Fostering Changes

Foster children, adoptive children, foster parents, adoptive parents, parent training, trauma

04/2022 - 03/2024

Around 90,000 children and young people in Germany live in foster families. These children have a very high risk of unfavourable development in almost all areas of life, particularly in the areas of health, school and social behaviour. There are many reasons for this: on the one hand, foster children have often already experienced abuse, neglect or broken bonds in their family of origin, which in turn increases the risk of further mental disorders. Secondly, foster parents are often overwhelmed by the behavioural problems and emotional needs of their foster children.

One factor here is that foster parents in Germany are not always systematically trained for their task and learn how to deal constructively with the behavioural problems of their foster children and provide them with the best possible support.

Our research project therefore aims to adapt the "Fostering Changes" training programme for foster parents (a group training course comprising 12 sessions of three hours each), which has already been successfully established in the UK, to the German-speaking and cultural area and to investigate it scientifically in a pilot study.

The study is planned as a pilot study in the sense of a feasibility study; parents of foster children aged 2-11 years who have sufficient German language skills to participate in the parent training programme can take part.

The aim is to recruit a total of 72 foster parents (i.e. six group runs) to take part in the study; recruitment will primarily take place via the local youth welfare offices. The total duration of the research project is planned to be 24 months.

The most important target variable is a specific problem behaviour of the respective foster child defined by the foster parents, which is measured with the "Carer-Defined Problems Scale" at the beginning and after the end of the parent training.

Further target variables are the quality of the bond between foster parents and foster child, the self-efficacy of the foster parents, the clinical symptoms of the foster child and the parenting style of the foster parents.

In addition, socio-demographic data of the foster families are recorded.

Prof. Dr Dr Christian Bachmann

Clinic for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry/Psychotherapy
Ulm University Hospital
Steinhövelstraße 5
89075 Ulm
christian.bachmann@uniklinik-ulm.de