Resilience in the lives of African-American men and women reared in substitute care

The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine the lived experience of nine African-American men and women who spent a significant amount of their childhood and adolescent years in the foster care system and the effects on their adult development. Participants were recruited for semi-structured interviews using purposeful and snowball sampling. Participants included nine African-American men and women ages 25 to 55 (mean = 43.3) identified as being raised for a minimum of five years in foster care with no less than three changes in foster care placement, they were legally and gainfully employed in a chosen field with evidence of progressive responsibility for a minimum of three years. They graduated from the foster care system at age 18 or 21 without being adopted and were reported to be in good physical and mental health. Participant interviews were audio-taped and transcribed verbatim. The resultant data corpus included transcriptions of the audio taped interviews, demographic and supplemental question forms and documents authorized for use by participants such as interviews and autobiographies. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was used to analyze the data corpus. The analysis resulted in eleven sub-ordinate themes that were organized under four super-ordinate themes that served to explain the lived experience of being raised in long-term foster care. The four super-ordinate themes were: Feeling thrown away while needing to belong; Participant's perceptions of memorable relationships while in care; Navigating the pathways to resilience; and Finding meaning through reconciling the past and creating a future. Study results were discussed in terms of a life-span exploration of the participants' lived experiences that included their time before placement, during placement and at emancipation/after placement. The substantive findings of this study showed that the overarching themes centered on how the participants navigated the multiple and complex relationships they were exposed to and what they learned about themselves and internalized based on the messages they received in those relationships. Of additional significance was the development of coping strategies to manage those feelings and beliefs that ultimately contributed to their resilience and survival.

Grantor dc:publisher

Temple University. Libraries

Year dc:date.issued

2009

Author dc:creator

• Moseley, Lovern R.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Hunt, Portia L.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Soucar, Emil
• DuCette, Joseph P.
• Hart, Gordon M.
• Krafft, Larry John, 1941-

• Psychology, General
• Social Work
• Education, Guidance and Counseling
• African American
• Foster Care
• Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis
• Resilience

Statement dc:rights

• IN COPYRIGHT- This Rights Statement can be used for an Item that is in copyright. Using this statement implies that the organization making this Item available has determined that the Item is in copyright and either is the rights-holder, has obtained permission from the rights-holder(s) to make their Work(s) available, or makes the Item available under an exception or limitation to copyright (including Fair Use) that entitles it to make the Item available.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Dc Identifier Other

864884669

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarshare.temple.edu:20.500.12613/1960