mental health, relationships, attitudes and appraisals. These indices were examined to determine whether they were related to parenthood status at the young adult interview. A family risk variable that included indicators for single parenthood, maternal substance use, criminal activity and violence was the strongest predictor, but moral-legal maltreatment (i.e., exposing children to illegal activities), school and living instability, and self-worth were also significant predictors over and above the demographic control variables. The discussion critically considers the findings and potential consequences of the results for young people in care with input from consultation sessions with an advisory group of parents possessing a collective wealth of relevant experience, including young parenthood and out-of-home care placement. Implications for child welfare intervention are discussed.
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(data transparency): Some of the data presented in this manuscript have been archived at ICPSR: https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/NACJD/studies/36880.
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Acknowledgements
We wish to express our appreciation to the young people who made this work possible and to the participating county departments of social services for their ongoing partnership in our joint research efforts. We also thank our program staff, especially our project managers, research assistants, and project interviewers. We also wish to thank members of CASCADE’s research advisory group of parents. The group’s insightful and thoughtful consideration of the findings was invaluable in helping shape the concluding sections of the paper. We wish to particularly acknowledge the contribution of Jennifer Molloy, who engaged in an additional consultation session based on her expertise and experience in this area.
Funding
This project was supported in part by Grant # 2013-VA-CX0002 (H. Taussig, PI) funded 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 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. Taussig’s time and effort were supported by a U.S. Fulbright Scholar Award and Dr. Roberts time and effort were supported by the CASCADE partnership which receives infrastructure funding from Health and Care Research Wales.
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Heather Taussig: Conceptualization, Data curation, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Supervision, Statistical analyses, Writing; Louise Roberts: Conceptualization, Methodology, Supervision, Facilitation of consultation sessions; Writing.
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Taussig, H., Roberts, L. Early parenthood for males and females with foster care experience: An exploratory study of predictive factors at entry to care during preadolescence. Child Adolesc Soc Work J 39, 657–668 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10560-022-00852-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10560-022-00852-6