need help

Title

Educating Foster Parents to Enhance Knowledge of Assessment Comment by Angel: Assessment? What do you mean? What about: An intervention programme to promote attachement-related practices Enhancing parental practices: A workshop to improve practices which promote attachment Educating foster parents: improving parental practices to promote attachment. I don’t know…think about it ok?

Introduction and Background

Foster care is a temporary care-giving service for children who have been removed from their parent and/or guardian’s household to protect their survival, safety, and developmental needs (Mulcahy & Trocme, 2010). Relatives and/or non-relatives of the child can provide foster caregiving services and become their foster parents. Placing the children under the care of a relative is called kinship care (Hong, Algood, Chiu, & Lee, 2011). Group homes are residential settings that can be treatment-focused or a temporary placement for a child waiting for a foster home. These organizations have various individuals involved to support youth in their treatment and/or transitions. Foster, kinship, and group homes are the middle ground during which the biological parent(s) can take action towards the reason for child removal, to create a safe and nurturing environment for their child. If the parent is unsuccessful in creating the necessary conditions required for positive child development, then the child can be put up for adoption or be placed in long-term foster care (PHAC, 2010).

Canada reports statistics provincially because of the differing definitions of the requirements of placing children in foster care (PHAC, 2010). In 2008, there were an estimated 235,842 child maltreatment investigations, of which 85,440 were substantiated, resulting in 14.19 investigations per 1000 children (PHAC, 2010). Of the substantiated cases, 19.599 children were required to be removed from the current residences (PHAC, 2010). In addition, 82% of substantiated cases reported one type of maltreatment with physical abuse being the most frequent, whereas the remaining 18% reported more than one type of maltreatment - with neglect and exposure to intimate partner violence being the most frequent (PHAC, 2010). Public Health Agency of Canada (2010) reported exposure to intimate partner violence (34%) and neglect (34%) as the most frequent grounds for removal, followed by physical abuse (20%), emotional maltreatment (9%), and sexual abuse (3%). Public Health Agency of Canada identifies 46% of the children reported functioning issues: Academic difficulty (23%), internalizing disorders (19%), externalizing disorders (15%), attachment issues (14%), and/or academic and development disabilities (11%).

Children in foster care have experienced maltreatment in the form of neglect, abuse, and/or trauma. These children are removed from the current living circumstances in the hope to provide a better and safe environment to support their development. These children are a vulnerable population due to their experiences. Many children exhibit maladaptive behaviour, mental health concerns, and disruption in foster care placement (Rincon-Cortes & Sullivan, 2014; Scott, 2011). A protective factor noted for children in foster care is the development of a secure relationship (Rincon-Cortes & Sullivan, 2014; Scott, 2011). A protective factor as mentioned in this particular literature on adequate child development is the bond created between the child and its caregivers such as the parents. Research shows that for this emotional bond to grow, it has to be established in a safe environment (Porges, S. W. (2003)). When a child does not experience the protective factor and is exposed to violence and abuse, the emotional bonds are adversely affected negatively (Porges, S. W. (2003)). Children foster care plays a crucial role to ascertain the children’s well-being. Therefore, in this way, it is essential for the new bond to develop an attachment base during which the child feels protected, safe, a sense of belonging, and is emotionally understood within, therefore promoting the development of a secure relationship (Scott, 2011). Creating a secure relationship earlier can buffer negative effects of being in foster care (Rincon-Cortes & Sullivan, 2014). Children in foster care have experienced disruptions in attachment with their caregiver(s) or parents due to failure in fulfilling necessities.

