Measuring school engagement for child welfare involved youth: Assessing the dimensionality of the Drug Free School Scale.

Background: Research using data from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW) have consistently used the scale developed from the Drug Free Schools and Communities Act (DFSCA) to examine school engagement. Although the DFSCA is widely used, no study has examined the factor structure to determine if the scale is best used as a summative score of all items or as a three-factor variable distinguishing behavioral, emotional, and cognitive school engagement.

Objective: The primary goal of this study was to evaluate the hypothesized factor structure of the DFSCA scale by testing models previously supported in the literature.

Mental Health and School Functioning for Girls in the Child Welfare System: the Mediating Role of Future Orientation and School Engagement.

This study investigated the association between mental health problems and academic and behavioral school functioning for adolescent girls in the child welfare system and determined whether school engagement and future orientation meditated the relationship. Participants were 231 girls aged between 12 and 19 who had been involved with the child welfare system. Results indicated that 39% of girls reported depressive symptoms in the clinical range and 54% reported posttraumatic symptoms in the clinical range.

Adaptation and implementation of a trauma-focused cognitive behavioral intervention for girls in child welfare.

This study describes the process of adapting and implementing Girls Aspiring toward Independence (GAIN), a trauma-focused, group-based therapy adapted from Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools (CBITS) for girls in child welfare. Descriptive data were examined on 3 outcomes: posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and social problem-solving skills among adolescent girls in the child welfare system. Qualitative and quantitative methods were utilized to inform the adaptation of the CBITS intervention, evaluate feasibility, treatment fidelity, and acceptability, and to test the effects of the intervention.