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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.

Background:Foster children, mostly maltreated in their birth families, may be fostered by parents who know little about the impact of traumatic experiences.Objective:The present study investigated whether the training Caring for Children who Have Experienced Trauma for foster parents can break the negative circle of traumatic stress. The hypothesis was that improvement of parents’ knowledge on trauma and mindmindedness decreases parenting stress, children’s post-traumatic stress symptoms, and their behavior problems.Method:Forty-eight foster parents ( n female = 35) participated in a pretest (T1), posttest (T2), and follow-up (T3). Questionnaires on knowledge on trauma, parenting stress, child post-traumatic stress symptoms, behavioral problems, prosocial behavior and the evaluation of the training were administered. Parents’ mind-mindedness was assessed by a describe-your-child interview.Results:Foster parents highly appreciated the training, their knowledge on child trauma increased at T2 and this growth persisted at T3. The parents who gained most knowledge experienced a small decrease in parenting stress at T2. Although the general mind-mindedness did not significantly change, foster parents’ mind-mindedness with positive valence substantially increased at T2 and T3 while their mind-mindedness with neutral valence decreased. Foster parental report on child PTSS declined at T3, compared to T2 but not to T1. No changes were found in children’s behavior as reported by the foster parents. The proportion of foster children who started trauma-focused treatment increased at T2 and T3.Conclusion:This study provides evidence that the training can be effective in improving foster parents’ knowledge of the impact of traumatic experiences and in increasing a positive mental representation of their foster child as well as in reducing children’s posttraumatic symptoms.

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