The disruption influences their ability to form attachment with new parents. Without the development of a secure relationship, youth are put in a vulnerable position in which they feel lost, unsupported, and isolated; therefore, increasing their risk of negative mental health, problematic behaviour, placement disruption, loneliness, homelessness, poverty, and conflict with the law (Leve, Harold, Chamberlain, Landsverk, Fisher, & Vostanis, 2012; OCYA, 2013; Rincon-Cortes, 2014). This study seeks to explore the extent to which this 12-session programme provides and improves attachment-related knowledge and practices in foster parents on building attachment with the children, something which various existent attachment-based interventions such as Child-Centered Psychotherapy, Child-Parent Relational Therapy and Connect (Rincon-Cortes & Sullivan, 2014; Scott, 2011) have failed to provide emotional attachment. The existing interventions have failed to provide attachment-related knowledge because they have not carried out proper research on the subject matter. The population affected by Canadian foster care is important in the field of psychology due to the vast number of families involved. Individuals within these families are provided opportunities to enhance mental health to live their lives to the fullest, provide adequate care, validate past experiences, and empowerment to create a successful future. Comment by Angel: This sounds great!!! However, I think that it needs a little bit of work in terms of semantics. Re-word it. Or perhaps it is just me. But I would only change the last bit….”have failed to provide emotional attachment”?? What do you mean? Have failed to provide emotional attachment strategies? Practices? Training? Evidence? Just think the way in which you can end this amazing paragraph in a nice and convincing way ok? Comment by Angel: Whilst this might be a good idea, I am not sure whether you have enough evidence to support this. So…in short….you might need to provide evidence -perhaps before this paragraph- to support the idea that previous interventions and thus scholars/researchers have not researched well into this topic…which sounds quite dangerous to state UNLESS you have evidence. Why are you saying that? Or perhaps It is not that they have not researched, but rather that they have not gathered enough data to suggest that their interventions worked? Or did not work? You will have to base and complement these ideas I am giving with the literature you reviewed.

This research seeks to explore effectiveness of a 12-session programme in improving parents’ knowledge and understanding with regard to attachment. Thus leading to the research question: could a 12-session programme improve parent’s knowledge and understanding with regard to attachment?

Literature Review

The foster care has been regarded with significant amount of negative impact on it due to which there is scarcity of children being enrolled in the foster care as compared to the children being enrolled in other systems (AJ Litrownik, JA Landsverk - Child abuse & neglect, 2000). The researches have provided empirical evidence that many children in the foster care have been regarded with significant maltreatment in terms of physical, sexual, emotional, and psychological abuse (Leve, Harold, Chamberlain, Landsverk, Fisher, & Vostanis, 2012; Scott, 2011). Children are at a higher risk of performing poorly in other domains of their life, (i.e. socio-emotional development, academics, behavioural development, and psychological development) due to the various events occurring in their lives (Leve et al., 2012; PHAC, 2010; Scott, 2011). In addition, they exhibit disruption in attachment with their parents, guardians, siblings, and/or other relatives (PHAC, 2010) when the environment they grow in is unsafe. The lack of ability to bond with others, results in greater placement disruption, higher rates of internalizing disorders and externalizing symptoms, neurological changes, thereby hindering psychological development (Leve et al., 2012; PHAC, 2010). The transition to a foster home is a challenging experience in which the infant, child, and/or adolescent has to develop new relationships, adapt to a new culture, and move on from past adversities (ACC, 2010). Unfortunately, some youth continue to experience maltreatment within foster homes, which makes this transition even more challenging (ACC, 2010).

Attachment Impacting Foster Placement. Lack of placements for children in foster care has become a major concern in the Canadian foster care system resulting in inadequate criminal history record checks, fast process of placing a child in a home, and overcrowding of foster households (The Canadian Press, 2012). Moreover, there have been traces of inadequate care results in greater placement changes for youth, these are found resulting in lack of attachment, mental health concerns, problematic behaviour, academic struggles, and changes in socio-emotional development among the children (Kim & Leve, 2011; Walker, 2008). Anderson (2009) noted that 70% of the children in his study experienced placement instability where frequent moves affect the children. Age and insecure attachment were linked to greater placement instability. Greater placement disruption is associated with negative outcomes for the youth as it demonstrates continuous disruption in the care-giving system and changes within the child’s atmosphere (Khoo & Skoog, 2014; Leve et al., 2013).

Research on placement disruption (this is exiting the current placement for a negative reason) focuses on children in foster care, neglecting role of foster caregivers in contributing to placement disruption (Khoo & Skoog, 2014). Specifically, past research notes placement disruption due to the age of the child, problematic behaviour, and past experiences (Khoo & Skoog, 2014). (MA Taber - Children and youth services review, 1985) defined placement breakdown as as repeated moves among foster care placements, which reflect a pattern of reciprocal alienation and rejection between a child and successive caregivers. Placement breakdown is a result of a series of events in which the child, biological parents, foster caregivers, and social workers are involved (Khoo & Skoog, 2014). Khoo and Sjoog (2014) found in their study that, foster caregivers noted that the lack of knowledge they possessed about the biological family and the child; inadequate understanding of their role; lack of support; stress associated with being a foster caregiver; difficult experiences of and with the child; complex needs of the child; and a poor relationship with social worker, the child, and/or the biological family hindered their ability to parent the child effectively, causing strains within their lives and their relationships of all involved. Developing secure attachment is associated with greater placement stability as it allows the youth to develop meaningful relationships in which one feels loved, safe, accepted, and a sense of belonging (Leve et al., 2012).

Children in foster care are in a jeopardized position primarily due to the presence of multiple caregivers in multiple placements hindering their ability to develop an attachment bond with a primary caregiver (Hong et al., 2011; Prather & Golden, 2009). In addition, some caregivers who are committed to developing a secure relationship with children in foster care continue to face struggles in developing attachment, as these children may be very hesitant due to their past experiences of mistrust and safety (Oosterman & Schuengel, 2008; Prather & Golden, 2009). Developing secure relationship may be easier with younger children in comparison to older children. Research continues to demonstrate the ability to form a secure relationship when a child is placed in care before age-2 (Cornell & Hamrin, 2008; Dozier et al., 2009; Ponciano, 2010, Scott, 2011). Struggles in developing attachment for older children may be due to increased changes in attachment, longer experiences with disrupted and/or disorganized attachment, and internal working model that supports behaviour that restrict attachment, and increased contact with various individuals who aim to provide caregiving services. However, even children younger than age-2 who have experienced disrupted attachment, experience various detrimental changes that impact their ability to develop attachment, such as neurological changes that are shaped by experiences (Scott, 2011).

Can Attachment be built in Foster Care?

Building attachment within the foster home is a crucial task for children and caregivers. Joseph, O’Connor, Briskman, Maughan, and Scott (2014) assessed the hypothesis that past attachment relationships influence attachment within future relationships. More specifically, they noted children in foster care to have exhibited past insecure relationship, thereby limiting their ability to develop future secure relationship with subsequent caregivers. Therefore, experiences with abuse would be internalized by the child, influencing their perceptions of self, others, relationships, and normality (Joseph et al., 2014). Many of these adolescents had experienced multiple forms of maltreatment, placement disruption, and problematic behaviour. Joseph (2014) found 95% of adolescents in foster care exhibited insecure attachment with their birth parents. However, 46% of those adolescents were able to develop secure bond with their foster mothers and 49% with their foster fathers. Those who demonstrated secure attachment with their primary caregivers also demonstrated secure attachment with their foster parents. Adolescents who possessed secure attachment were younger when they were taken into care, experienced parental sensitivity, and had been in care for a longer period of time. The development of a secure bond with foster families resulted in fewer problematic behaviours and a greater sense of belonging and acceptance. Recent research has noted that attachment in foster care is crucial. Therefore, several interventions have been put in place to encourage the development of healthy attachment bonds.

Developing an intervention that works on the attachment relationship between foster caregivers and foster children is essential in promoting well-being of both parties. This in turn assists these children in developing healthy patterns that can assist them throughout their adulthood (Scott, 2011). Interventions note parental sensitivity as a crucial element in developing secure attachment. Parental sensitivity is a factor associated with secure attachment due to the level of commitment, delight, and emotional responsiveness towards a relationship (Bick & Dozier, 2013; Joseph, O’Connor, Briskman, Maughan, & Scott, 2014). Ponciano (2010) examined the role of maternal sensitivity in the promotion of secure attachment among 76 foster mothers and 58 foster children over a 9-month period. (KE Gleason 1998) defined maternal sensitivity as a mother's ability to perceive and infer the meaning behind her infant's behavioural signals, and to respond to them promptly and appropriately. Within the parent child dyads, 58% were able to develop secure attachment, whereas 42% of the youth continued to be classified under insecure attachment. The insecure attachment was caused by factors that affected the youth when growing up. These factors included, physical neglect, sexual abuse, separation from primary caregiver inconsistency in primary caregiver, among others. The parent-child dyads who were able to form secure attachment due to enhanced maternal sensitivity, were more likely to have only one-foster child, have fewer visits with biological parents, be younger, feel supported, and be considered for adoption by the same foster family (Ponciano, 2010).

