Effectiveness of a Foster Parent Intervention: Results of a Trial

Development, Implementation and Evaluation of a Foster Parent Intervention

The hypothesis of the study is that the intervention leads to a reduction in foster children's externalizing problems and foster parents' parenting stress and that this in turn leads to a reduction in the number of breakdowns of foster placements.

Inclusion Criteria:

• foster child has a borderline or clinical score on one of the small-band externalizing scales or the broad-band externalizing scale of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL)

Exclusion Criteria:

foster child:

• has a mental retardation,
• autism,
• uses psychotropic medication in an inconsistent way,
• behavioral problems are the result of medical problems or medication, foster parents:
• have insufficient knowledge of Dutch,
• have low cognitive abilities,
• are already receiving professional support for the foster child's externalizing problems,
• are divorcing.

Moreover, foster placements were excluded if at least two of the following criteria were present:

• foster parents considered terminating the foster placement during the past two months
• were experiencing psychological distress (measured with the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ; Koeter & Ormel, 1991) and defined as a score ≥ 2),
• their foster child had a sum score above 3 (for children < 6 years) or 5 (for children ≥ 6 years) on the critical CBCL-items.