Mental Health Issues Facing Youth Aging Out of Foster Care

Mental Health Issues Facing Youth Aging out of Foster Care
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Introduction
Children and youngsters living in foster care experience many psychological and other challenges to live healthy and emotionally stable; for the same reason, their score on measures of emotional and behavioral issues is much higher than normal children. Even though the prevalence of mental health issues in these children is common, the lack of information and research in this domain makes remedial measures extremely challenging. In most cases, children under foster care experience maltreatment and traumatic behavior from their foster parents; moreover, mental health services' availability to these children declines with the growing age. Hence, it is crucial to understand the underlying social, cultural, and psychological factors that cause a disproportionately higher rate of mental health issues in foster children. This literature, therefore, uses five scholarly research studies to evaluate various themes, such as description of the problem, usefulness of the research, evaluation of the methodology, and limitation of the research. Discussing these themes will help understand the causes and remedial measures for the higher rate of mental health disorders in foster children.
Description of the Problem
Several crucial studies have evaluated and made valuable descriptions of the growing problem of mental health issues in foster children; one of these studies uses a systemic literature review of 17 peer-reviewed articles to focus on various façade of the issue and outline a comprehensive description of the problem. For instance, it provides good estimates of the difference in the rate of occurrence of mental health issues in foster and regular children. Accordingly, it calculates that the rate of mental health issues in foster children is two to four times higher than in general children (Havlicek et al., 2013). According to the findings of this study, due to mental health issues, foster children lag behind other children in terms of their academic and social accomplishments (Havlicek et al., 2013). Hence, this problem deteriorates their social standing.
Understanding the negative impact of mental health issues on children aging out of foster care is a crucial aspect of the description of the problem. Therefore, this study informs that mental health issues impede these children's transition from foster care to adulthood, depriving them of the mental, physical, and emotional stability to cope with real-world challenges (Havlicek et al., 2013). Furthermore, this study identifies how mental health issues in foster children deprive them of suitable employment, as indicated by the higher proportion of unemployment in these transitioning adolescents (Havlicek et al., 2013). In this regard, another study identifies that former foster children experience homelessness, a higher rate of substance abuse, criminal activities, and arrests and calculates a considerable majority of foster children face mental health issues (Engler et al., 2022). These descriptions provide useful information about the negative fallouts of foster children's mental health issues.
Discussing the causes of mental health issues that former foster children experience is an integral part of a comprehensive description. Therefore, one study describes a higher rate of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse of foster children, deliberate neglect of their needs and concerns, domestic violence, and familial substance abuse as the core contributors to former foster children's mental health issues (Engler et al., 2022). This description helps the reader understand the extent and gravity of the problem associated with mental health issues in aging-out foster children, and this aspect reflects the authenticity of these studies.
The Usefulness of the Studies
One of the core components of a study conducted on mental health issues in aging foster children is its ability to provide a realistic estimate of the problem and propose an equally practical and effective remedial measure. One of the studies used in this literature review fulfills these criteria of usefulness as it uses a systemic review of 17 peer-reviewed journals and provides a good description and estimate of the effects and causes of mental health issues in foster children (Havlicek et al., 2013). This study provides useful information related to the issues. For instance, it highlights the dearth of proper study of this problem in identifying dimensions of mental health issues, such as the age of onset, severity, and co-occurrence (Havlicek et al., 2013). Accurately identifying the crucial gap in information about the psychological functioning of foster children paves the way to undertake a crucial investigation in this domain.
This study verifies the higher prevalence of mental health issues in aging foster children and provides effective solutions to address the issues. It suggests the development of a common agenda for analyzing mental health issues and the availability of services; it identifies routine screening and empirically supported treatment and integrated planning of mental health services as remedial measures (Havlicek et al., 2013). This aspect of the study adds to its usefulness for practical and theoretical purposes. One study provides useful input to problems related to mental health issues in former foster children by highlighting that even the presence of several mental health issues in foster children, including oppositional defiant disorder/conduct disorder, major depressive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and reactive attachment disorder (Engler et al., 2022). The study's findings are credible as it collects articles for review from credible databases including PsycInfo Ovid, EMBASE Elsevier, and Cochrane Library Wiley (Engler et al., 2022). Using reliable sources to collect information about the impact of kinship care on resolving mental health issues in former foster children adds to the study's usefulness.
Limitations of Studies
Some of the studies conducted on mental health issues in aging-out foster children have limited scope as they focus on the occurrence of this issue concerning a specific period or event. For instance, one study evaluated the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the susceptibility of adolescents in or aged out of foster care to mental health issues (Greeson et al., 2022). This study used a study sample of twenty-six young people (aged between 18 and 23 years) to evaluate their response and resilience to mental health issues triggered by the pandemic. The findings revealed that the former or aging-out foster children show concerns over the impact of the pandemic on supportive relationships and adaptive coping skills (Greeson et al., 2022). Even though this study used a relevant study sample and an appropriate study objective, it is limited in its scope as it focuses only on the impact of the COVID-19 era on the mental health issues of American youth. Therefore, its findings are not universally applicable to the general population of foster children.
Description of the Intended Reader
Understanding the readers of a research study is an imperati...