Research has provided empirical evidence to suggest that successful intervention needs to target various systems that affect the child’s development, therefore, child-caregiver relationship, solidarity among co-caregivers, sources of support, culture of the client, developmental milestones, and effective education and training (Cornell & Hamrin, 2008; Hong et al., 2011). Interventions designed for foster parents need to provide them the knowledge to assist the child in repairing their past through acknowledgment, validation, and providing support to the child (Cornell & Hamrin, 2008). Interventions that have proven effective have mainly focus on understanding, validating, and growing from past experiences that involve a form of attachment between a primary caregiver and the child (TM Levy - 1999). Approaches used in successful interventions have included sessions ranging from play-therapy to psycho-education and psychotherapy (Stinchart, Scott, & Barfield, 2012). Attachment-related interventions aim to enhance attachment processes within families by changing dysfunctional patterns to make the family interactions more functional (TM Levy - 1999). A number of empirical studies have shown that interventions with parents are an effective strategy to enhance attachment within the family. These studies however have not shown much focus on foster parents. The literature review that forms a basis of empirical studies in this topic have mainly focused on countries such as Australia, Argentina, Mongolia and Iraq. There is however, no such research in Canada. The situation in Canada currently with regards to foster care is of great importance given that the country does not keep reliable statistics on children but instead rely on provincial reporting. This therefore calls for the need to pay great attention to the appropriate long term strategy related to foster programmes like; training foster parents in order to acquire appropriate attachment-related parental practices in so as to improve Canadian Foster Parents System. Further explore the effectiveness of an intervention program of this nature in Canada based on the12-session programme in improving parents’ perception and understanding with regard to attachment.

Research Question

Could a 12-session programme improve parent’s knowledge and understanding with regard to attachment?

Aim(s) and Objectives

Aim:

The aim of this study is to explore effectiveness of a 12-session programme in improving parents’ knowledge and understanding with regard to attachment.

Objectives

· To explore parents’ perception with regard to parent-child attachment prior to the workshop.

· To design, plan and facilitate a 12-session psycho-educational programme

· To implement and facilitate the workshop Comment by Angel: You already said this in the previous one

· To explore parents’ understanding with regard to attachment after the workshop.

· To analyze the extent to which the workshop had an impact on the foster parents’ perception. Comment by Angel: Knowledge regarding attachment.

Methods

Design: 

This study will follow a qualitative approach. This method is the most preferred for its suitability in analysing quality of contents in the respondents’ feedbacks by making use of pre-post design methodology (Rummel & Bitchener, 2015). The nature of the workshop will demand the use of open-ended questions in most cases with some answers being exclusively descriptive. The advantages of pre-post design is valuable to the 12-programe session workshop in that it illustrates as well as documents individual knowledge gains of parents of the workshop participants. Secondly, pre-test enables accurate placement of participants upon entry to the workshop while post-test does the same upon completion of the workshop. Therefore, through pre-post design, the perception of the parents before and after the process would be known which would be helping in getting results required to determine how effective the workshop for a 12-session programme was. While the disadvantage of this design is that it is hard to conclude the positive change in a pre and post-test due to learning in the workshop or simply natural maturation Comment by Angel: Great!! reference Comment by Angel: Are you going to have different groups? For Placement? Comment by Angel: This is a perfect sentence!!! Which is actually your justification in the use of a pre-post design. You must put this idea along with your decision to use a pre-post design and put a reference ok? Just to make it stronger Comment by Angel: Great!! But just end with an advantage…follow this formula… Whilst with this research design might be difficult to conclude the whole impact of the workshop due to the impact of confounding variables, it wil shed light…it will provide…it will help discover…it will contribute…it will give evidence….etc etc etc Choose the best option ok? And re-worded it. Now, we are in the phase of strengthen your arguments. Good job!!

(Joseph,O’Connor, Briskman, Maughan & Scott, 2014). Second, due to the similar questions in pre-test, some participants may absorb knowledge just from taking the test and will attend more readily to the content. However, as discussed before by conducting a pre-post design, the value added by the 12-programme session would be attained, and would also provide with the knowledge concerning the understanding of the factors involved in attachment better. Comment by Angel: The same with this disadvantage…end up with an advantage ok? Use a comma (,) and a ”However” and then state the advantage in a two-ideas sentence. Comment by Angel: Great! Just finish with a relevant and strong advantage of the design…

Sampling:

This study will make use of a convenience sample (Wilson & MaClean, 2011). This means that foster parents who are identified and are interested in participating in the study would only be selected (Hurst & Arulogun, 2015). The sample size will comprise 20 participants chosen from a population of 200 foster parents. Twenty participants are 10% of the accessible population of participants. The 10% is seen as optimal sample since it relatively small and can, therefore, give accurate results (Hurst & Arulogun, 2015).The population size is the number of potential participants that the researcher personally contacts and gives the pre-test interview. The 20 participants are those that emerged top 20 in the pre-test interview and meets inclusion criteria. Unifying characteristics of the subjects in the sample will be the fact that each of them is engaged in foster care attachment programs. Furthermore, this study seeks to recruit participants from a population of Caucasian and other minority groups such as the aboriginals because reports indicate that these minority groups benefit more from the foster care attachment programs than the white majority (Hong, Algood, Chiu & Lee, 2011). The researcher will use a multi-racial church as recruitment grounds for sample subjects because the church attendees are registered and, therefore, it will be easy to identify the background credibility of the participants. The researcher is member of this church hence this place to get the size of sample without difficulty. Comment by Angel: Why them? Identified by who? On the basis of what? Because of certain characteristics….etc..which are essential for this study in order to address the RQ and or in order to meet the main aim of the study or … Comment by Angel: This is not clear. What do you want to say in here? You have already stated that you will recruit 20 participants… Emerged? Have you done this? Why in past tense? The researcher personally contacts??? In present tense? I do not get it… Comment by Angel: I have seen this hundreds of times in previous versions and I just don’t get what you are referring to. What does been registered mean?

Inclusion criteria:

Group1:

· Subjects in the sample will be all married couples. This is because only married couple are allowed by law to become foster parent and, therefore, they are the ones with experience of foster care.

· Participants should be enrolled in a foster parents programme for at least 10 years.

· The participants should have been a couple for at least 30 years. Comment by Angel: Married unmarried? Civil union? Married by the church?

Exclusion criteria

Group1:

· Only one parent can make a commitment to attend the 12-session psycho-educational programme Comment by Angel: That means that one inclusion criteria would be that of being able to participate the two persons of the couple right? State cleary

· If the age is less than 30 or more than 50 then he/she would be excluded. Couples whose ages are less than 30 are not highly knowledgeable on parenting matters while couple aged beyond 50 have enough experience on parenting matters but might not be energetic enough for the workshop

Data Collection/Materials:

This study will make use of structured interviews in order to gather participants’ perception about attachment before the 12-session workshop. The structure of the interviews was based upon an extensive literature review of previous case studies on attachment (Feddern & Elklit, 2014). The researcher decided on using questions inspired by previous case studies because such questions have been tested and, therefore, are standard attachment questions necessary in determining the needed results. In other words, the researcher selected 10 questions which have been mostly intended to understand the perception of attachment patterns between children and the foster parents. However, short interviews might also exclude too much information (Feddern & Elklit, 2014). The data will be collected from the foster parents for both the pre-test and the post-test. Interview is a more interactive method of data collection in which a researcher questions, consults, or evaluates one or more persons. It can be written or verbal as well as structured or unstructured (Hurst & Arulogun, 2015). Moreover, in this research these interviews will be used in order to understand the perception of the foster parents. The interviews are conducted in various study and scholarly articles which rationalise the point that the use of interviews is reliable and validated (Oldham, J. M., & Rosnick, L. (1990. Furthermore, the interviews are found to be a fast task which helps in accessing the responses in a faster and flexible manner, which means that the data collection has been achieved in less than expected time period (Boyce, C., & Neale, P. (2006)). This also includes the idea that the data collected through these interviews are the most reliable resources as they are first handed attained by the researchers. In general, interviews Interviews are a useful method to investigate issues in an in depth way, discover how individuals think and feel about a topic and why they hold certain opinions, investigate the use, effectiveness and usefulness of particular library collections and services, inform decision making, strategic planning and resource allocation, sensitive topics which people may feel uncomfortable discussing in a focus group, add a human dimension to impersonal data and deepen understanding and explain statistical data (Boyce, C., & Neale, P. (2006). Comment by Angel: Proven to be trustworthy and are appropriate to gathering the necessary information in order to address the main aim of this study…. Comment by Angel: Delete Comment by Angel: Ok you need to organise the info. This study will use structured interviews (why?) beucas these are useful for A B C Researcher developed the format based on previous studies which proves trustworthiness etc etc etc etc The structured interviews contains 10 main questions which will be used…EXPLAIN clearly the structured of your DATA-COLLECTION strategy ok? Strengths and advantages of these structured interviews (supported with academic references) If you are to mention imitations, follow the formula I already explained before ok? Just put the information together in categories… ok? This looks like disorganised. Comment by Angel: Different font?? And size?

