ABSTRACT

A STUDY OF FOSTER YOUTHS’ EXPERIENCES IN EDUCATION

This research utilized a phenomenological approach to understand the experiences

the participants encountered during their time in foster care. Interviews were conducted

with four students who received services from the Foster and Kinship Care Education

Program located on the College of the Sequoias Campus. The purpose of this study was

to understand what barriers the students experienced while they were in their

kindergarten through twelfth grade education. This research also talks about how the

participants were able to overcome the challenges and continue with their education into

college. The research focused on the hardships, outcomes, needs and supports, feelings,

as well as suggestions for youth currently in foster care. The study found that the insecure

attachment that the youth developed in their earlier years as well as their movement of

placements, led to many difficulties for the participants. Initially a few of the participants

were unable to cope in a healthy manner, however after receiving services and support,

they have been able to engage in healthier behaviors which has allowed them to pursue

their future careers.

Lauren Olivia Robles

May 2019
A STUDY OF FOSTER YOUTHS’ EXPERIENCES IN EDUCATION

by

Lauren Olivia Robles

A thesis

submitted in partial

fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Social Work

in the College of Health and Human Services

California State University, Fresno

May 2019
 APPROVED

For the Department of Social Work Education:

We, the undersigned, certify that the thesis of the following student meets
the required standards of scholarship, format, and style of the university
and the student's graduate degree program for the awarding of the master's
degree.

Lauren Olivia Robles

Thesis Author

Debra Harris (Chair) Social Work Education

Kerry Dunn Social Work Education

JulieAnn Jones REACH Program Coordinator

For the University Graduate Committee:

Dean, Division of Graduate Studies

 AUTHORIZATION FOR REPRODUCTION

OF MASTER’S THESIS

X I grant permission for the reproduction of this thesis in part or in its

entirety without further authorization from me, on the condition that
the person or agency requesting reproduction absorbs the cost and
provides proper acknowledgment of authorship.

Permission to reproduce this thesis in part or in its entirety must be

obtained from me.

Signature of thesis author:

 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to thank my participants. I appreciate you

allowing me to glimpse into your life. I know sharing those vulnerable moments is not

easy. You are all very strong, unique, and genuine individuals. I wish you all the best.

Thank you, Miriam, for all of your help in recruiting participants. Thank you, College of

the Sequoias, for allowing me to conduct research on your campus. Thank you, Fresno

State for my education. I would especially like to thank my Committee Board, I could not

have done it without all of your hard work. Thank you so much for your input. JulieAnn,

thank you for being my constant supporter throughout my time at Fresno State. Thank

you to my two best friends who pulled me through this final semester, Adriana and Julia.

Lastly, thank you to my family who supported me through this, every step of the way.

Mother, you will always be my rock. Thank you for always believing in me. I am lucky

to have you.
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page

LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................... viii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................... 1

Introduction ................................................................................................................. 1

Problem ....................................................................................................................... 1

Purpose ........................................................................................................................ 4

Research Question ...................................................................................................... 5

Significance of Study .................................................................................................. 5

Summary ..................................................................................................................... 6

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................ 7

Introduction ................................................................................................................. 7

Theoretical Framework ............................................................................................... 7

Empirical Literature .................................................................................................. 10

Gaps in Research....................................................................................................... 21

Summary ................................................................................................................... 22

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY .................................................................................... 23

Introduction ............................................................................................................... 23

Research Design........................................................................................................ 23

Definitions................................................................................................................. 24

Participants ................................................................................................................ 24

Data Collection Method ............................................................................................ 26

Instrumentation ......................................................................................................... 27

Pilot Study ................................................................................................................. 28

Data Analysis ............................................................................................................ 29

 vi
Page

Human Subjects Considerations ............................................................................... 29

Consent Form ............................................................................................................ 31

Summary ................................................................................................................... 31

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS................................................................................................. 33

Introduction ............................................................................................................... 33

Participants ................................................................................................................ 33

Research Question Results ........................................................................................ 39

Situating of Self ........................................................................................................ 48

Summary ................................................................................................................... 48

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION ......................................................................................... 50

Introduction ............................................................................................................... 50

Significant Findings .................................................................................................. 50

Implications for Social Work Practice ...................................................................... 52

Strengths and Limitations of the Study ..................................................................... 53

Recommendations for Future Research .................................................................... 54

Summary and Conclusions ....................................................................................... 54

REFERENCES ................................................................................................................. 56

APPENDICES .................................................................................................................. 60

APPENDIX A: HUMAN SUBJECTS APPROVAL ....................................................... 61

APPENDIX B: COS IRB APPROVAL ........................................................................... 63

APPENDIX C: FLYER .................................................................................................... 65

APPENDIX D: APPROVAL FOR USE OF INSTRUMENT ......................................... 67

APPENDIX E: INSTRUMENT/QUESTIONNAIRE ...................................................... 71

APPENDIX F: HUMAN SUBJECTS TRAINING .......................................................... 74

APPENDIX G: HUMAN SUBJECTS TRAINING ......................................................... 76

 vii
Page

APPENDIX H: CONSENT FORM .................................................................................. 78

 LIST OF TABLES

Page

Table 1 Participant Demographics .................................................................................. 34

 1

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Introduction
Child Welfare Services removes children from their home when their parents are

unable to provide a safe living environment for them. These children are often then

placed into foster care until it is deemed safe enough for them to return home or until a

family is able to adopt them. While children are in foster care they are often bounced

around from home to home and as a result, lack a sense of stability throughout their time

in care. This form of instability impacts important aspects of the child’s life, such as their

education. Only about 50% of foster care youth in the nation end up graduating high

school. From those youth, less than three percent graduate with a four-year college

degree (National Foster Youth Institute, n.d.). Research shows that individuals without a

high school diploma have a 24.3% poverty rate versus only 5.4% of those with a

bachelor’s degree or higher (DeNavas-Walt & Proctor, 2014, as cited in DiNitto &

Johnson, 2016). If we do not help foster children to be successful in school, we put them

on track to live in poverty as adults. It is important that these children are given

assistance to lay the foundation to improve their future. Children’s success is essential

and increases the likelihood that they will become healthy adults that can contribute to

the betterment of society. This study utilized a phenomenological approach to explore

how the participants experienced barriers in education during and after their time in the

foster care system.

Problem

International Perspective
Children who do not have a safe living environment or are removed from their

homes for various reasons are typically put into some form of out-of-home care. The
 2

foster care system operates differently dependent upon where the child lives. The

researcher wanted to view the prevalence of children living in out-of-home care in

different areas around the world. In Australia, as of June 2017, it was found that there

were 47,915 children living in out-of-home care. The number of children in care has risen

over the last few years. In Australia, 41.2% of children remain in out-of-home care for

five or more years (Australian Institute of Family Studies, 2018). The main challenges

that are experienced by foster youth in Australia, according to Bessant and Broadley

(2016), are: the transition out of care, being separated from siblings, higher risk of abuse,

placement instability, poorer quality of life, and inappropriate placements.

Canada is another place where there is a high rate of children in out-of-home care.

According to Jones, Sinha, and Trocme (2015) in Canada, Child Welfare Services is run

by the various provinces and territories, which means that not all child welfare agencies

follow the same protocols or are operated the same way. In 2013 it was found that there

were 62,428 foster children throughout Canada. From 1992 to about 2004 the rate of

children in foster care increased significantly, from 5.5 per 1000 to 8.6 per 1000.

However, after 2004, the rate of children entering into foster care seemed to level out.

Japan was also reportedly experiencing difficulties when attempting to care for all

of the children that require out-of-home care. According to Human Rights Watch (2014),

Japan had about 39,000 children living in various types of institutions. Even though some

children lived in family-based care, a majority of children lived in different types of

institutions such as infant care, child care, and group homes for independent living. Many

of the issues that were faced from putting children into institutions rather than homes

were: lack of space, lack of bonding time, poor living conditions, and abuse from other

children and caregivers. There was also a lack of support for youth when they left care.

Even though the issues related to foster care vary throughout the world, it is clear that this

population faces many challenges and often lack the support they need.
 3
National Perspective
When compared to other countries, in 2014, the amount of foster youth in the

United States was 4.8 for every 1,000 (KidsData, 2018a). There were estimated to be

437,465 children in foster care on September 30, 2016. Since 2012, the number of

children entering the foster care system has been increasing. The number for children

exiting care has started to increase as well, which is hopeful news. However, many

children are stuck waiting to become adopted. On September 30, 2016 there were

117,794 children waiting to be adopted in the Unites States (The AFCARS Report, 2017).

These numbers indicate that a quarter of youth in the child welfare system lack

permanency (National Working Group, 2014). As foster children switch placements and

schools, their likelihood of facing educational challenges increases. Children in foster

care oftentimes also deal with mental health issues from the trauma experienced

surrounding removal from their biological parents. It is difficult for a student to be

successful when they lack stability and is even more unlikely when the child’s mental

health is working against them (National Foster Youth Institute, n.d.).

State Perspective
There are many different organizations that are advocating for foster youth and

attempting to increase permanency for them. However, this is not an easy task. California

still has the highest number of children entering foster care each year. The number has

decreased significantly since 2007 to 2016 yet there are still far too many children in

foster care. In 2007 there were 41,390 children compared to 31,254 children that entered

the foster care system in 2016 (National Kids Count, 2018). The issues in regard to foster

care, in California, are very similar to those seen on the national level. However, on

average, children spend about 23 months in foster care in California while in the United

States as a whole, the average is 20 months. It was found that in California, eight percent

of foster youth stay in foster care for five or more years, while the national percentage
 4

was only six percent. Neglect was stated to be the main reason for entry into foster care

on both the national and state level, however California was at 75% compared to 61% at

the national level (Child Trends, n.d.). While there are similarities and differences

between the state of California and the United States as a whole, it is clear that the

number of children in foster care is a serious issue and changes need to be made.

Local Perspective
This research was conducted in Tulare County, specifically in Visalia, California.

According to KidsData (2018b) the number of first entries into foster care were

increasing in Tulare County starting in 2010 up until 2014. Back in 2010, there were only

335 first entries while in 2015, there were 555. In 2015, there was a slight decline from

the 568 children in 2014. Unfortunately, 2015 was the most recent year available, so the

researcher was unable to see how the number of entries has progressed in recent years.

However, the data that is available displays that the overall number of children in foster

care in Tulare County has been increasing since 2010. In Tulare County, in 2010, there

were 803 children in foster care. By 2015, there were 1,112 children in foster care in

Tulare County (KidsData, 2018a).

