The Role of Developmental Assets in Resilient Outcomes Among First Nations and Métis Young People in Out-of-Home Care
By Katharine Filbert and Robert J. Flynn

An earlier version of this article was presented at the Association des centres jeunesse du Québec/9th International Looking After Children Conference Youth in mind: Beyond risk: The developmental needs, Montréal, QC, October, 2010 and published in Children and Youth Services Review (Filbert & Flynn, 2010).

In Canada, there are about 27,000 Aboriginal children and adolescents in out-of-home care. They comprise approximately 35% of the total in-care population (Centre of Excellence for Child Welfare, 2007), despite forming less than 5% of their age group in the Canadian population (Gough, Trocmé, Brown, Knoke, & Blackstock, 2005).

According to the 2006 census data,1,172,790 people identified themselves as Aboriginal, that is, either North American Indian (herein referred to as First Nations people), Métis, or Inuit (Statistics Canada, 2008). Lalonde (2006) has suggested that Aboriginal assimilation policies in Canada have left a legacy of risk factors for Aboriginal people (e.g., school failure, homelessness, mental health difficulties). At the same time, there is encouraging evidence that a good number of young people in out-of-home care experience resilience in early adulthood, such that promoting positive outcomes is a feasible goal (Flynn, Dudding, & Barber, 2006). However, almost all research on out-of-home care has been conducted with non-Aboriginal populations.

DEVELOPMENTAL ASSETS

Developmental assets include individual attributes, self-processes, and ecological supports that have been consistently demonstrated to lessen risk and promote positive developmental outcomes (Scales, 1999; Scales, Benson, Leffert, & Blyth, 2000). Research conducted by the Search Institute (located in Minneapolis, Minnesota) with more than 500,000 sixth-to-twelfth grade students in 213 U.S. communities identified 40 developmental assets, organized into eight categories. These categories include four types of external assets (i.e., relationships and opportunities that adults provide to youth), namely, Support, Empowerment, Boundaries and Expectations, and Constructive Use of Time. The categories also include four types of internal assets (i.e., values, skills, and competencies that youth develop to assist in self-regulation), that is, Commitment to Learning, Positive Values, Social Competencies, and Positive Identity (Scales, 1999).

Research by the Search Institute in the U.S. has indicated that the typical youth has less than half (i.e., 18) of the 40 assets, and that youths have fewer assets as they age. Our Canadian data from the Ontario Looking After Children (OnLAC) project indicate that young people in out-of-home care have, on average, 27.5 assets. This difference is likely due to differences in the measures used, the adults doing the ratings, and the average quality of the home settings. Research has shown that girls have more assets than boys. Also, older youth have fewer assets than young adolescents and display different risk patterns and levels of functioning. Asset-rich young people are less likely to abuse alcohol and experience violence and more likely to succeed at school and be physically healthy than their asset-poor or asset-average counterparts. The positive effects of assets also extend to youths with developmental deficits, as the more vulnerable youth are, the more they seem to benefit from the presence of developmental assets (Scales, 1999). Because neither risks nor assets are equally distributed in youth, it is crucial that risks are reduced and assets increased.

RESILIENCE

Asset building is a primary resilience strategy. In behavioural research, resilience is inferred from judgments about its two essential components: (a) the quality of an individual‘s current functioning or development, and (b) his or her exposure to a serious threat to development (Masten, 2001, 2006). (Please see Filbert [2008] for a discussion of the importance of examining Aboriginal in-care youth populations using a resilience framework).

DESCRIPTION OF CURRENT RESEARCH

Missing from the literature on resilience in out-of-home care are studies examining exclusively Aboriginal samples. This is unfortunate, given that, as previously noted, Aboriginal children and adolescents comprise about 35% of young people in out-of-home care in Canada (Centre of Excellence for Child Welfare, 2007) and that several risk factors are present within this population (Lalonde, 2006).

Defining resilience in terms of positive mental health and educational outcomes, the working hypothesis in this study was that developmental assets would predict a range of positive outcomes among Aboriginal young people in out-of-home care. This research builds upon the results of an earlier study of 97 First Nations young people aged 10-17 drawn from the OnLAC project (Filbert & Flynn, 2010), which found that higher levels of the young person‘s developmental assets were related to higher levels of resilience on the criterion variables of pro-social behaviour, self-esteem, educational performance, and total difficulties. Additionally, greater levels of the youths‘ cultural assets, were related to lower levels of behavioural difficulties.

The present study used cross-sectional data collected as part of the Ontario Looking After Children (OnLAC) project (Flynn, Dudding, et al., 2006). The OnLAC project is resilience-based, aiming to enhance the quality of substitute parenting experienced by young people in foster care and thereby improve their short-and-long-term developmental outcomes. The participant pool consisted of data collected by Children‘s Aid Societies, in the province of Ontario, Canada from 2001-2008, as part of an on-going outcome-monitoring project based on the Looking After Children approach to improving young persons‘ lives.

The participants consisted of a total of 470 Aboriginal young people aged 10-16 years. Four hundred and twenty-two were First Nations youths, including 201 females (M = 13.12 years, SD = 1.94), 171 of whom were living in foster homes and 30 in group homes. Two hundred and twenty-one were males (M = 13.26 years, SD = 1.92), 172 of whom were in foster homes and 49 in group homes. The Métis subsample consisted of 48 youths, including 22 females (M = 14.09 years, SD = 1.60), 17 of whom were in foster homes and five in group homes. Twenty-six were males (M = 13.81 years, SD = 1.88), 16 of whom were in foster homes and 10 in group homes. In all, 376 youths resided in foster homes, including kinship care homes, and 94 in group homes.

The second Canadian adaptation of the Assessment and Action Record (AAR-C2; Flynn, Ghazal, & Legault, 2006) from Looking After Children was used to collect data on the variables of interest in the first two studies. In 2006, the AAR was mandated by the Ontario Ministry of Children and Youth Services for use every year, with all young people who have been in foster care in Ontario for a year or more. The AAR-C2 covers seven outcome domains: (1) health, (2) education, (3) identity, (4) family and social relationships, (5) social presentation, (6) emotional and behavioural development, and (7) self-care skills. These domains are assessed using eight age-appropriate forms, available in English and French. The AAR is administered in the form of a conversational interview in which the young person (if aged 10 or older), foster parent or group home worker, and child welfare worker participate. For children 9 years and younger, the foster parent or group home worker and child welfare worker participate in the interview process (Flynn, Ghazal, et al., 2006).

Masten‘s (2006) abbreviated list of behavioural factors related to resilience was used to formulate predictors. The predictors used in the present study were chosen based on research identifying them as factors associated with resilience. The chosen predictors encompassed the child, family and community levels and included the young person‘s age and gender, cumulative risk (i.e., the sum of 18 adversities experienced by the child since birth, as rated by the foster parent), and the presence of 40 types of developmental assets, as rated by the child welfare worker. The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ; Goodman, 1997) Pro-social and Total Difficulties Score scales, which form part of the AAR-C2-2006, were used to measure mental health outcomes. The General Self-Esteem and Educational Performance scales of the AAR-C2 were used to measure self-esteem and educational outcomes, respectively.

The results indicated that children and youths with more developmental assets, as rated by the child welfare workers, had higher Pro-social scale scores (Beta coefficient = +.38, p <.001). Children and youths with higher scores on the index of cumulative risk had higher Total Difficulties scores, as rated by the foster parent (Beta = +.09, p < .05). Children and youths with a greater number of developmental assets had lower SDQ Total Difficulties scores (Beta = -.46, p < .001). Also, those youths with more developmental assets had higher levels of self-esteem (as measured by the AAR-C2; Beta = +.35, p < .001), although, in general, female children and youths had lower self-esteem (Beta = -.19, p < .001). Finally, a greater number of developmental assets was related to higher levels of educational performance (as measured by the AAR-C2, and rated by the foster parent; Beta = +.29, p < .001).

