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An increasing number of children are being placed in foster homes in Canada. These children belong to the groups at highest risk of developing learning difficulties and problems at school, in addition to long-term adjustment difficulties. Recent work in the field of attachment has demonstrated that interactions with very sensitive foster or adoptive parents enable children to overcome the deficits they face owing to their pre-placement living conditions. Moreover, many foster parents, whose role involves meeting the needs of children who have these problems and require specialized care, do not have the resources to promote the optimal development of these children. It is therefore important to intervene quickly with foster parents and the children in their care in order to offer them a more promising developmental path.
The goal of this research project is to evaluate an intervention program that adapts components based on the theory of attachment to tailor them to the needs of young foster children in Canada and the specific problems facing them. The purpose of the program is to promote the development of a secure attachment and increase positive interactions between the child and the foster family. By increasing parental sensitivity, the program will promote the children’s motor and cognitive development. This project is very timely because the Government of Quebec and the provincial health department recently adopted a “life plan” policy aimed at developing programs that will help authorities make decisions faster and for a longer term to increase the well-being of abused children. When long-term foster care is necessary, it is critical to provide access to intervention programs that help reinforce the stability of the child’s placement with the foster family and ensure his or her optimal development.
Forty Quebec children placed in foster-to-adopt families and their foster mothers were randomly assigned to either the group receiving the intervention or a control group. Participants were recruited with the help of the youth services centres in Montreal, Montérégie and Lanaudière, meaning the foster families were from both urban and rural areas. The average age of the children was 26 months, and 66% of them were boys. All participants continued to be monitored regularly by their youth centre worker, which consisted of occasional visits to ensure the family was functioning properly and crisis intervention if necessary. In addition to this monitoring, the families assigned to the intervention group also participated in eight parent-child intervention meetings in the family home. These discussions were designed to make the foster mother more aware of her child’s specific needs. Sensitive parental behaviour, i.e., appropriate parental responses to the child’s signals, was also reinforced at each meeting by the worker using video feedback of filmed parent-child play. Measurements before (pre-test) and after (post-test) the intervention - dealing with the children’s development, adaptation and attachment, the parents’ sensitivity, etc. - were taken and compared between the two groups.
The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the relational intervention in enhancing the foster mother’s parental sensitivity. Moreover, our study emphasizes the importance of evaluating intervention programs based on the individual characteristics of parents and children. The relational intervention was effective at reducing the level of parental stress among mothers with daughters, and protecting foster mothers from a potential increase in stress due to lower socio-economic status or feeling less committed to their child. As for the children, the relational intervention successfully maintained the quality of the emotional and cognitive interaction between mother and child, as well as the proximity behaviour of those who were exposed to drugs/alcohol in the womb or experienced medical complications at birth (e.g. low birth weight, prematurity). In other words, children with prenatal risks who did not receive the intervention were more inclined to present behaviour associated with insecurity at the end of the research project. Also, the intervention helped increase the capacity of older children to seek proximity to their parent when in distress and promoted the mental and motor development of those whose foster mothers were less at risk socio-economically or whose biological mothers did not present any psychological distress or intellectual deficiencies.
Overall, the results of this research help enrich our knowledge of the needs of foster children and parents. The relational intervention proved effective for both parents and children. The comments of the foster mothers on this front highlight the beneficial effects of the intervention. Notably, following the intervention, several foster mothers claimed to feel like “real mothers” and to have a greater appreciation of their role as parents. This suggests that after the intervention, the mothers no longer saw themselves only as caregivers, but as parents who are of special importance to the children. In fact, the foster mothers remarked that their children were more appreciative of the comfort they received from their mothers when in distress and that they were exploring their environment more. When children are learning, it is crucial for them to be able to turn to a parent for help controlling their emotions when in distress, because it enables them to explore their environment in peace. Children thus become available to learn, and more inclined to develop cognitive skills. The foster mothers reported, moreover, that the intervention enabled them to better understand the importance of speaking to their children and supporting them during play. Furthermore, they even noted that their new supporting role helped promote the children’s emotional control, enhance their self-esteem and increase their motivation to learn.
Our intervention program therefore had a beneficial impact on several aspects of parent-child functioning. We therefore conclude that this type of program should be systematically offered to foster families. Our results highlight, however, the importance of adapting interventions to meet the specific needs of each family, notably by offering support to less socio-economically advantaged families and more educational interventions for families with children at risk for more serious cognitive difficulties.
Our research findings also indicate that there are different ways to evaluate the success of a placement as a means of intervention. In Quebec, the number of times a child is placed or moved has traditionally been considered the main criterion for measuring success. Our study shows that, among other things, the evaluation of the mother’s sensitivity and the child’s developmental adaptation are measures that are just as important, if not more so, when determining whether a placement is successful, since they provide a clear indication of how the child is functioning.