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Background: Stability in foster care is paramount, since it enables children with a history of maltreatment to experience secure attachment relationships, and decreases the risk for behavioral and emotional problems when growing up. Objective: We investigated whether foster care interventions play a role in enhancing foster placement stability, in addition to several characteristics of foster children and foster families. Our hypothesis was that foster children of female gender, relatively young at start of the placement, with less previous foster care placements, staying in kinship care, placed with siblings (if they had any) and in a foster family receiving a training to enhance the foster parents’ knowledge on childhood trauma, an attachment-based video-interaction intervention or Treatment Foster Care, would experience significantly less breakdown in foster care. Method: A multilevel analysis was conducted on data from 2000 foster care placements in a 4 year period (2015–2018), concerning 1316 foster families (35.9% kin) and 1542 foster children (49.4% boys, Mage = 7.54 years). Results: The frequency of previous foster care placements (OR = 3.56) increased the risk for breakdown, and receiving the Basic Trust intervention (OR = 0.26) or Treatment Foster Care (OR = 0.11) decreased that risk. Other investigated variables were unrelated to breakdown when checked for the number of foster placements and the applied interventions. Conclusions: Foster care organizations should systematically monitor important risk factors for breakdown, in order to (timely) intervene if necessary to enhance the chances for continuity of foster care placements. Treatment seems to make a difference.

Most out-of-home placed children have experienced early adversities, including maltreatment and neglect. A challenge for caregivers is to adequately interpret their foster child’s internal mental states and behavior. We examined caregivers’ mind-mindedness in out-of-home care, and the association among caregivers’ mind-mindedness (and its positive, neutral, and negative valence), recognition of the child’s trauma symptoms, and behavior problems. Participants (N = 138) were foster parents, family-home parents, and residential care workers. Caregivers’ mind-mindedness was assessed with the describe-your-child measure. Caregivers’ recognition of the child’s trauma symptoms, their child’s emotional symptoms, conduct problems, prosocial behavior, and quality of the caregiver-child relationship were assessed using caregivers’ reports. Foster parents produced more mental-state descriptors than did residential care workers. General mind-mindedness, as well as neutral and positive mind-mindedness, related negatively to conduct problems. Besides, positive mind-mindedness was associated with prosocial behavior and neutral mind-mindedness with a better quality of the caregiver-child relationship and fewer child conduct problems. Negative mind-mindedness related positively to the caregiver’s recognition of the child’s trauma symptoms, and indirectly, to emotional symptoms. In conclusion, mind-mindedness seems to be an essential characteristic of out-of-home caregivers, connected to the understanding of their child’s behavior problems and trauma symptoms, as well as to the relationship with the child. The findings suggest a possible use of mind-mindedness in out-of-home care evaluation and intervention.

Sinds twee jaar is de transitie van de zorg voor jeugd naar de gemeenten een feit. Een van de doelen van de transitie was het terugdringen van dure specialistische zorg door in te zetten op preventie, zorg dichter bij huis en in meer samenhang. Als gevolg hiervan werd de specialistische zorg voor jeugd min of meer gedwongen zichzelf opnieuw uit te vinden en haar plek in het continuum van zorg te hervinden. De transitie leidde daarmee tot transformatie. Om deze transformatie richting en vorm te geven analyseerden wij bij specialistisch jeugdzorgaanbieder Intermetzo tweemaal de groep jongeren die op dat moment zorg ontvingen. In deze bijdrage beschrijven wij waarom en hoe deze analyses bijdragen aan een interne dialoog, beleidsvorming en de beoogde transformatie van Intermetzo.

Stapstenen is een motiverende groepstraining voor jongeren met traumaklachten die verblijven in een gesloten jeugdzorginstelling: Jeugdzorgplus. De auteurs beschrijven een kleinschalige, exploratieve studie naar de eerste versie van deze training en gaan in op het motief voor de doorontwikkeling ervan. Welke factoren spelen voor jongeren een rol bij het al dan niet afronden van de training? Ook komen de mogelijke factoren aan bod die de behandelmotivatie verhogen en de uitval uit de training verkleinen.

Youths in compulsory residential care show a high prevalence of various mental health problems but often lack motivation to engage in therapeutic treatment. Although the self-determination-theory (SDT) and the transtheoretical model of change (TTM) offer a useful framework for treatment motivation, they do not describe which interventions therapists can use to improve treatment motivation in juveniles, nor do they focus specifically on treatment motivation in a compulsory residential care setting. This article provides an overview of opportunities to enhance adolescents' motivation for treatment in compulsory residential care. Results show that in the reviewed literature, increasing autonomy and competence has received relatively little attention compared to relatedness. In addition, results show that treatment motivation can be enhanced in several different ways, ranging from interventions on an individual to an organizational level. This may indicate that enhancing motivation for treatment in a residential setting needs intervention on multiple levels, involving youths, therapists, group workers and parents. Scientific evidence, however, is limited. Regarding the lack of studies that examine the need for autonomy and competence, future studies should focus on these basic needs for motivation. (c) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved