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Although the child welfare system has historically provided "independent living" services, youth aging out of foster care are at increased risk of negative outcomes such as poverty substance abuse, and homelessness. This manuscript builds upon the recent shift to "interdependent living" approaches by describing skills for various stages of relationships, including the youths relationship with their caseworker and foster family, centering around the need to define clear expectations and model healthy relationship skills. Youth must recognize their risk patterns and need for professional support, and develop educational/vocational goals for mentoring. Future relationships often include reconnecting with birth families and dating/romantic relationships, requiring an exploration of physical and emotional safety and establishment of healthy patterns for life-long relationships.

Treatment decision making has been influenced by the evidence-based practice movement, which encourages practitioners to make decisions based upon current research evidence, practice wisdom and ethics, and client values or preferences. This article offers a review of the treatment decision-making literature to identify decision-making drivers based on characteristics of the therapist and client. The narrative review includes surveys, case studies, and naturalistic studies of factors and processes involved in treatment decision making for mental health treatment. Naturalistic studies of decision-making factors reveal client problem formulation and motivation have a significant impact on treatment decision making. Implications for the conceptualization of evidence-based practice in social work and future directions for research in decision making are discussed.

AbstractObjectiveIn this research, a randomized controlled trial (RCT) tested the efficacy of two teen pregnancy prevention (TPP) curricula, Reducing the Risk and Love Notes, compared with a group of adolescents in a control condition, on primary pregnancy prevention among youth at high‐risk for teen pregnancy. A secondary purpose was to examine two potential mediators, negative beliefs about teen pregnancy and intentions to follow the sequence of completing education, marrying or establishing a committed relationship, and then having children.BackgroundTeen pregnancy rates for racial/ethnic minority youth in the United States are disproportionately high compared with White youth. Given the positive view of children in these populations and the drive for youth to form peer relationships and explore their sexuality, meeting these cultural and developmental needs within TPP may be critical.MethodsThe study examined the number of reported pregnancies across the first year after the interventions from a three‐arm, cluster RCT engaging 1,448 youth living in poverty between the ages of 14 and 19 years in 23 community‐based organizations in a southeastern U.S. city.ResultsAt the 1‐year follow‐up, youth in Love Notes report significantly fewer pregnancies compared with the control condition (18 pregnancies, 3.51%), F(2, 1,309) = 4.17, p = .02, d = 0.11. There was no significant difference between Reducing the Risk (31 pregnancies, 6.14%) and the control condition (27 pregnancies, 6.49%) in number of pregnancies. Less favorable attitudes about having a child as a teenager and other attitudes were associated with predicted outcomes.ConclusionsThis study provides additional evidence for the efficacy of Love Notes, which embeds sex education into a larger curriculum on life planning and healthy relationship formation and maintenance.Implications.TPP approaches need to add content on planning and relationships to comprehensive sexual education.

AbstractFew studies have examined romantic relationship attitudes and behaviors among ethnic or racial minority youth. The purpose of this study was to compare African American (AA) and mostly African refugee adolescents living in a U.S. city on romantic relationship attitudes and behaviors. A baseline questionnaire was given to 1448 adolescents between the ages of 14 and 19 from 2011 to 2014 as part of a larger study on teen pregnancy prevention (Barbee et al., 2016). The sample included both U.S.‐born AA youth and a sample of mostly African refugee youth. Eighty‐eight percent of youth were on free and reduced lunch and living in the highest poverty neighborhoods of a southern U.S. city. AAs reported more favorable life history expectations than refugees. In addition, refugee youth were more likely than AAs to see the ecology as dangerous and their lives as likely to be short. Results also found that AA youth were more secure and less avoidant in their attachment styles than refugee youth. Using a measure of romantic motives, refugee youth were more likely to display traits of "parasites" and less likely to be "partners" or "players" than AA youth. Implications for pregnancy outcomes, youth development, and interventions are discussed.

Children entering custody within the child welfare system have been found to have high levels of trauma and significant behavioral health needs. In this paper, authors demonstrate how a structured functional well-being assessment can be used with the custody population to promote an understanding of behavioral health needs, inform case planning, and measure functional improvement over time. Specifically, this paper will: (a) briefly describe how two states implemented a common standardized assessment of functioning to inform case planning and measure well-being progress of children in the custody of a public child welfare system (b) examine what this common assessment tool reveals about the strengths and needs of children entering custody across two sites and (c) describe the magnitude of change in functional improvement measured across 6 months. This paper will contribute to the existing knowledge by sharing possible themes in functioning related to children entering custody while examining changes in functioning over time. Implications for practice, policy, and future research will be discussed.