The Effects of Out-of-Home Placement on the School Engagement of Maltreated Children
Abstract
Children in the child welfare system face a multitude of challenges following maltreatment.
These children frequently go on to report poor outcomes in many facets of their life, including
education. It is thought that children who are removed from their home following maltreatment
and placed in out-of-home placement (OHP), experience even more challenges due to their
removal from their home and environment. The literature surrounding maltreated children's
educational outcomes suggest that these children struggle in school when compared to children
who have not experienced maltreatment. However, literature surrounding the educational
outcomes of maltreated children who experience OHP, versus maltreated children who do not
experience OHP, tend to collectively present with mixed results. The purpose of this study was
to isolate the effect of OHP on the educational outcome of, school engagement, to get a clearer
picture of how OHP affects the educational outcomes of maltreated children. This study utilized
data from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-being (NSCAW II) with a total
sample of 1,490 children. Propensity score matching was employed to isolate the effect of OHP
on school engagement. The results indicate that there is no statistically significant difference in
the school engagement of maltreated children who experience OHP, when compared to the
school engagement on maltreated children who remain in-home. Direction for future research,
and clinical implications are addressed.
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- Masters Theses [19619]