The Experience of Being a Treatment Foster Mother.

This study examines the experiences of treatment foster mothers. It is part of an ongoing longitudinal study of the use, implementation, and effectiveness of treatment foster care. The study sample is 43 treatment foster mothers. Study data are from in-person interviews with mothers in which each is asked to talk about the youth in her care and her experience of being the youth’s treatment foster mother. Mothers’ responses were analyzed through an inductive and iterative process. The analysis yielded six mutually exclusive categories of experience. Each category was labeled with a name that reflected a critical element of its definition: Strategic, Struggle, Satisfaction, Mothering, Rejection, and ‘Other’. Findings suggest wide variation in how treatment foster mothers experience their role and relationships with youth. Study strengths, limitations, and relevant theoretical frameworks for further work are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]