Sibling-comparison cohort study reveals long-term foster care fails to improve adult life chances in maltreated youths, indicating traditional placements do not offset early adversity.
When a child is removed from their home and placed in foster care, society takes over the responsibility for that child's well-being and development. Failure to provide a child with a nurturing upbringing may have negative consequences for the child as well as for society. Using Swedish longitudinal registry data for a national cohort sample of siblings, in which some were placed in foster care and others remained in their birth parents' care, this study asks whether long-term foster care ensures improved life chances. Results from multilevel regression analyses of a wide range of educational, social, and health-related outcomes in mature adult age (16 outcome constructs) support a row of previous studies indicating that traditional long-term foster care does not seem to improve maltreated children's life chances.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Brännström et al. (2020) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context: