Mentoring Children in Foster Care: Impact on Graduate Student Mentors.
Fostering Healthy Futures (FHF) is a randomized controlled trial of an intervention for preadolescent youth placed in foster care as a result of maltreatment. As part of the FHF program, graduate students spend 16-20 hours per week mentoring two youth in foster care and receive intensive training and supervision. During the summer and fall of 2009, 50 of the 52 mentors who participated in the FHF program between the summers of 2002 and 2008 completed an online survey. Almost all reported that their participation in the FHF program was helpful or very helpful in training them to work with high-risk children and families, diverse communities, multiple systems, and other professionals. Qualitative analyses of mentors' responses to open-ended questions yielded several salient themes.
Project Director of the Fostering Healthy Futures program at the Kempe Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect and an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry at the School of Medicine, University of Colorado Denver.
Heather N
HN
Taussig
Research Director of the Fostering Healthy Futures program at the Kempe Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect and a Research Senior Instructor in the Department of Pediatrics at the School of Medicine, University of Colorado Denver.
Sara E
SE
Culhane
Clinical psychologist with the Community-Linked Mental Health Services Program at Children's Memorial Hospital and Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine.
Tali
T
Raviv
Clinical Team Leader for the Fostering Healthy Futures program and Instructor in the Department of Pediatrics at the School of Medicine, University of Colorado Denver.
Leslie E Schnoll
LE
Fitzpatrick
Training Coordinator for the Fostering Healthy Futures program and Senior Instructor in the Department of Pediatrics at the School of Medicine, University of Colorado Denver.
Robyn Wertheimer
RW
Hodas