Purpose
About 34% of children aged 17 to 18, in foster care, change schools five or more

times while in the system (National Working Group, 2014). Given the life-altering impact

of educational disruptions, it is important for social workers to be able to advocate for

change for foster youth. In order to ensure that proposed changes will truly serve this

population, it is important to get the perspective of individuals whose education has been

directly impacted by the foster care system. Despite all of the research that has been

conducted on the causes, impacts and solutions to academic failure among foster youth,

the problem persists. The purpose of this study was to gather more information from
 5

those who have personally experienced barriers in education while they were in the foster

care system. It is clear there is a need for further research. In order to try to improve the

experiences in education for future foster children, this study attempted to give insight

into how the former foster youth were able to navigate and overcome the barriers they

faced in education.

Research Question
The research question and sub-question that were addressed in this paper were:

how do foster children experience barriers in education? What impacts do these barriers

have on foster children in how they achieve success in education?

Significance of Study
It is evident that there are many issues that children in foster care experience. The

needs of foster youth are not being met and changes need to be made in order to increase

the opportunity for this population to achieve educational success. According to

Children’s Law Center of California (2014), more than a third of children in the foster

care system do not receive either a General Educational Development Certificate or a

High School Diploma. About 12 to 18 months after leaving care, less than half of foster

youth are able to find employment. Many youth in care suffer from mental health issues,

even after they age out of care. When these youth are unable to find jobs to sustain

themselves, about one third of them end up relying on some form of public assistance.

There are also issues with incarceration, more than a fourth of youth that age out of care

are incarcerated in the first two years. About one fourth of foster youth have reported

being homeless at some point after leaving care. According to Promises2Kids (2013)

30% of abused children will go on to abuse their own children. It was estimated in 2008

that the cost of child abuse and neglect was 124 billion dollars. There are obviously many

issues experienced by children who enter the foster care system. Unless further research
 6

is conducted to better understand how the system impacts former youth in care, it is

highly unlikely that any changes will be made to improve the circumstances faced by this

population. This population is struggling and even though these issues initially impact the

people living through the experiences, there are also impacts on the society they live in.

When former foster youth are unable to sustain themselves, they will turn to the welfare

system for additional support. As stated previously it is also possible that the cycle will

continue to occur if there is no intervention.

Summary
It is clear that the need for out-of-home placement is prevalent across many areas,

not only in California but also other areas of the world. The issues that are experienced

by children that live in foster care vary dependent upon the area in which they live,

however regardless there are issues. It has yet to be discovered how to provide proper

care for all of the children that are unable to be cared for safely by their parents. The next

chapter will discuss attachment theory as the theoretical framework, as well as literature

regarding empirical studies conducted on foster youth.

 7

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

Introduction
This chapter will discuss the theoretical framework of attachment theory that was

recognized when designing this research. In this chapter various empirical studies that

have been conducted regarding children in foster care will also be discussed. The

empirical studies will touch on various issues relating to foster care such as the impacts,

issues in education, and different interventions that have been attempted.

Theoretical Framework

Attachment Theory
John Bowlby first introduced ideas of attachment theory in his article, “The

Nature of the Child Tie to His Mother.” Bowlby (1958) discussed that children have

various physiological needs. Infants need someone to feed them and keep them warm

because they are unable to survive on their own. Bowlby believes that it is due to these

needs that the infants become attached to their caregivers. Most often the mother is the

figure filling the needs of the infant, which leads to the infant realizing that the mother

will provide gratification. Bowlby refers to this process as Secondary Drive. In infants

there is also a built-in need to suck on the mother’s breast. From sucking, the child

receives nourishment. Attached to the breast is the mother, which further increases the

child’s attachment. This theory is referred to as Primary Object Sucking. Infants also

have the need to cling to a person, however, this is not solely due to the child’s need for

food. Bowlby refers to this theory as Primary Object Clinging. Bowlby used primary and

secondary in each theory to differentiate between processes that are built-in and innate or

processes that are learned by the child.

 8

Bowlby (1958) focused on Primary Object Sucking and Primary Object Clinging

to create his hypothesis. An infant behaves in ways that help to elicit a response from

their caregiver. These behaviors develop at different times during the infant’s first year

after birth. The acts serve to help strengthen the connection between the child and

mother. The behaviors are clinging, sucking, following, along with crying and smiling

which help the child to get the mother’s attention. During the infant’s development these

bonds become reciprocal, for example when a child cries, a mother will attend to the

child. This type of interaction is what Bowlby refers to as “attachment behavior.” Bowlby

believes that the infant’s responses, or their inherent responses, integrate with attachment

behavior. Bowlby also emphasized that one function was not more preeminent than the

others. Even though not many studies could be ethically conducted with human children

to show this was the case, there was evidence from studies with other primates. When

children are born they have not yet developed the ability to cling as well as other

primates, this is why human infants tend to cry a lot when they are not satisfied. Yet,

children do not only cry when they need food, they also cry for other reasons and are later

able to be soothed in various ways other than being fed (Bowlby, 1958).

Bowlby (1958) mentioned that even though later on a child’s focus might shift to

different objects, the mother is still usually the agent that delivers the object that brings

comfort to the child. When a child is afraid or upset, he or she finds comfort in his or her

mother, which makes the mother an important figure in the child’s life. Bowlby observed

the differences between the mother-child interaction and what impact that had on the

child. When a mother allowed their child to cling and follow them, the child seemed to

develop more favorably, even when the child was not breastfed. It was also noticed that

even when a child was breastfed, if clinging and following was not accepted by the

mother, the child tended to be more emotionally disturbed. In the close of this article
 9

Bowlby emphasized the importance of differentiating between dependence and

attachment because the two are part of different phenomena (Bowlby, 1958).

Ainsworth (1979) used Bowlby’s Attachment Theory to conduct a study based on

the interaction between mothers and their babies. This study was called the “strange

situation.” The mother and baby would enter a room and then the mother at some point

would leave the room while the baby remained in the room with a stranger. Depending on

the level of attachment, the baby would react in different ways. Ainsworth focused on

three different levels of attachment that fell into categories of secure, anxious-ambivalent,

and anxious-avoidant. Babies that were in the anxious-avoidant group tended to be

angrier than babies from either of the other groups. Providing a child with a secure base

opened up the child to feeling more comfortable exploring new things. Ainsworth

reported that the infants that were securely attached at one-year-old tended to be more

cooperative and less aggressive toward their mother and other adults as they grew into

their sixth year of life. Children that were securely attached tend to experience many

benefits including that they were more competent with their peers, more persistent in

problem-solving situations, and they tended to earn better scores on measures of language

development and developmental tests. Whereas the anxiously attached infants tended to

not do as well. The avoidant infants became more aggressive and less compliant. While

the ambivalent children were seen to be less persistent and overall less competent

(Ainsworth, 1979).

Bretherton and Parke (1992) explained that children feel safe when they have a

secure base. However, the inverse is also true. If a parent is not providing comfort to a

child, they begin to doubt themselves and feel unworthy. This leads to the construction of

an internal working model. Children then learn how to respond to the caregiver based on

their internal working models. These models lead to certain reactions becoming more

automatic and therefore are more difficult to change (Bretherton & Parke, 1992). The
 10

internal models that these children create follow them throughout their life unless a

change is able to be made.

Children that are involved in the foster care system are initially removed due to

some sort of trauma they experience. Even if the child is not cognizant of the trauma, it

does not mean that they were not impacted by it. Solely the removal from their home can

be traumatic. Due to the children being in foster care, their initial attachments have

already been broken. It is likely that they do not have secure attachments. Marshall and

Frazier (2018) focused on research published in the five years before they wrote their

article. Their research discussed associations between very common reactions (negative

and positive) to trauma and adult attachment orientations. As noted from the past articles,

when people are in danger, they lean to attachment figures for comfort. People that have

built secure attachments in the past tend to more often use effective coping skills while

those that have built insecure attachments are more likely to give the impression that their

situation is severe, and they are unable to cope. With secure attachment it was seen that

people experienced less post-traumatic stress symptoms. While with insecure attachment,

they experienced more symptoms. (Marshall & Frazier, 2018). Due to the combination of

the trauma experienced by children in foster care and their lack of secure attachment, it

should not be surprising that children placed in the foster care system often do not fare

well in education.

Empirical Literature

Impacts
There are many impacts that foster care has on the lives of children. Foster care

often leads to placement instability due to the child being moved from home to home.

There are a variety of reasons placement changes may occur. Another impact is the

likelihood of foster children getting put into special education classes or being put on
 11

individualized education plans. This can prohibit a student from having a typical day of

school. They may even be put into specialized classes which further separates them from

the general population.

Relocation. Unrau, Seita, and Putney (2008) report the experiences of 22 people

that interacted with Child Protective Services frequently through placement moves. This

study attempted to gather information from the participants of how they experienced

moves in foster care and if they felt there were any lasting consequences, from their

placement moves, on their current lives. The participants involved in this study were 18

years of age or older, no longer in foster care, and lived in two or more placements while

they were in care. These children exited care between 11 to 19 years of age. The lengths

of stay in care among the participants varied from 2 to 19 years. The participants ranged

from 18 to 65 years old. The most common measurement of shortest stay time among

these participants was measured in months while the most common reported longest stay

was one to two years. Interviews were conducted with each participant to collect data.

What the participants remembered most in regard to placement moves were their feelings

of profound loss, times of emotionally shutting down, cautious optimism, and acts of a

caring adult. When the participants were moved they recalled losing: friends, their

connection to school, personal belongings, siblings, normalcy, and self-esteem. They

especially felt powerless. These losses led to the participants becoming more socially

withdrawn and having the desire to give up. If the participant had an adult figure in their

life that cared for them, they reported using this experience as a place to gain strength.

Even though moving placements had a negative effect on many of the participants, some

reported optimism in regard to being able to start over in a new place and the opportunity

to leave a bad placement. The lasting effects that were mentioned were trust issues with

others and the ability to learn various life lessons through these experiences (Unrau et al.,
 12

2008). When going through these various transitions foster children feel a multitude of

different emotions which can then impact other areas of their life.

