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Beyond School Engagement: School Adaptation and Its Role in Bolstering Resilience Among Youth Who Have Been Involved with Child Welfare Services

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Abstract

Background

School adaptation is a critical risk or resilience factor for at-risk youth.

Objective

The overall aim was to improve our conceptualization of school adaptation as a risk or resilience factor for youth in contact with the child welfare system. We hypothesized that school adaptation includes a range of indicators that would distinguish youth into meaningful groups, that group membership is related to known risk factors, and that school adaptation groups predicts mental health functioning.

Methods

Participants included 2668 youth in contact with the child welfare system following an investigation for alleged maltreatment. Youth, teachers, caregivers, and caseworkers provided relevant information. Patterns among school adaptation indicators were determined via latent profile analysis, relationships between latent profiles and child welfare risk factors were determined using multinomial logistic regression, and relationships between profiles and later mental health were explored using hierarchal linear regression.

Results

Latent profile analysis supported the interpretation of four profiles of school adaptation, including a high overall adaptation group, a moderate overall adaptation with somewhat poor behavior group, a low overall adaptation with poor behavior group, and a low overall adaptation with good behavior and low emotional/cognitive engagement group. School adaptation profiles were related to some demographic variables but were largely independent of child welfare indicators. Maltreatment severity predicted profile membership overall, but differences between groups were not significant. Maltreatment severity and profile membership predicted youth mental health functioning 3 years later.

Conclusions

For youth involved with child welfare services, profiles of school adaptation appear to be better predictors of mental health outcomes than type, substantiation, or severity of maltreatment, demonstrating the important protective role of school in the lives of at-risk youth.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Denver, Denver, USA

    Skyler S. Leonard

  2. University of Kansas, Lawrence, USA

    Omar G. Gudiño

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  1. Skyler S. Leonard
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Correspondence to Skyler S. Leonard.

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Consent to Participate

Consent for participation of youth was obtained from the person with the legal authority to do so, and youth participants provided assent. Caregivers and caseworkers consented for their own participation.

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The secondary analysis of this data, for the purposes of the current study, was approved by the University of Denver IRB.

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The secondary analysis of this data, for the purposes of the current study, was approved by the University of Denver IRB.

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Procedures for obtaining informed consent from participants and their legal guardians was approved by the Research Triangle Institutes’s Institutional Review Board.

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Leonard, S.S., Gudiño, O.G. Beyond School Engagement: School Adaptation and Its Role in Bolstering Resilience Among Youth Who Have Been Involved with Child Welfare Services. Child Youth Care Forum 50, 277–306 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10566-020-09577-y

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