Mentoring youth in or at risk of foster care: Key Takeaways from Friends of the Children
In this blog, Friends of the Children, a prevention/intervention model for foster care, shares some key takeaways for the field. We’ll share about our model, the research we’ve leveraged, how our programmatic approach can be applied across the field of mentoring, and how our work celebrates the safety and success of youth across the country.
Friends of the Children is a grantee of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and is grateful for OJJDP’s support in service to youth across the country.
OUR MODEL
For nearly thirty years, Friends of the Children has been empowering youth and families who have been impacted by the foster care system. Our enrollment process focuses on youth who are highest risk of entering, or who are already involved in the foster care system. More than 40% of youth in our program have experienced out-of-home placement and approximately 30% of caregivers have experienced foster care themselves. Our youth and family-led, trauma informed approach supports the health and well-being of children and families together with these goals in mind:
- Promoting safe and well-supported children in families
- Providing hope-inspiring services that mitigate trauma and promote well-being
- Preventing further involvement with the child welfare system
In partnership with child welfare systems, schools and community-based organizations, Friends of the Children invites children ages 4-6 to be paired with a salaried, professional mentor (a Friend) who stays with them from kindergarten through graduation – 12+ years, no matter what.
We work with partners to identify families along the child and family well-being continuum to ensure that our model is serving the children and families who need us most:
Ultimately we want all parents to have the supports they need to be the parents they want to be, and for all kids to get to be kids – living safely at home with their families.
MENTORING YOUTH IN CARE – WHAT THE RESEARCH SAYS:
Youth Identity: Research shows that strengths-based mentoring approaches that actively prioritize and affirm youth identity and culture, particularly for youth of color or youth who identify as LGBTQ+, can lead to better mental health outcomes for youth and lower their risk of self-harm and suicide ideation.
Prosocial Development: Age-appropriate development of prosocial skills have been proven to support youth to achieve success in our intermediate outcome areas and build resilience, an important contributor to mental wellness. We call these prosocial skills our Core Assets: things like Self-Management – identify and manage emotions; Hope –understand difficulties within a situation and believe it will improve; and Belonging – to personally value one’s identity, culture, and beliefs, and know that one’s community needs and appreciates their participation. Empowering children and youth to build these skills should look different depending on the individual and their age.
Trauma-Informed Lens: The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), identifies 4 “R”s of trauma-informed services – the realization of how trauma can affect individuals, the recognition of the signs of trauma, the responding to trauma by applying the principals of a trauma-informed approach to all areas of functioning, and the resistance of re-traumatization by analyzing and removing program practices that may inadvertently create stressful or toxic environments. Trauma-informed approaches are key to promoting healing -Friends receive extensive pre-service and on-going training in evidence-based trauma informed practices.
TAKEAWAYS:
- Prioritize Youth Identity
- Promote Age-Appropriate Prosocial Development
- Employ a Trauma-Informed Lens
MENTORING YOUTH IN CARE – WHAT EXPERIENCE TELLS US
Transitions: We know that 35% of children in care experience more than two foster home placements – this in addition to the trauma of being removed from their familial home, changing schools and sometimes moving to totally new communities. Mentors can provide a stable adult relationship through those transitions by consistently showing up, modeling healthy attachment and creating a sense of belonging. Ideally, the mentor/mentee relationship will continue beyond the child’s time in foster care.
Caregiver and Adult Engagement: By design, foster care is temporary. The average length of stay for a child in foster care is 1 to 2 years, with 40% in care less than one year. Often while in care, the many adults in a child’s life can struggle to communicate or, because of their role, do not have the full picture of the child’s experience. Mentors can provide continuity, see the whole child and help bridge relationships between the multiple adults in a child’s life – their first family, foster/ kinship care family, caseworkers, teachers, and more. Mentors are also critical when a child returns home or to a permanent placement.
Systems Navigation: Children in care are usually connected to multiple systems, e.g., the child welfare system, the education system, and the mental health/health care system. Mentors who learn and understand how to navigate those systems can ensure that children in care receive the services they need and that providers have a deeper understanding of the child’s experience. They can also support continuity of care as a child returns home or to permanency. Most importantly, mentors also can empower the youth to tell their own story and to self-advocate.
TAKEAWAYS:
Mentor/Mentee matches for youth in care can be most successful when the following are considered:
- Stability and longevity of a match
- Mentor comfort level with youth and adults
- Training for mentors in trauma-informed practices and systems navigation
ADVANCING FOSTER CARE OUTCOMES
In a recent exploratory outcome study, children invited into Friends from foster care experienced lengths of stay 6 months shorter than a like comparison group.
Additional early data (based on the Tampa Bay cohort as compared to like- youth in care without a Friend) shows:
- Children who join our program while in care face more obstacles than other children, even compared to other children in foster care.
- Children who are in care and have a Friend achieve in school at higher rates than youth in care without a Friend.
- Children in our program re-enter foster care less often than the general foster care population.
YOUTH OUTCOMES
Friends of the Children has developed a strong reputation based on the achievement of proven, measurable outcomes for youth facing the greatest challenges. Young adults who experience involvement with the foster care system and who graduate from the program achieve our three long-term programmatic outcomes at the same rate as all our program participants – remarkable results considering the national statistics for youth transitioning out of foster care:
- 83% of youth with Friends graduate high school, while 55% without a Friend graduate high school;
- 93% of youth with Friends avoid the juvenile justice system, compared to 74% without Friends avoid the juvenile justice system;
- 98% of youth with Friends avoid early parenting, while only 74% without a Friend wait to parent until after their teen years; and
- In addition, while young adults who’ve experienced foster care are just as likely as their peers to have college aspirations, only 32 to 45 percent pursue higher education after high school. At Friends of the Children, we celebrate the fact that 92% of our program graduates go on to enroll in post-secondary education, serve our country, or become employed in a living wage job.
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Mark* age 6, and his family have been in Friends of the Children for 2 years. Mark’s Dad is the primary caregiver to Mark and his brother. After a fire in their apartment building, they lost their possessions. Soon after, their car was totaled in an accident. Dad has struggled with his mental health over the years, but the compounding events made things feel especially hard. Ultimately, the school filed a report with Child Protective Services (CPS).
Because of the close relationship between Friends of the Children and the child welfare system, the CPS case worker contacted Mark’s Friend to discuss what supports Friends of the Children could provide to the family. The Friends of the Children team connected Dad to robust mental wellness services and Mark’s Friend stepped in to be even more actively involved in Mark and his sibling’s academics. As a result of this trust and partnership, the children were able to remain with Dad safely at home and not be placed into the foster care system.