FAQs
How do you find out about resilience in this project?
We complete surveys with youth in foster care, their adult caregivers, and their teachers. Their answers provide us with insight into how these children view their world and cope with stress. By following how these children and families are adjusting over time, we can show what factors are important and necessary for youth exposed to maltreatment to recover.
How long does the survey take?
Parents usually complete the surveys in 45 minutes to 1 hour, and children take about 3 hours to finish – However, we take lots of breaks and can split up the survey into multiple appointments if that works best for families.
Who can be in the project?
We need children with the following criteria:
- At least 8 years old
- In Jackson County custody (in foster care)
- No diagnoses of mental retardation or autism
- Have completed their initial interviews with the Children's Division
- Have lived with an adult caregiver for at least one month
We can work with children who are in both foster homes and residential placements.
I adopted my child from foster care, can I be in the study?
Unfortunately at this time, only children in Jackson County custody are eligible. However, we would like to expand our project one day, and in the future, we hope to be able to include adoptive families as well. If you are interested - please let us know.
My child is in another county's custody, can I be in the study?
Unfortunately at this time, only children in Jackson County custody are eligible. We would like to expand to include other counties, so if you would like to contact us and let us know you are interested in participating in the future, we would love that!
I have multiple children. Can someone watch my other children who are not participating in the project while I complete the survey?
Yes! We have staff on-site to help with child care while you are working on the parent portion of the survey.
Aren't some of these questions pretty personal?
Yes, we do ask the children personal questions. However, their answers (and their adult caregivers' answers too) are completely confidential and private. All answers go into our computer program and are not associated with anyone's name. The only time our computer lets us know about anyone's answers is if they indicate they are being harmed or in danger of harming themselves or someone else.
Are these questions stressful?
Some parents worry that these questions will be overwhelming for their children. In our experience, most children handle these questions quite well. These questions have been used in other research projects with minimal risk.
The well-being of the youth in our study is our top priority, and we go to significant effort to make sure that all youth and families have a pleasant experience. To make sure that children and their caregivers are okay after answering survey questions, we do lots of following up and checking in with families. Also, all of our staff who administer the surveys are child psychology graduate students closely supervised by Dr. Jackson, a licensed, board-certified with many years of experience working with children who have been abused or neglected.