Special education. Quest, Fullerton, Geenen, and Powers (2012) conducted a

qualitative study which followed seven youth in foster care that were receiving special

education services. The youth were followed for about six to nine months and were

between 15 to 18 years old. The seven youth were pulled from a sample of 128 youth that

were enlisted for Project Success. Project Success was a randomized trial that measured

how the educational success of youth that were in foster care, and had or were receiving

special education services, were impacted by a self-determination intervention. The

process consisted of interviewing the participants seven times, along with journaling and

photographing their life if they chose to. When going over the data, the researchers had

two different coders to control for bias. If there was a disagreement between the coders,

they would continue to discuss until an agreement was made regarding the code. This

study was conducted to better understand the experiences of these children in both foster

care and special education services. This study spoke individually about each youth’s

experience but also identified nine themes among the participants. Even though each

youth had a different experience there were similarities experienced through these

themes: educational goals and barriers, disempowerment, self-determination or

restrictiveness, living in the moment versus thinking about the future, caseworker

support, resilience to barriers, relationship with biological family, adult allies and

mentors, and presence of career goals. However, since these findings were collected from

a small sample, they should not be generalized to the whole population (Quest et al.,

2012).
 13
Issues
Children in foster care endure a lot of hardships while they are still developing

and trying to deal with the difficulties involved with growing up. Children are often seen

as resilient however, they do fluctuate in their abilities to cope effectively. Many children

in foster care tend to struggle academically while others have behavioral issues, some

may even experience both.

Academic achievement. It is understood that removing children from their home

creates high instability for them. An interaction with Child Protective Services alone can

impact the child’s performance in education. Berger, Cancian, Han, Noyes, and Rios-

Salas (2015) used data collected from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction

(DPI) along with information from the Institute for Research on Poverty Database at the

University of Wisconsin in Madison. Certain information that was obtained from the DPI

was attendance, behavior, and academic performance of all the children that attended

public school in Wisconsin during the school years of 2005 to 2006 through 2011 to

2012. The sample consisted of 529,597 observations for 222,049 children who were part

of a comparison group or had experienced out-of-home placement. Three similar models

of pooled ordinary least squares regression were used during this study to: compare

placement status and test scores with full control variables, an additional control of the

last year’s scores, and the last model which was fixed according to the specific child.

When comparing the scores, it was found that the negative relationship with out-of-home

placement and test scores were impacted by other factors. Participation in Supplemental

Nutrition and Assistance Program (SNAP) even without out-of-home placement still

impacted the scores of children. However, all the children that interacted with Child

Protective Services displayed lower reading and math scores when compared to those that

only participated in SNAP. Children that performed the worst on the tests were those that

were investigated yet remained at home during the test and were later on removed from
 14

their home. The results gathered from the study did not show evidence that children being

in out-of-home placement was significantly related to school achievement. However,

there was evidence that children who were involved with Child Protective Services

scored on average lower in reading and math achievement (Berger et al., 2015).

Clemens, Klopfenstein, Lalonde, and Tis (2018) conducted a study about how

school and placement stability influences academic growth. The study consisted of about

21,000 observations split amongst about 7,600 youth, depending on the subject area that

was being observed. The youth were between 4th to 10th grade and were in foster care

between 2008 to 2014. The information was collected from Colorado through education

and child-welfare data accessed at the state-level. They found that on average children

that were involved with child welfare started every school year beneath grade level and

fell further behind each year. There was a statistically significant negative relationship

between placement/school changes and academic growth. When a placement change and

a school transfer occurred at the same time, academic performance worsened. The longer

the student was staying in a single foster home without a placement change, the more

their academic growth improved, due to the stability they were experiencing. The older

the child was when they were first removed, the more their academic growth suffered.

Children’s academic growth fell by about 0.64-.80 percentile points each year in care

(Clemens et al, 2018).

There are a variety of barriers that children in foster care face in regard to

educational achievement. Morton (2015) conducted a study of former and current foster

care youth about how they dealt with barriers they experienced during their education

(kindergarten through 12th grade). Morton wanted to gather information to see how they

faced the obstacles and achieved success in their education. The study consisted of 11

participants from Oregon who were enrolled or were planning to enroll in community

college or a four-year university. The interviews that were conducted lasted about 80
 15

minutes. Three major themes that emerged were the foster care system, the school

system, and emotional factors. The participants lacked trust in their caseworkers, foster

parents, and society itself. They felt they were abandoned so easily that it made it

difficult for them to feel safe anywhere. Within the school system there was high

mobility and a likelihood of being placed on an individualized education plan (IEP).

Their mobility between schools impacted their credits and led to an inability to perform

well. They felt there was a lack of support in the school system. Six of the participants

were placed on an IEP. Additional barriers were the emotional factors such as anger and

disempowerment. The students were often left feeling that they had no voice. Their

struggles outside of school eventually led to them not caring as much while in school.

Certain participants even said during that time in school that being disciplined in school

would just make them feel worse (Morton, 2015).

Behavioral. Bernedo, Salas, Garcia-Martin and Fuentes (2012) conducted

quantitative research, which focused on non-kinship foster children at school and

behavior problems that they displayed. The sample was of 97 participants from three

different countries in Spain (Malaga, Jaen, and Granda). The teachers assessed the

children’s behavior using Teacher Report Forms. There was a control group and a foster

children group. The Teacher Report Form consisted of externalizing, internalizing and

total behavior problems. Foster boys were shown to have more externalizing problems

than their male peers. A limitation to this study was that the experience that the children

had before entering foster care cannot be controlled for, so it is unclear whether foster

care or their past trauma was the issue (Bernedo et al., 2012). It would be beneficial if

this type of study was conducted on a larger scale in various states throughout the United

States in order to be able to generalize this information.

 16

Scherr (2007) conducted a study about the educational experiences of children

while in foster care. The sample consisted of 262 youth from a midwestern county. The

sample was pulled from students that were referred for independent living classes. The

participants were between 15 to 19 years old and were either in out-of-home care or had

previously lived in out-of-home care for one day since their 16th birthday. The

participants were screened before the study and consent was received from the youth and

their guardian. The data was collected through individual interviews. Information was

gathered about their: placement histories, educational experiences, behavioral problems,

histories of child maltreatment, alcohol or other substance use, negative peer behavior,

and plans for the future. Multiple tests were used to explore the various relationships

between the different variables such as: t-tests, least squares regression, cross-tabulations

and chi-square to name a few. Of the participants 54% were in a group home or

residential facility, 23% lived with relatives, and only 16% were in foster family homes.

Through the research it was discovered that 11% of their sample had dropped out of

school. Four percent of their participants had been expelled. There were about 53% of

participants who received special help in school. About 27% of participants said that their

plan was to go to a four- year college. Around 63% of the participants reported at least

one mid-year school change since seventh grade. In regard to behavior, 73% of

participants had been suspended at least once since seventh grade. A quarter of

participants repeated a grade since 7th grade. In the past year: 58% failed at least one

class, 45% skipped school, 29% got in physical fights with others and 28% got in verbal

fights with teachers (Scherr, 2007).

Interventions
There are various changes that can be made to improve the lives of children in

foster care. Some of these improvements are as simple as basic support while others are
 17

more preventative measures such as early education. Children are young and malleable,

the sooner an intervention takes place, the better chance that child has to succeed in their

education.

Basic supports. Strolin-Goltzman, Woodhouse, Suter, and Werrbach (2016)

surveyed 102 youth who had been in care, ages 15 to 21. The study was targeted at

participants that had experienced school stability and school mobility. There were ten

participants interviewed that were ages 18 to 22. All the participants were enrolled in

post-secondary education when they were interviewed. There were three common themes

that occurred during the interviews. The themes were positive relationships with adult

mentors, school stability along with structured transition, and the strength of positive peer

influence. School stability increases the chance that students will be able to build more

social connections and therefore will increase their educational resilience. When the

participant’s friends were doing well in school, the participants were then encouraged to

pursue achievement in their own education. However, even though peer influence was

strong, the strongest influence of academic achievement was positive relationships with

adults. The relationship with the adult often came from various sources including the

participants caseworker, foster parent, teacher or other person involved in their life. The

adult was able to help the participant make education a priority and provide emotional

support. This study explains that the small intervention of ensuring that positive peer

relationships are maintained and having a positive adult relationship can make a huge

impact on reducing trauma and eventually increasing educational achievement (Strolin-

Goltzman et al., 2016).

Pecora (2012) closely examined three different research studies that identified

factors linked with educational success for youth and young adults. The studies reviewed

were Casey National Alumni Study, Northwest Alumni Study, and Salazar Study of
 18

College Completers. Casey consisted of over one thousand foster alumni from 23

communities throughout the country between 1966 and 1998. This study utilized the

method of exploratory analysis. Youth that had extensive employment training were

shown to be four times more likely to graduate. Having a strong relationship with their

last foster family made them two times more likely to graduate. Placement stability had

an impact on graduation as well, youth that had one fewer placement move for the year

were two times more likely to graduate. Youth seemed to benefit from a consistent and

stable environment. The Northwest study had 659 participants that were alumni from

1988 to 1998. The sample was collected from Oregon and Washington. The study

conducted statistical simulations that estimated the degree to which how optimizing

certain foster care experiences might impact alumni outcomes. It was found that students

would improve if all levels were optimized. It would be especially useful if placement

history and experience and leaving care resources were improved. These would influence

continuing education graduation rates for these former foster students. The Salazar study

used a cross-sectional sample of 329 foster care alumni who received a national

scholarship from the Orphan Foundation of America Foster Care to Success or Casey

Family Scholarship Program postsecondary scholarships. The data was collected in 2010

using an online survey of people that received the scholarship between 2001 to 2009. The

participants either graduated from college or dropped-out out of the scholarship program

before graduating. Institutional commitment, social involvement, independent living

stability, and tangible support had significant relationships to college graduation. These

findings suggest the need for policies, programs, and support for foster care alumni as

they pursue further education. Specialized supports through adulthood are likely to be

beneficial as well. The three studies had academic and tangible support in common. From

studying these articles, some suggestions to accomplish support were: pursue

permanency, provide strengths based assessment, educational support, improve

 19

identification and treatment of mental health issues, minimize placement change,

encourage youth to obtain their high school diploma instead of opting for a GED,

improve life skills, provide concrete resources as youth are preparing to leave care,

support better preparation for, access to, and success in post-secondary education

programs, as well as implement ongoing performance measurement (Pecora, 2012).

School supports. Zeitlin, Weinburg, and Kimm (2004) conducted a study to see

how effective the use of an educational liaison was on resolving educational barriers for

children in the school system. The goal of the educational liaison was to work with social

workers to remove the barriers that were hindering academic achievement. The sample

consisted of 120 foster youth, split between a control and treatment group. The study

examined school performance data the year before intervention and the year following.

Measures that were used in this study were GPA, reading and math achievement scores,

number of schools attended, attendance, and special education status. A nested ANOVA

was used to measure the differences between the control and treatment groups. During

the year after treatment, the group that received treatment showed signs of improving in

math and reading. However, the control group’s test performance was continuing to

decline. According to the data, youth in care can benefit from having an educational

liaison. If the school liaison and social workers at Child Welfare Services work together,

they may be able to help catch youth that are struggling with their education and provide

intervention before things become too serious (Zetlin et al., 2004).