Hurst & Arulogun (2015 defines data collection instruments as devices utilised in collecting data such as an interview schedule that allows lay interviewers or clinicians to make psychiatric diagnoses according to DSM-III criteria, Feighner criteria, and Research Diagnostic Criteria. Instruments are also referred to as methodologies used in identifying information sources. Comment by Angel: Why is this separated? What does DSM diagnosis have to do in here?

Procedure:

The process that would be undertaken to achieve this data collection will be:

1. First of all permission from the church authorities will be requested. Once the permission from the authorities has been granted, the researcher will access the venue and contact potential participants. The fact that many children-attachment centres are based in churches, the researcher will use a multi-racial church as recruitment grounds for sample subjects. The church attendees’ are registered by the church as its members and, therefore, it will be easy to identify the background credibility of the participants who have been members of the church for a long time. Comment by Angel: Children-attachment? Or foster care you meant>? Comment by Angel: What do you mean by this?

2. Then the researcher will personally attend the worship in the church and explain purpose of the study to congregation. The researcher is a member of this church and this will facilitate having access to participants.

3. Contact interested applicants and brief them about the study, including potential risks vs. benefits, explaining psycho-educational group rather than treatment groups, explaining voluntary nature of this study, addressing further questions.

4. The interested people will be provided with complete consent and privacy form as an ethical measure to ensure confidentiality of information.

Participants will be given structured interview containing pre-test questions. This will take place in the location of the workshop which will be in the church. The only condition is that answers to the questions will be established in advance. Comment by Angel: This still does not make sense. Please tell me in plain English what you mean with this because I am lost

5. After pre-test, the workshop begins, it will be conducted in Genesis (researcher’s church), a community location convenient to individuals of the Community, every 2nd and 4th Wednesday except for statutory holiday for approximately 2-hours per session in the researcher’s church.

6. During the post-assessment, participants will be interviewed by using structured interview used in the pre-assessment in order to gather information regarding their knowledge of attachment on after completion of programme.

Analysis : Comment by Angel: As previously stated I think I need to see the 10 questions of the structured interview format you have built so I can better advise about the analysis strategies… Send it to me ok? Via BB and let me know via email…

The responses collected from the pre-post interviews will be analysed using content analysis method (Ritchie et al., 2013). This study will use formative content analysis for pre-tests and evaluative content analysis for post-test analysis (CJ Bonk, C Angeli - Instructional science, 2000). Formative method will assess the state of knowledge of participants. Evaluative method analyses (FR Volkmar, DV Cicchetti - Journal of autism 2008) data on impact on perceptions and behaviour of participants towards what they have learnt in the workshop and whether there should be changes in context of the workshop in future. Evaluative content analysis helps in assessing effectiveness of a program (Ritchie et al., 2013). Content analysis is the best method for analysing data which is qualitative in nature. The advantage of this method is that it analyses contents of each communication elements to asses if there is any worth in the elements (Ritchie, Lewis, Nicholls & Ormston, 2013). Researcher will collect responses from pre-test, validate worth of answers given, compute average and rate extent of participant knowledge the way it is done in standard school classrooms. In content analysis, the researcher looks at responses and their values, sentence structures and wordings of those sentences because content analysis utilises all the elements of a communication process to determine credibility and worth of information. The post-tests will then be collected as well and computed to see the level of knowledge gained after the workshop. This is done by calculating the mean deviation between pre-test average and post-test average. To determine whether the 12-session programme has improved knowledge of participants with regard to foster care, the answers given will be further analysed to assess whether they determine perception of participants on foster care. Comment by Angel: ?????????????????????? I really need to see the format ok?

Ethical Considerations:

Ethical considerations will be undertaken as well. The first step will be to obtain ethical approval of research from the University of Liverpool. This will be done by filling out an Ethical Approval form with details of the proposed research and measures taken to observe ethics during the research. This research proposal will be reviewed by a panel of experts of the Ethics Review Board.

The participating church will be of support with no doubts on the research, but still will need the confidentiality of the participants as they will need to approve the research to be ethical. To this effect, a proper a proper consent and privacy form will be completed to ensure confidentiality of the information. This form also, formally, assures the church of the legality of the entire process. Comment by Angel: Be more straightforward…. If the church has an ethical-related office and protocol and procedure…just mention that you will follow such procedure… Comment by Angel: ????

