Participants

The sample comprises 55 foster children with their current primary caregiver. The participants were recruited through German youth welfare services around Dortmund and the Ruhr valley and the Franconian cities Erlangen and Nuremberg. At the time of the examination, the children were aged between 12 and 82 months (M = 35.87; SD = 18.37) and 50.9% were female (n = 28). The children had spent 78 days on average in their present foster families. Before the current placement 87.3% (n = 48) of the infants had either lived in short-term foster families or group-home care. There had been up to 5 changes of out-of-home-placement (M = 1.25, SD = 0.93). Information about foster children’s pre-placement experiences were given by the social workers from the youth welfare department. In 83.6% of the cases (n = 46) emotional abuse had been the reason for the foster family placement. Neglect has been reported in 74.5% of the cases (n = 41). Other reasons were psychological diseases of one of the parents, physical abuse or voluntary referral of the biological parents.

In most cases (n = 48; 87.3%) the foster mother was the primary caregiver participating with the child.