Additional options. Kleins, Friesa, and Emmons (2017) addressed preventative

measures for children that are at risk of entering the foster care system. Even though

children zero to five are not typically in school yet, their ability to succeed in school is

being affected before they can even get there. Children placed in foster care tend to have

lowered socio-emotional, cognitive development, language and poor early academic and
 20

health outcomes. These deficits may occur from the past trauma they experienced but

foster care often fails to alleviate the issues and can sometimes even make them worse.

The longitudinal survey data was collected from the National Survey of Child and

Adolescent Well-Being, first and second waves. The goal of child welfare agencies is to

try to keep families together because children do better when they are with their

biological family. If it is not possible for a child to be safe with their family that is when

they are put into foster care. This study wanted to see if involvement in Early Care

Education (ECE) was correlated with fewer placements into foster care. Receiving

services from ECE was not linked with reduced likelihood of being placed into foster

care, however participating in Head Start without participation in ECE was linked. There

were limitations because the survey was a self-report, if people were not honest or forgot

details; the information could be incorrect (Kleins et al., 2017). Attempting to implement

this preventative measure by increasing awareness of programs such as Head Start and

ECE in low-income areas could potentially alleviate some of the issues before they begin.

Emotional and behavioral problems that foster children suffer from can lead to

difficulties in school. Long-term health and development are linked to functioning in

school. Lynch, Dickerson, Pears, and Fisher (2017) conducted a quantitative study to test

over 12 months how children did in the Kids in Transition to School (KITS) intervention

compared to those that received the typical services given to foster children. The study

consisted of a randomized trial of 192 children in foster care that were entering into

kindergarten. There were 102 children assigned to the KITS Intervention and 90 assigned

to the foster care control group (FCC). The outcomes that were looked at were: days free

from externalizing behavior (EFD) days free from internalizing behavior (IFD), public

agency costs, intervention costs, and incremental cost effectiveness. It was found that

children that participated in KITS increased both days without externalizing and

internalizing behavior more than children in the foster care control group. The
 21

intervention cost averaged about $932 for each family. The cost of the Kids in Transition

to School Intervention is comparable or even less than other programs and will provide

significant behavior and emotional benefit in school readiness for young children that are

in foster care (Lynch et al., 2017).

Gaps in Research
There have been a multitude of studies conducted about youth in foster care.

Many of the studies are quantitative studies and question children who have been in

foster care. There is a lot of data surrounding this population, however, not many studies

have been conducted to gain rich data about what the foster youth are facing, in detail.

The studies that have been conducted have lumped groups of people together and

dehumanize what is happening to these children and how these events are impacting them

into adulthood. Due to the varying experiences among foster youth, it would be beneficial

to have various qualitative studies from people who experienced the foster care system

firsthand. Having qualitative data is important because it allows researchers to highlight

the similarities and differences between the various areas. Not having a vast amount of

information regarding this population is harmful because it is not displaying how terrible

some of the situations can be for these children. More qualitative research related to

foster youth and their struggles throughout education would be beneficial to help

understand what impact this has, not only on the individual’s life but also on the

communities they live in. There is a huge deficit when it comes to children in foster care

graduating high school and pursuing education beyond high school. More research as to

what barriers these youth face and what resources will help children to overcome these

barriers would be beneficial to improve the future of children in foster care.

 22
Summary
Children in foster care are faced with many challenges. Their first attachments in

life are broken along with most of their trust in people. If life is going poorly, it is

unlikely that a child will be successful in school, which explains why foster children do

so poorly in education. However, what is not as clear is what foster children believe to be

the barriers that they experience and what can be done to help this group be successful in

their education. Also learning what preventative measures can be taken to avoid the

initial decline would be useful. The next chapter will discuss the methods, such as the

sample and design, used to conduct this research study.

 23

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

Introduction
This chapter will discuss the methodology of a phenomenological qualitative

research study that will shine a light on the barriers in education experienced by the

participants during their time in foster care. In gathering this information, each participant

will be able to share their individual experience in education while they were in the foster

care system. By learning about barriers and what factors were beneficial, future foster

youth could benefit. This research could help to make social workers, educators, and

foster families more aware of the difficulties that foster children are faced with in regard

to education, which hopefully would promote change in how they support foster youth.

This chapter will elaborate on the definition of terms used in the study, participants, data

collection, and data analysis. Also included in this chapter will be instrumentation, and

human subjects considerations.

Research Design
This was a qualitative study and used the framework of phenomenology. The data

collection was done in the form of one-on-one interviews with a total of four participants.

The participants were gathered from the Foster and Kinship Care Education (FKCE)

Program on the College of the Sequoias (COS) Campus, using purposive sampling.

Interviews were only held once with each participant. Each individual interview lasted

between 12 to 60 minutes. The questions for the interview were retrieved from an already

existing research study. When conducting phenomenological research, themes are found

among the participants, through the use of coding. The researcher identifies these themes

by discovering common or relatable experiences that the participants had in their lives

(Bloor and Wood, 2006). The research specifically looked at the experiences they had in
 24

education while in the foster care system, as well as after, and how the individual

experiences related to the experiences of the other participants.

Definitions

Conceptual
The term foster care will be used throughout this paper. Foster care refers to when

children are in constant care outside of their home of origin. Foster placement includes

when children stay in nonrelative foster homes, relative (kinship) foster homes,

emergency shelters, pre-adoptive homes, group homes, and residential facilities (Child

Welfare Information Gateway, 2017). According to Merriam Webster, the meaning of

barrier is “something material that blocks or is intended to block passage” (Merriam-

Webster, 2018). Barriers will be referred to frequently throughout this paper as well.

Operational
For the purposes of this study foster care will refer to children that were removed

from their home by Child Welfare Services personnel or other government personnel and

placed into any placement that was not in their biological parent’s care. The length of

time that the participant was in care was not be a deterrent for their participation in this

study. When this study refers to barriers, it means the different circumstances or objects

that contributed to the foster youth’s struggles, the things that occurred and created more

challenges for these participants.

Participants

Recruitment
In order to qualify to be a participant in this study, the person must have been in

foster care at some point in kindergarten through twelfth grade and have memories of
 25

their experiences. The participants were all age 18 or older. The researcher gathered

participants from FKCE located on the COS Campus.

In order to do research with students on the COS Campus, the researcher had to

go through an application process. Before the student was able to request approval from

COS to conduct the research, approval from the Fresno State Institutional Review Board

(IRB) was required. After Human Subjects Approval was granted through Fresno State

(see Appendix A), the researcher then began the process at COS to gain approval from

the COS Dean of Research, Planning, and Institutional Effectiveness as well as the COS

IRB. Approval was granted to the researcher by COS (see Appendix B). After all this was

completed and approval was granted, the researcher was then able to conduct interviews

with students on the COS Campus.

To generate interest in this study, the researcher created flyers (Appendix C) and

spoke with the Director of Foster and Kinship Care Education (FKCE) Program. The

director spoke with potential participants and shared the researcher’s contact information

to allow the prospective participant to set up an interview. Only five individuals ended up

contacting the researcher to participate in the study, however, only four individuals

consented to participate.

Sampling Procedure
The sampling technique utilized was purposive sampling. This method was

utilized because participants were being selected based on them being in the foster care

system at some point in their kindergarten through twelfth grade education. There was a

total of four participants. The participants were gathered from a social service agency in

Tulare County, Foster and Kinship Care Education. All the participants were age 18 or

older.
 26
Compensation
In order to thank the participants for their time spent speaking with the researcher,

the researcher offered compensation. Each participant that was involved in the study was

given a 15-dollar gift certificate to a restaurant of their choice. When scheduling each

interview, the researcher asked each participant which restaurant they would like a gift

card from. The researcher purchased the gift card before the interview. The researcher

gave the gift card to each participant at the close of their individual interview, along with

a personalized appreciation letter, thanking each participant for sharing their story.

Data Collection Method

The Director of Foster Care and Kinship Education worked with the researcher to

gather participants for the study. When scheduling each interview, each participant was

asked if they agreed to the researcher recording the interview, when they responded yes

the process moved forward. When the participants arrived for their interview, they were

asked to formerly consent to the interview being recorded as well as consent to

participating in the research. The researcher used a built-in voice recording application on

their personal cellular device. The researcher took some brief notes throughout the

interview when they felt it was necessary to.

After verbal approval of participation was received and the consent form was

signed, the personal interview began. The researcher and the participant were the only

individuals present when the interviews were conducted. The data collected during the

interviews will remain confidential. When collecting data, it is important for the

researcher to be aware of their biases. This is why the researcher will partake in

bracketing throughout the study. Bracketing consists of the researcher writing down brief

notes and being aware of their biases in order to better hear what the participant is saying.

This method is used in order to keep the researcher aware of their biases and further
 27

decrease the chance of their biases impacting the results of the study (Tufford &

Newman, 2010).

Instrumentation
The instrument that was used in this study was created by Brenda Morton for use

in her dissertation. Her dissertation was based on foster youth and post-secondary

education (Morton, 2012). The researcher asked Dr. Morton for permission to use her

instrument for conducting this research. Dr. Morton approved the use of her questionnaire

in this research study. Evidence of Dr. Morton’s approval is located in the appendix

(Appendix D). The researcher made some minor adjustments, which will be discussed in

the Pilot Study Section, to Dr. Morton’s questionnaire to better address the current

research. These adjustments were made to allow for a broader picture of the participants

educational process starting from kindergarten until 12th grade and to increase

confidentiality. The questionnaire that was used is made up of 17 interview questions and

four guided conversation questions. The instrument had questions relating to

demographics, home-life while in foster care, and education while in foster care. The

entire questionnaire that will be used by the researcher is attached in the appendices of

this study (Appendix E).

Validity
Validity tells whether a certain instrument measures what it is supposed to

measure or what it is attempting to measure (McLeod, 2013a). Since this instrument was

previously used to measure how children fare in education while they are part of the

foster care system, the instrument will have high validity. Morton (2012) was able to

gather information about the various participants that informed her about the experiences

they had while in foster care and what influenced their success in education (Morton,
 28

2012). This instrument helped the researcher obtain information about what experiences

the participants had while in foster care.

Reliability
Reliability refers to how well a study can be replicated and provide similar

findings (McLeod, 2013b). This research discovered similar themes as Dr. Morton’s

study, however since the interviews are all personal experiences and the participants lived

in different states, there were differences in the findings. By differences, some themes

were similar while other themes were discovered in the current research collected. There

are many variables that can interfere with the findings, so it is not safe to say that the

findings will have high reliability. The participants that were involved in Dr. Morton’s

study were all either in college or were planning on attending college (Morton, 2012).

