Prospective associations between trauma, placement disruption, and ethnic‐racial identity among newly emancipated foster youth

INTRODUCTION: Ethnic-racial identity (ERI) is an important developmental process for ethnic-racial minority youth. However, little is known about how adverse life experiences may be related to ERI development. Thus, the current study evaluated prospective associations of emancipated foster youth's histories of childhood maltreatment and foster placement disruption with ERI centrality and ERI private regard, as well as the adaptive implications of ERI. METHOD: = 24.15). RESULTS: Path analyses revealed that childhood maltreatment severity and placement disruption were associated with lower ERI private regard, but not ERI centrality. Moreover, private regard was associated with better socioemotional adjustment (i.e., higher levels of self-esteem and social support), whereas centrality was related to poorer adjustment (i.e., lower levels of self-esteem and life satisfaction, and higher rates of anxiety and depressive symptoms), and these relations varied by ethnicity-race. CONCLUSIONS: The current findings suggest that efforts to promote positive feelings toward one's ethnic-racial group membership can support ethnic-racial minority foster youth's capacity to negotiate developmental challenges in and beyond the child welfare system.