New programme helps fostered children

Children who have been placed in foster care after being abused are at a much higher risk of developing mental-health problems and it has been estimated that as many as 57% of them might have a psychological problem such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), dissociation, suicidal behaviour, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and 'conduct disorders.' Researchers from the University of Colorado studied the effectiveness of a programme called Fostering Health Futures in a study of 156 children aged between 9 and 11. The programme has two main elements; skills training which aims to help the children develop skills in emotion recognition, problem-solving, anger management, healthy relationships and dealing with peer pressure and a mentoring programme with a social-work student which helped them put the skills into practice. Compared to a control group the children who had taken part in the intervention had fewer symptoms of dissociation and reported a better quality of life. They had fewer symptoms of mental-health problems and were less likely to report symptoms of PTSD.

You can find out more about this study by clicking on the title of this post.