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Emerging adult peer provider specialists and successful college participation: An innovation study
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Content
Emerging Adult Peer Provider Specialists
and Successful College Participation:
An Innovation Study
by
Kristin L. Dempsey
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION
August 2018
Copyright 2018 Kristin L. Dempsey
ii
Dedication
For Mr. Doctor Dempsey
Adam Holbrook Wood
iii
Acknowledgements
First, I thank Adam Wood for believing in me and for being present, curious, and
encouraging throughout this effort. Much thanks and love to my mom, Joyce Dempsey, who
taught me to believe in the transformative power of education and teachers and helped inspire all
my academic endeavors. Special thanks to Ann-Marie Murphy and Nancy Bavis for believing in
me and encouraging me to get a doctorate. They never gave up.
I also want to thank so many people in the northern California behavioral/mental health
community. Many of you found value in this research and did your best to support my efforts in
any way possible. Thank you for supporting strength-based research and helping me discover
and share these compelling voices.
I want to acknowledge the amazing women who participated in the study. Each of you
made this research inspiring and meaningful and I cannot thank you enough for sharing you time
and your stories. This work belongs to you.
Finally, I would like to acknowledge my cohort colleagues and faculty/dissertation
advisors who offered endless support and input. I am so grateful to have received your
tremendous support and encouragement throughout this journey. My committee members, Dr.
Susanne Foulk and Dr. Angela Hasan, provided implementation insight and inspiration and
helped me recognized the importance of this work. Special thanks to Dr. Eugenia Mora-Flores
and Dr. Frances Castillo for their persistence in understanding my work and thoughtfully
supporting how to best share the incredible insight and wisdom I was so fortunate to have
received from remarkable participants.
iv
Table of Contents
LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................................... viii
LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................................... ix
ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... x
CHAPTER ONE. Introduction to the Problem of Practice............................................................. 1
Organizational Context and Mission ................................................................................................................. 1
Organizational Performance Status/Need ....................................................................................................... 4
Related Literature ......................................................................................................................................................... 6
Importance of the Organizational Innovation ............................................................................................... 7
Organizational Performance Goal ....................................................................................................................... 9
Description of Stakeholder Groups ................................................................................................................. 10
Stakeholder Group for the Study ...................................................................................................................... 12
Purpose of the Project and Questions ............................................................................................................. 13
Methodological Framework ................................................................................................................................ 14
Organization of the Study ..................................................................................................................................... 15
CHAPTER TWO: Review of the Literature ................................................................................. 17
Factors Influencing the Educational Performance of Youth in Foster Care ............................. 18
Challenges of Engaging Youth in Foster Care in Higher Education ................................ 18
Factors Related to Gaps in Foster Youth Educational Achievement ............................... 19
Systemic Deficits in Higher Education for Youth in Foster Care ...................................... 20
Peer Providers as Support Professionals ...................................................................................................... 22
Impact of Peer Providers in Health Care and Education ........................................................... 23
Youth Peer Providers as Potential Support Professionals for Youth in
Foster Care .................................................................................................................................................. 24
The Gap Analytic Conceptual Framework .................................................................................................. 27
v
Stakeholder Knowledge and Motivation Influences .............................................................................. 28
Knowledge and Skills........................................................................................................................................... 28
Knowledge Influences ......................................................................................................................................... 30
Motivation ..................................................................................................................................................................... 35
Organizational Influences ................................................................................................................................. 40
Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................................................... 46
CHAPTER THREE: Methodology ............................................................................................... 48
Conceptual Framework .......................................................................................................................................... 49
Participating Stakeholders .................................................................................................................................... 55
Interview Sampling Criteria and Rationale.......................................................................................... 57
Survey Sampling Criteria and Rationale................................................................................................ 58
Survey Sampling Strategy and Rationale .............................................................................................. 58
Data Collection and Instrumentation .............................................................................................................. 59
Surveys ............................................................................................................................................................................ 59
Interviews ...................................................................................................................................................................... 60
Documents and Artifacts.................................................................................................................................... 61
Data Analysis ............................................................................................................................................................... 62
Credibility and Trustworthiness ........................................................................................................................ 62
Validity and Reliability .......................................................................................................................................... 63
Ethics ................................................................................................................................................................................ 64
Limitations and Delimitations ............................................................................................................................ 66
CHAPTER FOUR: Results ........................................................................................................... 68
Study Participants ...................................................................................................................................................... 69
Findings .......................................................................................................................................................................... 72
Knowledge .................................................................................................................................................................... 73
vi
Knowledge of Campus Supports ................................................................................................................. 73
Financial Knowledge ............................................................................................................................................ 75
Asking for Help as Skill for Obtaining Mentorship ...................................................................... 78
Creating Opportunities for Natural Mentorship ............................................................................... 79
Ability to Self-Regulate ...................................................................................................................................... 81
Knowledge of Mental Health Resources ............................................................................................... 82
Ability to Manage Time ..................................................................................................................................... 85
Motivation ..................................................................................................................................................................... 87
Self-efficacy................................................................................................................................................................. 88
Self-Efficacy and Mentoring........................................................................................................................... 92
