Foster Children and Family Resilience

Foster Children and Family Resilience essay assignment

1. Read and then summarize Schwartz’s journal article entitled, “Family Resilience and Pragmatic Parent Education.” You may use the notes and focus questions below to guide your summary. Once you have summarized the article, provide your informed reaction (i.e., your opinion based on evidence). You may also want to consider some of the issues raised in Lucy LeMare’s case of the Romanian orphan interviews.

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2. Find an additional peer-reviewed journal article that examines family resilience, using an educational perspective, and summarize the findings from that study. Once you have summarized the article, provide your informed reaction (i.e., your opinion based on evidence).

3. Compare and contrast Schwartz’s (and LeMare’s, if you have chosen to include it) research with your research article. What similarities did you find? What differences?

Notes for “Family Resilience and Pragmatic Parent Education”

What if we could teach parents how to build resilience into their families? As we have seen in past research, family resilience may protect both parents and children from adversity. Consider the case of foster children, who have often had their share of adversity. They are usually born into unstable home environments where they often experience abuse and/or neglect. This kind of family background may put these children at risk for developing emotional issues such as depression or behavioral issues such as delinquency. Furthermore, many foster children have been moved from one foster care home to another, adding to the instability of their situation. Thus, it is particularly important for foster parents to build protective factors into their parenting and into their family unit in order to help buffer the past, present, and future adverse effects of being a foster child.

Focus Questions for Reading

Consider using the following questions to guide your reading and written summary of this article.

1. What are some of the problems with generic present-day parent education programs?

2. Why might a very structured family environment work with young children, but cause adolescent children to rebel?

3. Describe a strength of the foster care system.

4. What was the purpose of the Family Resilience Project?

5. Re: case study: Why do you think a delay in responding to the foster child’s behavioral outbursts was less successful than responding right away?

6. Re: case study: Why do you think rigidity in responding to the foster child’s behavioral outburst was less successful than flexibility in responding?

Part A: Short-Answer Questions (30 marks)

Answer the following six questions that relate to the Module 4 readings, using full sentences and short paragraphs as appropriate. Your responses should be clear and succinct, approximately 75 words in length per question. No single question should exceed 125 words. Each question is worth five (5) marks.

1. With respect to “Big Brothers/Big Sisters Mentoring: The Power of Developmental Relationships,” why do you think minority Little Brothers and Sisters showed a more dramatic lowering effect in their likelihood to use drugs, compared to non-minority Little Brothers and Sisters?

2. With respect to the Criss et al. article, it was found that neither temperament nor social information-processing patterns (encoding skills) influenced the likelihood of having positive peer relationships and friendships. The authors also note that unmeasured factors, such as physical attractiveness, IQ, and athletic ability, could possibly account for the buffering effects of positive peer relationships and friendships. How do you think such factors could influence having positive peer relationships and friendships, which would consequently lead to protection against family risk factors? Feel free to draw on research findings from the earlier modules (such as previous research on IQ and social competence) when giving your answer.

3. According to the Rodgers and Rose study, the most salient finding with respect to the resilience model is that peer support can buffer the effects of low parental support on internalizing behaviors for adolescents from divorced single-parent families. One interpretation of this finding is that more peer support leads to less internalizing behavior. However, another plausible explanation is that adolescents with internalizing behaviors attract less peer support. Why might that be the case?

4. One core problem with the Cosden et al. study is that many members of the control group actually did attend other forms of homework assistance programs. Can you think of a way to deal with this issue?

5. Consider Michael Chandler’s research and explain how the narrative strategy of self and the oral storytelling traditions of Canadian Aboriginals play a role in maintaining cultural continuity and building resilience in Aboriginal youth. (You may also want to include examples from Rod McCormick’s research in your answer.)

6. Achor suggests that social support speeds the process of recovery. The readings, modules and assignments have continually focused on the many factors associated with resilience. Present an argument to either support or refute Achor’s statement. Feel free to draw on previous readings, modules or assignments to support your answer.

Part B: Essay (70 marks)

Write an essay ( maximum 500 words) (2–3 double-spaced word-processed pages) on one of the following topics. Be sure that you are presenting the concepts in your own words and that you include current information.

Option 1: Academic Resilience, Continued

Topic 4 introduced you to how academic resilience may be improved for students at risk for not completing their homework assignments. Improvement of academic resilience may also protect students from academic underachievement and/or dropping out of high school. Find two more peer-reviewed journal articles that examine academic resilience in at-risk groups. Summarize your articles, and provide your informed reaction (i.e., your opinion, based on evidence). Compare and contrast the articles (i.e., what similarities did you find? what differences?).

Option 2: Relating Community and Cultural Resilience Research to Individual or Family Resilience Research

Review Module 2 or Module 3 and select a research paper that examined individual or family resilience factors with respect to a particular risk factor (e.g., maternal psychopathology, work/family obligation overload). Find at least one peer-reviewed journal article that discusses a community resilience factor for that same risk factor. Summarize your research paper and provide your informed reaction (i.e., your opinion based on evidence). Compare and contrast your paper with the paper you used from Module 2 or 3 (i.e., what similarities did you find? what differences?).

Foster Children and Family Resilience