That is also the case in this research, however the participants in this study were all

currently enrolled in community college. Their enrollment at COS is what allowed them

to participate in the FKCE Program. Being that all the students in this study were

required to already be enrolled in college, this may have impacted the findings as well

and caused differences between the two studies.

Pilot Study
A pilot study was completed in order to test the instrument prior to interviews

being held for the study. The pilot study consisted of asking the interview questions to

three individuals. During the pilot study it was discovered that one of the questions was

not relevant to the current study and therefore it was removed from the instrument, a

question asking about religious beliefs. In order to better tailor the instrument to this

study, a few words were changed in various questions. The question which asked the

participants name was altered to ask the participant to create a four-digit number, to

increase confidentiality. In place of asking which schools the participants went to, the
 29

researcher asked how many schools they attended. An additional question was added in

order to give the researcher a better idea of where the student was in their educational

journey, regarding how many classes they had taken each semester while at COS.

Data Analysis
The information was collected in the form of audio recorded interviews. The data

was first transcribed. The interviews were listened to multiple times in order for the

researcher to ensure that they understood what the participant was saying. While listening

to the interviews the researcher worked participant by participant to code their individual

interviews. After all the interviews were transcribed, the researcher began the coding

process one interview at a time. After all the individual interviews were coded, the

researcher began to narrow down certain topics or themes that arose in the transcriptions.

After the reoccurring topics were identified throughout the interviews, the perspectives of

the individuals were discussed in relation to the themes.

Human Subjects Considerations

Benefits
A potential benefit of participating in this study was that this study gave a voice to

each individual. When looking at statistics, it only tells the story that many foster youth

are not excelling in education. However, what statistics fails to do is give reason to why

that problem is occurring. This research allowed the participant to gain their voice back

through sharing the barriers they were faced with and even able to overcome. This

research also allowed the former foster youth to share what they benefitted from during

their educational journey and give advice to current or future youth in foster care. Other

professionals being made aware of things that were useful to assist these participants,
 30

during their time in care, could potentially alter how they interact with foster youth

moving forward.

Risks
Due to the nature of what was discussed during the interviews, it was possible that

the participants could have become upset. Children are put into care because they were

not being properly cared for in their home, however that does not necessarily mean that

the improper treatment ended there. Many foster children experience a lot of trauma and

it may be difficult for them to think about their past.

Precautions
In order to manage risk, the participants were told that they were free to stop the

interview at any point if they begin to feel any sort of discomfort and did not want to

continue. If it was seen that a participant was becoming emotional, they were reminded

that they were able to withdraw from the study at any point. The researcher also had three

of the four interviews on campus to ensure there were services available, COS

Counseling Center, to the participants if they were needed.

Compensation to Participants
When scheduling their interview, the participants were offered a 15-dollar gift

card to a restaurant of their choice. At the end of each participant’s interview, the

participant was given their gift card along with a personalized thank you letter.

Academic Background and Experience of

Investigator
This research was conducted by Lauren Robles. In the year of 2015, Lauren

obtained a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Irvine in the major of

Psychology and Social Behavior. Lauren is currently a Master of Social Work and Pupil
 31

Personnel Service Candidate at California State University, Fresno. The researcher

previously completed courses in both qualitative and quantitative research. The

researcher also completed the following Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative

(CITI) programs: Social and Behavioral Basic Course (Appendix F) as well as the

Responsible Conduct of Research Course (Appendix G). These courses were taken to

help the researcher better understand how to protect human subjects when planning to

conduct research. The Principal Investigator for this thesis was Dr. Debra Harris, a

faculty member of the Department of Social Work Education at California State

University, Fresno. Dr. Harris graduated as a Doctor of Philosophy in Social Work from

the University of Texas, Arlington. She has been employed by California State

University, Fresno since 1999 and has taught the seminar in thesis and project dating

back to Fall of 2009.

Consent Form
After the participants were selected, the data collection process began. Before

each individual interview took place, the researcher read through the consent form with

the participant. The participant was then given the time to ask questions before signing

the consent form (Appendix H). To further protect the participants identity, the consent

forms asked for the participants to create a four-digit number which was used to store

their audio-recordings, transcriptions and interview notes. The consent forms were stored

separately in a locked cabinet away from all of the other data. The participants were all

given pseudonyms when they are discussed later in the research. The researcher was the

sole person responsible for coding and transcribing the data.

Summary
This qualitative study was conducted to explore the experiences that foster youth

had in kindergarten through twelfth grade education. It attempted to find themes among
 32

the participants in how the barriers they faced impacted their educational experience and

how they overcame those barriers. The participants were recruited from the COS FKCE

Program. During the scheduling of the interviews, the participants were verbally briefed

on the intent of the study and what their participation entailed. The data was kept safely

in a locked compartment or on password protected devices until they were able to be

transferred onto a hard drive. Following interviews, the data was analyzed and

transcribed to look for common themes. The next chapter will discuss the findings of the

research and will touch on the various themes that will be identified.
 33

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS

Introduction
In this chapter, the findings of the research will be discussed. The researcher

chose to conduct phenomenological research to get a better understanding of what youth

in care experience being part of the system as well as how their educational experiences

are impacted. The adults who were studied are now attending a community college and

are working toward their career goals. The purpose of this research was not to say that all

youth in foster care have these experiences but to help others understand what some

youth in foster care are forced to overcome.

Participants
All of the participants were enrolled and attending College of the Sequoias and

were part of the Foster Kinship and Care Education Program. The Director of the Foster

Kinship and Care Education Program as well as her assistant recruited the participants for

the study. Flyers (see Appendix C) were also put out in their office in order to open the

opportunity up to all of their students. The sample consisted of four women. In order to

protect confidentiality, each woman was given a pseudonym. The names of other schools,

towns, and any other individuals mentioned will be given pseudonyms. Please reference

Table 1 for additional demographic information regarding the participants.

Interviews
Each participant was interviewed individually. The interviews averaged about 29

minutes for each participant. The majority of the interviews were held in the Youth

Empowerment Strategies for Success (YESS) computer room. The YESS computer room

is located on the COS Campus within the FKCE Office. One of the interviews had to be

conducted off-site in a public building inside a private room because it was more
 34
Table 1

Participant Demographics
Age
Number of entered
Race/ Number of schools Years at into
Name Ethnicity Age siblings attended COS care
Sky African 21 5 30 to 40 3 3m
American
April Mexican 23 4 4 5 4-5 y
American
Maya Black, Native, 18 5 Over 30 .5 16 y
Hispanic

Rene Mexican 20 3 2 2.5 13 y

convenient for that participant. All of the participants consented to be audio-recorded

during their interview.

In the beginning of each interview the consent was verbally reviewed by the

researcher with the participant. The participant was then offered the chance to ask any

questions before the consent form was signed. After consent was received, the interview

began. The interview started with demographic questions to allow the participant to ease

into the more difficult questions. The researcher made it clear that the participants were

able to share as much information as they wanted however, half of the participants did

not give much detail. Since the participants were reporting on past events, the

information was not always a quick answer for them and at times there was some

hesitation.

Transcription
After the four interviews were completed, each audio-recording was transcribed

verbatim. The researcher initially was going to take brief notes during the interviews,

however, after the first interview, the researcher decided not to take notes because it was
 35

too distracting. The researcher realized that the audio-recording was clear enough and

was able to transcribe completely from solely the audio-recording without the assistance

of notes. There were times when it was difficult to understand what the participant was

trying to say due to voice level or combining words together. However, those two issues

were not common in the audio-recordings. The transcribing process took place over

multiple days because the researcher would type out section by section what was said,

then would replay that same section to ensure that the correct sentence was being typed

out.

The participants were told that their only time commitment was the interview and

the researcher did not want to intrude on their daily lives. Due to this there are some areas

in the transcriptions that are not as clear, such as certain questions not being fully

answered or answered in the same manner that other participants answered it. The

transcription process resulted in 44 pages of data to analyze.

Individual Stories
While this study is about youth in the foster care system and their education, it is

important to emphasize that each youth has their own individualized experience while in

care. Some youth may only be in foster care for a year while others can be in foster care

starting very young until they age out of care. Even though many foster youth face

similar situations, it is important to showcase the diversity of each story. In the following

paragraphs, a brief description of each individual story will be provided.

Sky. Sky is a 21-year old African American female who entered foster care when

she was only three months old. Sky has 5 siblings. When Sky was placed in foster care,

she was placed with two of her siblings. Even though Sky had been in kinship care with

her aunt, she stated that she had gone to somewhere between 30 to 40 schools in

kindergarten through twelfth grade, due to moving around a lot. Sky feels that her
 36

experience was different than most foster youth because she was placed in the care of a

relative. Since Sky was so young when she was removed from her parent’s care, she

really does not remember much about the court hearings or the visits.

Sky did mention that her aunt would let her mom visit when she was younger, and

she remembered having fun with her mom and being happy. Eventually Sky’s mother had

to leave. Sky stated that even though she was sad when her mother left, she was not

devastated because even at her young age, she understood that she had to stay with her

aunt. She said she knew that was just how it was. Sky stated that her aunt was a big

source of support for her all through kindergarten through twelfth grade. She said that she

felt her education at that time was normal and did not really have any negative

experiences. Sky was connected with an Independent Living Program (ILP) Worker

while in high school. Her ILP Worker helped to make her aware of all the resources that

are available on the COS Campus. Sky is in her third year at COS and is working toward

earning her Associates Degree in Early Childhood Education. Her goal is to then transfer

to Fresno State to get her bachelor’s degree.

April. April spent at least five years in the foster care system. Being that April

was around 4 years old when she first entered foster care, it was difficult for her to

remember all of the details. April was one of five children, however, she eventually

ended up as an only child in a home with the people who eventually became her legal

guardians. Before this occurred, April talked about the physical abuse she had to endure

every morning in one of her earlier foster homes. She called the abuse a “procedure” in

which her foster mother would come into the room carrying a belt and tell April that she

“already knew what was coming” and April would turn around. Then her foster mother

would hit her. April stated that she endured this abuse because she was able to stay

placed with her siblings, however, April was eventually separated from her siblings.
 37

April was moved to a house in a different city and the foster parents she was placed with,

eventually became her legal guardians.

During her time in this new foster home and through guardianship, April endured

sexual abuse from her male guardian for years. Initially she stated that she thought it was

normal because her mother’s boyfriend had done it to her in the past. Eventually she

realized that it was not right because her female guardian would talk to her about sexual

touching and tell her that it was not okay for people to do that to her. April was scared to

tell her foster mother at first because she really enjoyed being part of a family and she

knew how bad it could be if she were to move again. April stated that she did not

explicitly tell her foster mother, but she felt that she knew and did not do anything about

it. As a result of the trauma that April has experienced, she struggled with depression and

suicidal ideations at times.