This will also include the participants not being asked for their personal information such as name, helping them to stay focussed towards the survey and also provide responses with less biasness. Moreover, various ethical considerations would be taken into consideration such as (1) Promoting a safe and confidential environment in which participants can disclose, (3) ensuring participants understand the results of the study will ensure their privacy and confidentiality, and (4) lastly, ensuring participants their responses will not be judged (Ritchie et al., 2013).  Comment by Angel: will

The third step would be ensuring the participants that the gathered data would not be published under their names, this means that even the future researches based on this research would not be able to know the name and other specifications of the participants would be leaked. Lastly, researcher would also be accompanying the foster parents. Therefore, they would not get a chance to understand the child’s perception of attachment within that relationship (Zikmund, Babin, Carr & Griffin, 2012). All data will only be accessed by the researcher alone. Under no circumstance will anyone, other than the researcher, be granted access to the gathered data. This information will be kept safe in laptops that are password protected. Comment by Angel: Just say that Anonymity and confidentiality will be addressed at al times in the study and that nobody will have access to the information gathered but you and your supervisor. Be clear…brief…concise…and straightforward Comment by Angel: will ensure that… Comment by Angel: This seems totally irrelevant…or….perhaps I did not get your point….what’s the point of this? Comment by Angel: Great!!!

Research Outcomes Comment by Angel: Some good ideas over here. We will be working on this section as soon as we finish the previous ones.

This study is of importance to the field of psychology as a vast numbers of families are involved with child and family services. Findings from this study will be beneficial to the field of attachment in foster homes, as this may be a possible route for parents to engage in to effectively assist the needs of the individuals involved in their care. The study will devise methods which can be used to encourage child cooperation by utilising theories of contingency as well as effective limit setting. The logic will be to try and balance encouragement and limits.

This study will hence provide with the idea and understanding in regard to the perception of the foster parents concerning the care-giving that has to be given to the children for a better future, rather than providing them with a strict environment that would end up into a criminal record. This has also been expected from this study that its publication would also enhance the understanding of the caregiving authorities around that globe regarding the critical situation that has been faced by the children living in these care giver programmes. More specifically the pre-test would be providing the real picture if the perception that are acquired by the care givers before the 12 session psycho-educational programme. This perception will also provide with the reason which cause a gap between the children and the foster parents. After the completion of the 12 session of the psycho-educational programme the participants interview will then provide with not only the understanding created by the foster parents but also with the measures of the impact of this psycho-educational programme on the foster parents and their perceptions. Lastly, there is an exception of great deal change in the perception of these foster parents (Dominick et al., 2012).

- Find factors that are integral in the various attachments, i.e. secure attachment.

- Assess role of a helping professional in facilitating such relationships.

Costs

All costs will be met by the Foster parents.

Timetable

References

   Ferguson, L., Follan, M., Macinnes, M., Furnivall, J., & Minnis, H. (2011). Residential childcare workers' knowledge of Reactive Attachment Disorder. Child and Adolescent Mental Health, 16(2), 101-109. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-3588.2010.00575.x

Giannotta, F., Ortega, E., & Stattin, H. (2013). An attachment parenting intervention to prevent adolescents’ problem behaviors: A pilot study in Italy. Child Youth Care Forum, 42, 71-85. doi: 10.1007/s10566-012-9189-3

Golden, J. A. (2009). Introduction to a special issue on the assessment of children with Reactive Attachment Disorder and the treatment of children with attachment difficulties or a history of maltreatment and/or foster care. Behavioral Development Bulletin, 15, 1-3. Retrieved from http://www.baojournal.com/BDB%20WEBSITE/BDB-spring-2012/BDB-15%20Spring.pdf

Hong, J. S., Algood, C. L., Chiu, Y, & Lee, S. A. (2011). An ecological understanding of kinship foster care in the United States. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 20, 863-872. doi: 10.1007/s10826-011-9454-3

Ippen, C. G., Harris, W. W., Horn, P. V., & Lieberman, A. F. (2011). Traumatic and stressful events in early childhood: Can treatment help those at highest risk?. Child Abuse & Neglect, 35, 504-513. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2011.03.009

Joseph, M. A., O’Connor, T. G., Briskman, J. A., Maughan, B., & Scott, S. (2014). The formation of secure new attachments by children who were maltreated: An observational study of adolescents in foster care. Development and Psychopathology, 26, 67-80. doi: 10.1017/S0954579413000540

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