As found in the pilot study of 97 First Nations youths, a greater number of developmental assets was associated with more positive outcomes on all four criterion variables. These results are very consistent with resilience theory, whereby more assets leads to better outcomes, as developmental assets was consistently the strongest predictor among those examined. Specifically, consistent with past research, the presence of more developmental assets was related to better mental health, increased pro-social behaviour, and better academic performance. At the practice level, this suggests that the presence of developmental assets is crucial for resilient outcomes in Aboriginal children and youths in out-of-home care and should be promoted within current child welfare practices. In terms of practice, it may be possible in the annual review of the child‘s plan of care to specify one or two developmental assets not yet possessed by the child and to include these assets within their plan of care. At the research level, further studies are needed to discover strategies to increase developmental assets, particularly among youths with low levels of assets. However, this study is limited by the small size of the First Nations and Métis sample of young people in care and by the lack of a comparison group. As such, further studies should be conducted with Inuit in-care youths (preferably using a comparison group of youths not in-care) in order to determine their level of resilience in terms of mental health and education.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Katharine M. Filbert is a PhD candidate in Clinical Psychology at the University of Ottawa, Canada. She completed her undergraduate training with a major in Psychology at the University of Guelph in 2003. In 2005, she completed her Masters of Arts degree in Clinical Psychology at Lakehead University. Her doctoral research explores resilience in Aboriginal children and youths in out-of-home care using data from the Ontario Looking After Children (OnLAC) project as well as a series of individual narrative interviews and focus groups conducted with Aboriginal youths in care. The results of her research have been presented at both national and international forums and were most recently communicated at the conference of the Association des centres jeunesse du Québec/9th International Looking After Children Conference in Montréal, QC. Ms. Filbert is a student affiliate of the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) and the Ontario Psychological Association (OPA).

Robert Flynn is a professor in the School of Psychology and a Senior Researcher with the Centre for Research on Educational and Community Services at the University of Ottawa. Since 2000, in partnership with the Ontario Association of Children‘s Aid Societies and local Children's Aid Societies across Ontario, and with funding from the Ontario Ministry of Children and Youth Services, he and his colleagues have been conducting the Ontario Looking After Children (OnLAC) project. The project involves assessing each year the needs and monitoring the developmental outcomes of approximately 8,000 young people in out-of-home care in the province. He and his colleagues have also recently completed a randomized field trial which showed that academic tutoring by foster parents of their foster children of primary-school age leads to practically important gains in reading and math.

REFERENCES

Centre of Excellence for Child Welfare (2007). Canadian Human Rights Complaint on First Nations Child Welfare Field Today by Assembly of First Nations and First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada. News release, 23 February. Ottawa: Centre of Excellence for Child Welfare.

Filbert, K. M. (2008, March). Resilience in Aboriginal youth in out-of-home care. Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies Journal, 52 (1), 4-7.

Filbert, K. M. & Flynn, R. J. (2010). Developmental and cultural assets and resilient outcomes in First Nations young people in care: An initial test of an explanatory model. Children and Youth Services Review, 32, 560-564.

Flynn, R. J., Dudding, P. M., & Barber J. G. (Eds.). (2006). Promoting resilience in child welfare. Ottawa, ON: University of Ottawa Press.

Flynn, R. J., Ghazal, H., & Legault, L. (2006). Looking After Children: Good parenting, good outcomes, Assessment and Action Records (second Canadian adaptation). Ottawa, ON & London, UK: Centre for Research on Community Services, University of Ottawa & Her Majesty’s Stationary Office.

Goodman, R. (1997). The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire: A research note. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 38 (5), 581-586.

Gough, P., Trocmé, N., Brown, I., Knoke, D., & Blackstock, C. (2005). Pathways to the overrepresentation of Aboriginal children in care. CECW Information. Retrieved September 22, 2008, from http://www.cecw-cepb.ca

Lalonde, C. E. (2006). Identity formation and cultural resilience in Aboriginal communities. In R. J. Flynn, P. M. Dudding, & J. G. Barber (Eds.), Promoting resilience in child welfare (pp. 52-71). Ottawa, ON: University of Ottawa Press.

Masten, A. S. (2001). Ordinary magic: Resilience processes in development. American Psychologist, 56, 227-238.

Masten, A. S. (2006). Promoting resilience in development: A general framework for systems of care. In R. J. Flynn, P. M. Dudding, & J. G. Barber (Eds.), Promoting resilience in child welfare (pp. 3-17). Ottawa, ON: University of Ottawa Press.

Scales, P. C. (1999). Reducing risks and building developmental assets: Essential actions for promoting adolescent health. Journal of School Health, 69, 113-119.

Scales, P. C., Benson, P. L., Leffert, N., & Blyth, D. A. (2000). Contribution of developmental assets to the prediction of thriving among adolescents. Applied Developmental Science, 4, 27-46.

Statistics Canada (2008). Aboriginal peoples in Canada in 2006: Inuit, Métis and First Nations, 2006 Census. Catalogue 97-558-XIE. Ottawa: Statistics Canada.

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