April mentioned that once she hit high school, she began fighting back when her

guardian tried to sexually abuse her; however, it was very hard for her. April was not

really free from his abuse until she moved out of the home after her first year at COS. For

a while, April was sharing a bed at her friend’s house. Since then, April has accepted God

into her life and has learned to forgive her past guardians for their mistreatment of her.

April is now living with a different friend and has her own bed. April is graduating with

her Associates Degree this semester and will be attending a four-year university in the

fall. April’s goal is to open up a rehabilitation center that helps people who live on the

streets because many foster youth end up homeless once they age out of care.

Rene. Rene was the youngest of the four participants that I interviewed, however

she was very open and willing to share her experiences with me. Rene had been through a

variety of difficult experiences. Rene started her foster care experience at the age of 16

after getting released from juvenile hall. However, Rene’s physical abuse had begun
 38

much earlier. Rene compared how she was treated in her home to worse than how dogs

are treated. She said her own dog was treated than her and recalls being referred to as “it”

or “hey” and not called by her own name.

Eventually Rene’s mistreatment led her to snap, which was what sent her to

juvenile hall. After Rene was released from juvenile hall she was bounced around to

different homes and was later placed into various group homes. During her time in the

group homes, Rene began to get involved with drugs and for about four to six months she

had what she referred to as a “pimp.” Shortly after Rene’s release from juvenile hall, she

was diagnosed with bipolar, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder. Rene was

medicated for her disorders. It is unclear as to how Rene changed her life to get to where

she is now. However, Rene is now working four jobs and taking 12 units at COS. She

hopes to one day open up her own tattoo shop and is working currently on perfecting her

artistic skills.

Maya. Maya is a 20-year-old woman who entered foster care at the age of 13.

When Maya initially got placed into foster care, she was separated from her younger

siblings. After about two weeks Maya and her siblings were able to go stay with her

grandparents. What was unique for Maya was that she got pregnant when she was 17

years old. Maya stated that people put her down for being both a foster youth and a young

mother. Maya spoke about how many people did not have high expectations for her and

told her that she would not be able to accomplish much due to her circumstances.

Growing up Maya reported not having a lot of support at home. She said she felt

that her grandparents were only keeping her and her sisters in their home so they could

receive the money for them. There was one thing that really helped Maya push on in her

education, despite the lack of support from her grandparents, it was her daughter’s father.

She said that he was constantly pushing her to continue working and now Maya is
 39

working towards her career for her daughter. Maya is currently going to COS and hoping

to apply for the Registered Nursing Program next year.

Research Question Results

Through the use of phenomenological research design, the life and educational

experiences of youth in foster care were studied. The main research question was how do

foster children experience barriers in education? The sub-question was what impacts do

these barriers have on foster children in how they achieve success in education?

Barriers
Each of the four participants faced different challenges in their lives. Some of the

challenges were experienced earlier on, while in foster care, and others dealt with some

of the repercussions later, including during their time at COS. A few common themes that

were discussed were needs and supports, hardships experienced, and outcomes that

resulted from the hardships.

Needs and supports. All the participants spoke about the support they received

from different resources. Many of them stated that they enjoyed having the support of

their Independent Living Program Worker because they gave them a lot of insight on

what services they could benefit from. However, this was the only support that two of the

women had mentioned that they received in high school. Sky said “that’s what I really

like about colleges that have these resources. I think high schools should get them too

because some high school kids who are foster kids struggle so you know, they need that

extra boost.” In speaking with Rene, it became very clearly that something she needed

but felt she was not given, was a chance. Rene talked about how once people read her

file, they did not want her anymore or they would instantly begin to judge her. Two

women spoke about how helpful it was to have people who encouraged them and
 40

supported them in their educational journey while the other two talked about not really

having anyone and how they needed to rely on themselves.

April mentioned how she would utilize self-talk by telling herself good job and

would give herself a pat on the back since she really had no one supporting her. April

desired that family support so much that she endured years of sexual abuse in effort to not

get removed from her home. April also mentioned a need specifically for education was

for someone to sit down with her and talk to her about high school and college, “Nobody

has ever talked to me about higher education or like high school.” April felt she would

have benefitted from just having someone to give her a better understanding of the

educational process and guide her into college. She did not feel that her final school

prepared her academically for college due to the type of school she was moved to.

Hardships. Each participant faced hardships during their life, however the severity

varied quite drastically between the four participants studied. Maya spent a majority of

her time in kinship care however for the first two weeks, she was placed in non-relative

placement and had to be separated from her siblings. Even though Maya was placed with

her grandparents, she still stated that she dealt with a lot of stigma during her time in

kindergarten through twelfth grade. She even said that her time in foster care still caused

others to judge her while at the community college level. Maya struggled even more with

judgement because she became pregnant in her junior year of high school. Maya said that

teachers at school would tell her “oh let’s see how far you’re gonna get with college.”

Maya was also older when she entered into care, so she was involved in many of the

court proceedings. She also stated that it was hard not having parents around, even more

so when she got pregnant. While Maya admitted to dealing with a lot of negativity, Sky

stated that “kindergarten through twelfth grade was just regular, like it was nothing really
 41

normal” and her experiences with teachers were “pretty normal.” However, Sky did move

a lot during those years and she reports being in about 30 to 40 different schools.

The other two participants, April and Rene had quite different experiences in their

time in care. Rene was the only one of her siblings to be placed into foster care. Her

father was physical and verbally abusing her daily and she eventually protected herself

which led up to her pulling a knife on her father. This led to Rene getting placed into

juvenile hall, when she completed her time there her father did not want to pick her up so

she was placed into foster care. Rene spent a lot of time bouncing around different homes

and group homes. She was diagnosed with bipolar, depression, and post-traumatic stress

disorder. Rene did not feel welcome in the majority of her homes. In a lot of places, she

felt like she did not have her own space, and this did not allow her room to “deescalate.”

In regard to education, at the last school Rene attended, the first thing they told her was

that she was “based on thin ice. That if [she] messes up once she’s kicking [her] out.”

Rene spoke about “temporary beds” being something that affected her academic success.

She said that she was not in schools, let alone homes long enough to be successful in

school. Rene reported that the shortest time she spent in a home was less than 24 hours.

Another struggle that impacted her academic success was her depression.

A major hardship that April spoke about initially was being separated from her

two younger siblings. She has not been able to speak to them since she was removed

from the home she was staying with them at. When April talks about her own past, she

refers to it as trauma, stating that she has been through a lot of trauma in her life. April

was sexually abused by her male legal guardian for many years. Prior to that, she was

also sexually abused by her biological mother’s boyfriend. When April was in the home

with her siblings, she was physically abused every morning. April also spoke about her

living conditions later in her life and the neighborhoods she lived in. April often took the

bus to school and every day, she feared for her safety. There were times when April got
 42

locked out of her friend’s house, where she was staying, and she was forced to sleep in

their car.

April stated that “people treat you completely different when you’re in the

system.” In education specifically, April faced many challenges. April was a second

language speaker, so she had trouble communicating in English. April does not remember

being enrolled in school until she was in second grade. When she was still with her

biological mother, she was homeless. By the time she got enrolled into school, she started

in the second grade. This made April feel even more behind because she was not taught

what the other students had learned in previous grades, so she did not have that same

foundation. April said that she had difficulty memorizing. Another comment April made

was “I’m changing from homes and [you’re] giving me all of these materials and you

expect me to do this but people are not very mindful of like your background.”

Outcomes. The various hardships experienced by each participant led to different

outcomes. Even though certain participants went through similar circumstances, they did

not all experience it the same way which is why the similar events led to different

outcomes. Maya talked about how she experienced a lot of negativity surrounding her

time in foster care, however after she got involved with different programs such as FKCE

and YESS, they helped to make her feel proud of herself for pushing through all of her

struggles and still managing to pursue her education. Maya also found her daughter to be

strength for her, she says that she wants to be a motivator for herself and her daughter.

Instead of taking all the negativity to heart, Maya decided to “prove them wrong and keep

on going.”

Even though most of Maya’s outcomes were positive, not all the participants had

this same experience, at least at first. Rene said “I destroyed things and I felt like it was

because I was hurt.” This will be a theme for Rene’s outcomes for a while. Rene would
 43

often wander the streets and would run away frequently. There were many different times

that she reported leaving various group homes. She remembers one time she got picked

up by a 37-year-old man, another time she did meth, and eventually she was recruited by

a “pimp.” Rene felt that many homes were judging her off of her first home placement

and so she would just react by running away. In regard to her education, Rene said that

the only person who was motivating her to keep her grades up was her probation officer,

so they started to drop. Rene did not only move placements often, but she also moved

schools, this caused her to fall behind in credits. It got to a point where Rene felt that she

was going to leave anyway so she did not even bother to catch up in class.

As a result of not being enrolled in school when April was still with her biological

mother, she had to complete second grade twice. April remembered that she had to leave

class at times to go see the Resource Specialist Program Teacher and she did not get to do

what all the other children were doing. In high school, April was moved from her

mainstream education to [Bell Port High School (BPHS)], an alternative school that

allowed her to make up credits quicker. This school allowed students to complete a unit

of their education by having them fill out a packet of information. April thought that the

reason they moved her to a different school was because they felt she was not doing well

enough at her current school, however the struggles she reported was depressive

episodes. April stated that before she switched schools, most of her grades were B’s and

C’s. April felt that moving to [BPHS] did not help her academically due to how the work

was assigned and completed.

After moving to [BPHS], April was able to graduate early and went on to begin

classes at COS. April was still living with the guardian who had sexually abused her

multiple times and had a difficult time adjusting to college life. When talking about her

past, she said that she would always prolong going home to try and avoid the situation.

April stated that she would often have an attitude with her guardians. April reported
 44

taking time to look back at her family photos and she said that she never smiled in the

pictures. April reports having a lot of “unresolved issues with [her] back story and [her]

living arrangements.” This eventually led to April getting placed on academic probation,

which disqualified her from being a full-time student for a short while. When speaking

with April she said that because of all she had went through, it was really hard for her to

try and find the strength to talk about what was happening to her. She said the system

“robs your voice.” This was similar to when she mentioned switching her school

placement. April really did not want to switch schools but when it happened, her response

when talking about the situation was “you know, I really didn’t have a voice, I really

didn’t. I’m like okay, I’m just gonna follow what you guys are doing.”

Impacts of Barriers
There were many obstacles and hardships that the participants experienced. Each

adverse experience that the participants faced, led to different feelings and beliefs. The

culmination of these feelings and beliefs is what led them to this point in their lives.

