Influence of Staff Attitudes and Capacity on the Readiness to Adopt a Career Development and Employment Approach to Services in Child Welfare Systems.

ATTITUDE (Psychology); CHANGE; CHILD welfare; EMPLOYMENT; FOSTER children; FOSTER home care; GOODNESS-of-fit tests; LABOR supply; MEDICAL personnel; PATH analysis (Statistics); PROBABILITY theory; SCALE analysis (Psychology); SELF-evaluation; SUPERVISION of employees; SURVEYS; T-test (Statistics); VOCATIONAL guidance; TRANSITIONAL programs (Education); CROSS-sectional method; DESCRIPTIVE statistics

Young adults aging out of the nation's child welfare systems are often ill prepared to join the labor force. Poor vocational outcomes are partially explained by a lack of readiness to adopt best practice by foster care agency supervisors and staff. Findings from a survey that explored the influence of supervisor and staff capacity and attitudes on uptake of career development and employment best practices are presented. Implications are discussed for utilizing the survey as a tool to assist agency leadership in planning and implementing changes that support the vocational services needed to ensure the successful transition of young adults in foster care to the adult work world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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