In Brief - Help from foster care.

Harvard Mental Health Letter, December, 2002

More than 500,000 American children are currently in foster care - twice as many as there were in 1980 and 35% more than in 1990. Many have serious health problems and emotional disturbances. In a study of 120 Connecticut children last year, researchers found that foster care can be helpful for these problems. The children, ages 1 to 6 years, were taken away from their parents because they had been neglected or abused or were at serious risk for neglect or abuse.

Foster parents (chiefly mothers) answered questionnaires when the child was first placed with them and again after six months and a year. The purpose was to measure the child's adaptive behavior, defined as behavior that met standards of personal independence and social sufficiency appropriate to the child's...