Since they have been through these experiences, they also wanted to be able to give

advice or suggestions to current and future youth in foster care.

Feelings. There was a wide range of feelings among the participants. However,

not all of the participants focused much on their feelings. Maya and Sky were two

participants who only very briefly mentioned their feelings. This could also be due to the

length of their interviews. Maya stated that not having parents around while she was in

high school and pregnant really affected her. However, she did say that she was really

excited to be moving along in her education. The only time Sky mentioned her emotions

was when she spoke about her biological mother visiting. She stated that she was always

really happy to see her mom but then her mom left. She remembers being somewhat sad

but not “devastatingly sad to where I would cry or anything.”

 45

Rene stated that when she initially entered foster care she was really happy

because she could get away from her parents. However, later she talked about how she

felt isolated because she was the only one put into care. Throughout her time in various

group homes she talked about being in a bad emotional state and experiencing feelings of

depression. She said that she often wanted to kill herself. Many of her emotions stemmed

from not understanding why she was being treated the way she was by her family. She

said she was miserable. Rene reported that she was happier in juvenile hall because she

was fed, able to shower, and able to talk to other children. For her current life, she stated

that she is happy that she reached out for help and is now involved in programs that

provide her with support.

During April’s interview, she also talked about stories regarding other foster

youth. When she spoke about the foster care system, she said that the youth never know

who they are going to get as a parent. She said that some youth she knew were fed

Goldfish for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. When she talked about this regarding the foster

system, as well as her experiences, she used words such as “sad” and “very hurtful.”

April also talked about having a lot of built up anger and emotions from her sexual abuse.

The pent-up emotions ended up impacting her a lot in her young adulthood. April talked

about her experiences and others’ experiences as being sad, yet also encouraging for her

to keep pushing in her life.

Beliefs. The beliefs refer to how the participants thought about certain things due

to what they experienced. Out of the four participants, Rene had been to the most homes.

She was only participant to spend time in a group home. Due to this, Rene started to

believe that no foster parents wanted to deal with her because she was an “out of control

teenager.” She did not think that the group home staff cared about her or the other girls in

the home. When she was in the group home and would leave, she felt free. She thought
 46

she could do whatever she wanted, and she believed that she could do “grown things.” As

Rene’s story went on it became even more evident that she felt no one wanted her and

she believed the families were judging her off of her casefile and that is why no one

would give her a chance. Rene did not believe that her foster parents cared about her

grades because “they’re getting their check anyway.” Rene also stated that she feels that

every child who is placed into foster care is automatically diagnosed with some mental

health problem. She believes that foster children are overly medicated. She said in her

own experiences, she was wrongfully diagnosed and received improper medications. She

suspects that this had an impact on others not wanting her because the medications

caused her to act out.

Sky stated that she believed her experiences to be different than most foster youth

because she was placed in care with her aunt. She said that her story wasn’t really as bad

as she’s heard other stories. Sky feels that more high schools should offer resources

because a lot of students in high school who are in the foster care system struggle. She

feels that programs such as YESS help to give these youth that “extra boost.”

Originally, April talked about how she believed sexual abuse to be “normal.”

However, she only felt that way because she had experienced sexual abuse before. Once

she was told differently, she knew that it was not right. She believes that her social

worker was too busy and that is why she did not see the signs when she was being

sexually abused. April feels that people in the foster care system will behave in certain

ways because it helps them to survive. Some examples she gave were that people get into

drugs, join gangs, or get into relationships too quickly. She feels that they are doing these

things to fill a need. April mentioned how when she was sent to [Bell Port High School],

she felt that all the students were labeled there. They were either homeless or gang

affiliated. She believed the odds of anyone making something of themselves from that

school were not good. Thinking back, April does not believe that anyone advocated on
 47

her behalf when it came to her switching schools. She felt that she was punished for

feeling depressed rather than supported.

Suggestions. Since the participants have all been through care and were able to

continue their education into college, their advice was sought for current youth in care.

Many of them talked about pushing through and keeping your head up. April advised for

youth to rebuild their damage, flaws, hurt, pain, and solve their problems but just to love

themselves. She said that it was also important to forgive others as well because being in

the system, youth tend to carry a lot of resentment. She stressed the importance of foster

youth not having low expectations for themselves. She also said that it is important for

youth to reassure themselves that things will get better. April also had a suggestion for

the schools she attended. She said she would like “for the school to be mindful and

having a better support system…[having] staff members to really like show you [sit

down] and talk about your grades.” It would have been helpful for her to have been

assigned a counselor or someone who she could feel safe talking to as well as someone

who could have guided her through the education process.

Sky wanted to let other youth know to keep working hard and when they are

feeling down, to make sure to reach out for help. She said when they keep things in, it

will only lead to other problems. She also wanted them to know that they should accept

all the resources that they are offered, even if they feel that they are doing okay, they

never know when they might need it. Sky said, “take all the resources that are handed to

you, use them so that you can better yourself and you know, do better in life.” Maya had

similar feelings, she said “keep on going, like no matter what kind of obstacles in your

road, like in the end it’s gonna be so worth it. Like going to college… Just keep going

and don’t stop. I know it’s going to be hard but you’ll get through it.” Rene stated that
 48

she wishes to continue to represent foster youth and advocate on their behalf. She said “I

am going to be the voice I wish I had. You keep that head up.”

Situating of Self
This researcher has always been passionate about working with children. She had

been a previous Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) Volunteer and was assigned

a family case for over a year right before she entered the Master of Social Work Program

at Fresno State. Being a CASA really opened her eyes to the challenges that foster youth

face. She got to witness her youth being moved to different homes as well as schools in

the first year. The oldest child was struggling a lot in their education and had a lot of

frustration surrounding this. This was really hard for the researcher to see because she did

not know how to best advocate for her child. After entering this program, the first

placement the researcher had was at Resources, Education, Advocacy, Crisis

Intervention, and Hope (REACH), an adoption support program. This agency provides

services to families even before they have adopted children, if they are considering

adoption. A few of the foster children that the researcher was working with reported

having academic issues. The researcher was continuously exposed to these negative

experiences of foster youth. This is what led the researcher to want to study former foster

youth who made it through adversity and are now getting their college education to better

understand what helped them get there.

Summary
This chapter focused on the lives of each individual as well certain themes that

became evident during the interviews. Each participant spoke about their needs, supports,

hardships, outcomes, feelings, beliefs, and suggestions for current youth. The researcher

also addressed their motive behind conducting this research. The next chapter will discus
 49

significant findings, implications for social work practice, strengths and limitations of the

study, as well as recommendations for future research.

 50

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION

Introduction
This chapter will focus on the significant findings gathered from the data analysis.

This chapter will discuss how this research is valuable for the field of social work. The

strengths and limitations of this study will also be identified in this chapter. Lastly,

recommendations for future research based off of the findings of this study will be

shared.

Significant Findings
All of the four participants were very different from each other and provided

insight into various ways in which being in foster care can be difficult. Through each

interview, it was identified that each participant faced hardship in one way or another.

However, all four of these women have been able to overcome their adversity and are

now working toward their career goals. When April mentioned that foster youth turn to

things such as gangs or a relationship to fill their needs, this supported the ideology

behind attachment theory. Bowlby (1958) states that the mother is the main agent that

brings comfort to a child. Children in foster care do not have their mother, therefore they

have to rely on other sources to receive that comfort from. If the youth are not getting that

support from their foster home, they are likely to go elsewhere to fill that need.

Ainsworth (1979) stated that babies who have secure attachments are more likely to be

competent with their peers, persistent in problem-solving situations, and score better in

language development as well as on other developmental tests. As seen, many of the

youth struggled at first to problem solve, it was also mentioned that at least two of the

participants struggled in their education. However, even without an initial healthy

attachment, with the proper help and support the participants have been able to continue

on in their education and be successful.

 51

In the case of Rene, she built what Bretherton and Parke (1992) would refer to as

an internal working model. She did not feel safe at all in her first home and had all that

anger built up. From how badly she was mistreated, she started to doubt herself and

believe that she was unworthy. The resentment that she held toward her father and step-

mother later came out in her actions in other homes. She was continuously monitored and

controlled in her biological father’s home, so any other time she felt like she was being

controlled she would lash out. It would usually result in her leaving the house or running

away. Since this is what she got used to, it became an automatic response and it was very

difficult for her to change that. She finally changed because she was able to realize her

worth and see how much opportunity she had despite what her family said.

Marshall and Frazier (2018) found that people with insecure attachments have

increased difficulty coping with traumatic experiences. This can be seen in April because

her initial attachment with her biological mother was broken when she entered into care.

When she realized her female legal guardian was no longer protecting her, she severed

the attachment she had with her. This could explain what led April to do very poorly her

first couple of years at COS and get placed on academic probation. All four of the

participants had to go through some period of time being separated from their siblings.

That was something they had all mentioned and two of them talked about how difficult it

was. This supports the findings in Unrau, Seita, and Putney (2008) which stated that

changing placements was a time where the youth would experience profound loss and

one of the losses listed was siblings.

In regard to academic achievement, April had a lot of difficulty due to her late

start in education. Rene’s educational difficulty could be explained by the instability she

experienced in her placements. Clemens, Klopfenstein, Lalonde, and Tis (2018) found

that children who had a more stable environment, meaning the longer a child stayed in

one home, the better the child would perform in school. When Rene was finally able to
 52

get into a stable school, she was able to perform well and became involved in the school

activities as well.

Implications for Social Work Practice

Through past research, as well as this current study, it is clear that what is being

done is still not enough. The participants are young, so they should have had the

opportunity to benefit from these laws, however it still seems that youth in care are being

made to move schools when their placement changes. If they cannot be guaranteed

stability in their home, it is important for social workers to do their best to try and

guarantee stability in their education. By doing this, it would help to increase the success

rate for foster youth in education. It is also important that social workers stay up to date

on the laws that are being implemented in regard to education regarding foster youth

because they will be better equipped to advocate on behalf of their child.

This study also shows the need for more school social workers. If these schools

had social workers, they could be identifying these youth and serve as the safe person that

April suggested for these youth. After hearing what was occurring in these participants

lives while they were in care, it is important for all social workers to be vigilant in their

questioning and making notes to refer to. If a social worker utilized the Mental Status

Exam during their meetings with their foster youth during each time they met with them,

they would then be better able to keep track of what changes may be occurring that they

might not normally catch. Child Welfare Workers are known to have heavy caseloads so

organizing their casefiles and having a section in which they can refer to specifically for

client behaviors and mannerisms would help the social worker quickly notice a change in

behavior. There has been a rise in support staff in the schools, however it would be

beneficial to have a social worker on campus to educate the staff and teachers about the

hardships experienced by this population. This would help them to be more

 53

understanding of the student and would hopefully make them more willing to put in the

effort to sit and talk with the child about the policies at their new school and what the

expectations are in the classroom. If the staff is unable to do this and there is a school

social worker on campus, the school social worker could do this for the child to allow

them time to transition into the school.

