ABSTRACT
Foster Youth Voices: An Exploratory Study on their Challenges and Strengths: Much what we know about foster youth and former foster youth is from data collected from the perspective of social workers, caregivers, administrators, clinicians, Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASAs), and other adults who work with these youth, but usually does not include information from the youth themselves. More recent research has started to include the perspectives of the youth involved in foster care, but primarily through structured questionnaire or epidemiological data, focusing mostly on outcomes such as pregnancy or parenting, housing, or employment. In order to gain a better understanding of the experiences of foster youth, the current study uses qualitative research methods to invite former foster youth to openly discuss what they identified as their strengths, and challenges that they have faced or were facing at the time of participation in the study. Strategies for improving not only the outcomes, but also the experiences of youth in foster care are discussed.