Strengths and Limitations of the Study

There were both strengths and limitations in regard to this study. One strength of

this study was that it gave a voice to many individuals who at one point in their lives felt

that their voice had been taken from them. It allowed them to share as little or as much of

their experience that they deemed fit for the situation.

While there were strengths, there were also many limitations. To start off, the

research was conducted on a different college campus than the one that is attended by the

researcher. This required the researcher to go through the Institutional Review Board on

the COS Campus after receiving approval from Fresno State Human Subjects. The

process to receive approval from COS took over a month, which meant that the

researcher could not begin collecting data until the middle of February. This delayed the

researcher from beginning her research and only allowed the researcher to accept

participants for a few weeks. Since the researcher was only interviewing students from a

single program, that served a specific population, located on the COS campus it made it

difficult to recruit as many students as the researcher had initially desired. The research

also only focuses on youth in foster care who were able to continue on and pursue higher

education. This study ignores a whole section of this population. The experience of the

researcher with this questionnaire was also a limitation because the researcher was

unaware of what types of follow-up questions to ask the participants. This could be a

reason why the interviews were much shorter than they were expected to be. A limitation
 54

of this study was how short two of the interviews were, they did not give enough robust

detail for the researcher to truly analyze. The final limitation noted was that all of the

participants were female, therefore this study completely lacks the male perspective,

which is important because males and females experience and process things very

differently.

Recommendations for Future Research

In order to expand this study, it would be best to use a mixed methods design and

study all former foster youth, not just those who continued with their education. It would

be interesting to see how the two groups differ. It would also be important to increase the

sample size. It would be beneficial to also include men in the next study in order to see

the similarities and differences experienced by males in foster care as well as education.

If possible, conducting the research with students who are currently in the foster care

system would give a whole different insight. The youth studied had already exited care,

this means they have had some time to process and work through their issues. They may

now feel differently about their experiences than they did in the past. By researching

students who are currently going through the experience, the researcher could share the

data collected and changes could be made more quickly in order to better support these

students.

Summary and Conclusions

This chapter discussed the significant findings in relation to the literature. The

implications regarding this population were identified for social work practice. There

were some strengths as well as weaknesses noted in this chapter. There were also some

recommendations made in regard to future research.

Children in foster care have been experiencing difficulties for many years. There

has been change made to better support these youth, however more improvements still
 55

need to be made. The data suggests that these youth experienced very difficult situations

however, were able to pull themselves through due to support, resources, resiliency, and

grit. These youth are placed into care at all different times throughout childhood and for

all different reasons. There is not a one-size fits all method for this population however,

that is why it is important that social workers and educators make the effort to reach out

and connect with these students to ensure their needs do not go unnoticed.
 56

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 57
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Factsheet_2015.pdf

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 58
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 60

APPENDICES
 61

APPENDIX A: HUMAN SUBJECTS APPROVAL

 62

DEPARTMENTAL (UNIT) REVIEW FORM COMMITTEE ON THE

PROTECTION OF HUMAN SUBJECTS
Please Print

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
Full Name Department Mail Stop Phone Dept. Phone

Debra Harris Social Work Eduction PH102 278- 278-3992

2966

IF A STUDENT OR COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH

Full Name Affiliation Phone Other Phone

Lauren Robles Student 559-553-2291

Title of Study:

If funding is sought, from what agency? NO

How did the principal investigator designate the research? Minimal Risk At Risk

REVIEWER 1: Full Name: Travis Cronin Minimal Risk At Risk

Comments: Please check & sign in the category of your judgment:

Approved Travis Cronin

Disapproved

REVIEWER 2: Full Name: Kerry Dunn Minimal Risk At Risk

Comments: Please check & sign in the category of your judgment:

Approved X Kerry

Disapproved
 63

APPENDIX B: COS IRB APPROVAL

 64

Lauren Robles
(559) 553-2291
lorobles7@mail.fresnostate.edu
March 28, 2019

Project Title: A Study of Foster Youths' Experiences in Education

Dear Ms. Lauren Robles,

Thank you for submitting your application to conduct external research at the College of the
Sequoias. Outside entities and individuals interested in conducting research at COS must obtain
approval from the COS Office of Research, Planning and Institutional Effectiveness. On a case-
by-case basis, COS considers requests from outside entities interested in conducting research
studies at our campuses. In order to protect the privacy of our students and employees, the
District considers all research involving the use of humans as being subject to federal regulations
regardless of the type of research being performed or the source of funding.

Your proposal was reviewed and evaluated according to the District policies and guidelines that
govern the administration of external research proposals. After a thorough review and discussion,
we have decided to approve your request. The co-chairs of the COS Institutional Review Board
also reviewed your application and have no further recommendations at this time. You may
proceed with your research study at this time.

We would be interested in seeing the results of your study. If you have any questions please do
not hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,

Mehmet Dali Ozturk, Ph.D.

Dean, Research, Planning, and Institutional Effectiveness
IRB Co-Chair
College of the Sequoias
915 S. Mooney Blvd.
Visalia, CA 93277
 65

APPENDIX C: FLYER
 66

ARE YOU
A
FORMER
FOSTER
YOUTH? `

Research is being conducted by a Master of

Social Work Student from Fresno State on the
COS Campus.

Approximate Time Commitment: 60-90

LET YOUR
minutes for a one-on-one interview regarding
your experiences in education while in foster
care
STORY BE
Compensation: $15 gift certificate to a
restaurant of your choice
HEARD
If you would like more information, please
contact the number listed to the right.
PARTICIPATE!
CALL OR TEXT: 559.553.2291
 67

APPENDIX D: APPROVAL FOR USE OF INSTRUMENT

68
69
70
 71

APPENDIX E: INSTRUMENT/QUESTIONNAIRE
 72
Questionnaire

Guided Interview Questions

Background

What is your four-digit number?

How old are you?

Gender?

What race / ethnicity do you identify as?

How long were you in foster care?

Do you have siblings?

If yes, were you placed in foster care together?

How many schools did you attend in kindergarten through 12th grade?

Where did you live during your kindergarten through 12 school years (in kinship foster

care, a group home, a non-relative placement, etc.)?

Were other children living in the home?

Where do you live now?

What college do you attend?

Have you attended other educational institutions since high school?

Which ones?

What year are you in college?

How many classes have you taken each semester?

What are your current and ultimate educational goals?

Guided Conversation

What was your experience as a foster child?

 73
What was your experience with education as a foster child?

What situations have typically influenced or affected your academic success as a result of

being in foster care?

What advice or suggestions would you like to share with current foster youth?
 74

APPENDIX F: HUMAN SUBJECTS TRAINING

 75

Social and Behavioral Basic Course

 76

APPENDIX G: HUMAN SUBJECTS TRAINING

 77

Responsible Conduct of Research Course

 78

APPENDIX H: CONSENT FORM

 79

Consent Form

Hello. You have been invited to participate in a research study conducted by Lauren

Robles, a California State University, Fresno Master of Social Work Candidate. This

study will focus on the barriers that former youth in foster care faced in regard to their

education. This study will also attempt to discover how the foster youth faced these

barriers and how they impacted their educational process.

If you agree to participate in this study, the process will consist of a face-to-face

interview between you and the researcher. The questionnaire consists of 17 questions and

four guided conversation questions. The first four questions will ask about demographics

such as age, ethnicity, gender, and your four-digit number in place of your name. The

questionnaire will then lead into questions asking about your time in care and other

questions related to education. The interview should only last up to an hour and a half at

the most, however the time is flexible depending on how much you would like to share

with the researcher. With your permission, the researcher will use a voice recording

application to record the interview. If permitted, the researcher will also be jotting down
brief notes throughout the interview. The notes will be taken to aid the researcher in the

transcribing process.

In order to better maintain your confidentiality during the research process, there is a

four-digit number that you will create at the bottom of this page and this is how your

information will be stored and identified. Any information that is gathered throughout

this study will remain confidential, the only people that will have access to the data are

the researcher and their Thesis Chair, Dr. Harris Ph.D. The consent forms will be kept

separately in a locked filing cabinet and will be the only documentation that will have the
 80

actual names of participants. Everything else will be identified by their numbers and the

information will be saved on a password protected laptop or phone until they can be

transferred to a hard drive which will be stored in a locked compartment. After the study

is completed, all the information will be destroyed.

Participation in this study will be voluntary and you are able to end the interview at any

point. At the close of your interview, you will receive a 15-dollar gift card to a restaurant

of your choice. If you choose not to participate in this study, it will not impact your future

interactions with California State University, Fresno. As stated previously, if you agree to

participate, you are free to end the interview at any point without penalty. This study has

been reviewed and approved by the Committee on the Protection of Human Subjects at

California State University, Fresno.

There is minimal potential risk related to participating in this study. If you experience any

distress or discomfort during the span of the interview or at any point due to participation

in this study, inform the researcher and appropriate resources will be provided to you.

The benefits of participating in this research include: an opportunity to share your

experience in foster care and give input to how current foster youth could be better

supported in education.

If you have any questions please contact the researcher, Lauren Robles. The researcher

can be reached at (559) 553-2291 or through email at lorobles7@mail.fresnostate.edu. If

you have any additional questions, please contact the Thesis Chair, Dr. Debra Harris, at

California State University, Fresno at (559) 278-2996. If you have any questions about

the rights of human subjects, you may contact Dr. Kris Clark, Chair of the California
 81

State University, Fresno Committee on the Protection of Human Subjects at (559) 278-

2985.

You will be given a copy of this form to keep for your records.

BY SIGNING THIS FORM, YOU ARE AGREEING TO PARTICIPATE IN THE

RESEARCH STUDY CONDUCTED BY LAUREN ROBLES. YOUR SIGNATURE

INDICATES YOUR AGREEMENT TO PARTICIPATE AS WELL AS GRANTS

PERMISSION TO THE RESEARCHER TO AUDIO RECORD YOUR INTERVIEW.

_________________________________ _____________________________

Participant’s Name (Please Print) Signature of Participant

Four Digit ID Number ____________

___________ I give my consent to be recorded. Date _______________

Initials

Contact Information:

Dr. Debra Harris, Thesis Chair Lauren Robles

Email: dharris@csufresno.edu Email:lorobles7@mail.fresnostate.edu

Phone: (559) 278-2996 Phone: (559) 553-2291