Self -Efficacy vs. Self -Concept ................................................................................................................... 97
Self-concept and stigma...................................................................................................................................... 98
Intrinsic Motivation ............................................................................................................................................ 100
Organization .............................................................................................................................................................. 102
Organizational Strengths ................................................................................................................................. 103
Organizational weaknesses ........................................................................................................................... 107
Discussion................................................................................................................................................................... 108
CHAPTER FIVE:Discussion and Recommendations ................................................................ 113
Discussion of Study Findings .......................................................................................................................... 114
Recommendations .................................................................................................................................................. 116
Knowledge Recommendations ................................................................................................................... 117
Procedural knowledge description of needs or assets ............................................................... 122
Motivation Recommendations .................................................................................................................... 124
Organization Recommendations ............................................................................................................... 128
Integrated Implementation and Evaluation Plan ................................................................................... 137
vii
Implementation and Evaluation Framework .................................................................................... 137
Organizational Purpose, Need and Expectations .......................................................................... 138
Level 4: Results and Leading Indicators. ........................................................................................... 139
Level 3: Behavior ................................................................................................................................................. 141
Level 2: Learning.................................................................................................................................................. 146
Evaluation Tools ................................................................................................................................................... 151
Data Analysis and Reporting ....................................................................................................................... 152
Summary ..................................................................................................................................................................... 154
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................................. 155
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................... 157
APPENDIX A. Survey Items ...................................................................................................... 180
APPENDIX B: General Self-Efficacy Scale .............................................................................. 181
APPENDIX C. Interview Protocol ............................................................................................. 182
APPENDIX D. University of Southern California Informed Consent/Information Sheet ......... 185
APPENDIX E. Recruitment Letter ............................................................................................. 188
APPENDIX F. Student Satisfaction and Learning Evaluation ................................................... 189
APPENDIX G. Student Satisfaction, Learning, Behavior and Outcomes Evaluation ............... 190
APPENDIX H. Student Satisfaction, Learning, Behavior and Outcomes Evaluation 2 ............ 192
APPENDIX I. Sample Items on Skill Development Report....................................................... 193
viii
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1. Stakeholder Groups' Performance Goals ....................................................................... 12
Table 2. Knowledge Influences for College Graduates Formerly Involved in Foster Care ........ 34
Table 3. Motivational Influences for College Graduates Formerly Involved in Foster Care ...... 40
Table 4. Organizational Influences .............................................................................................. 44
Table 5. Demographics of Study Participants.............................................................................. 70
Table 6. Identified College Supports that Promote College Success........................................... 75
Table 7. Summary of Knowledge Influences and Recommendations ....................................... 119
Table 8. Summary of Motivation Influences and Recommendations ........................................ 126
Table 9. Summary of Organizational Influences and Recommendations .................................. 129
Table 10. Outcomes, Metrics, and Methods for External and Internal Outcomes ..................... 140
Table 11. Critical Behaviors, Metrics, Methods, and Timing for Evaluation ........................... 142
Table 12. Required Drivers to Support Critical Behaviors ........................................................ 145
Table 13. Components of Learning for the Program ................................................................. 150
Table 14. Components to Measure Reactions to the Program ................................................... 151
ix
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Relationship between organization, stakeholders, and stakeholder goal. ..................... 53
x
ABSTRACT
This study addresses the problem of low college completion rates among students formerly
involved in foster care systems. This qualitative research study identified the knowledge,
motivational, and organizational factors that supported college completion among eight college
graduates formerly placed in foster care. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data
and six Storyboard online videos were also reviewed for thematic content addressing the factors
that contributed to college success among the former foster youth. The resulting data will be used
to create an Emerging Adult Peer Specialists curriculum to former foster youth to support other
students transitioning from foster care to college. Knowledge factors contributing to successful
college completion included specific knowledge on financial aid, housing, health, and academic
resources, and how to access these resources, as well as self-awareness to promote self-
regulation. Motivational factors that promoted self-efficacious behavior and intrinsic motivation
included seeking out and identifying mentors, attitudes supportive of educational goals and
behaviors, and finding ways to combat stigma were identified motivational factors supporting
college completing. Programs for students with foster care histories, the safety and predictability
of college campuses, and the need for increased academic preparation in independent living
skills programs were identified and important organizational factors promoting college
completion. The data was used to create an implementation and evaluation plan for the Emerging
Adult Peer Specialist program, which is summarized at the end of the study.
Keywords: College Success Factors, Emerging Adults, Foster Care, Knowledge,
Mentorship, Motivation, Peer Specialists, Stigma Reduction
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 1
CHAPTER ONE. Introduction to the Problem of Practice
The challenges of growing up as a child in the foster care system extend beyond
childhood. One significant problem facing youth raised in the foster care system is their low rates
of college completion. More than 62,000 children live in foster care arrangements throughout
California (Kidsdata.org, n.d.). These youths have low rates of college graduation, with the
majority of youth involved in the system dropping out early and few receiving college degrees
(Courtney, Dworsky, Lee, & Raap, 2010; Day, Dworsky, Fogarty, & Damashek, 2011; Smith,
2011). This is an important problem to solve as in the U.S., as individuals who complete college
earn an average of 66% more than those who do not go to college, are far less likely to face
unemployment, and earn an average of one million more over the course of their lifetime than
those without a college degree. (U.S. Department of Education, 2015) Having a college degree is
necessary in an economy in which it is predicted that two-thirds of all jobs in 2020 will require
some type of college education (U.S. Department of Education, 2015). Education provides youth
with needed skills and social capital that provides increased opportunities for employment and
independent functioning in the larger community (Courtney & Hook, 2017). Not finishing
college imperils foster-involved youths’ abilities to effectively participate in the larger culture
and move out of the marginalized positions many find themselves in as youth formerly involved
in the foster care system.
Organizational Context and Mission
The Behavioral Health Workforce Collaborative (pseudonym) is a collaboration of
educational institutions and mental health and substance use disorder treatment providers who
have come together to strategize how to build the future behavioral health workforce in the San
Francisco Bay Area and increase the skills of the incumbent workforce. The Behavioral Health
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 2
Workforce Collaborative (BHWC) is composed of educational institutions, county behavioral
health workforce development teams, community-based behavioral healthcare providers, and
individuals who are interested in the issues surrounding the skill and attitude development of the
local behavioral healthcare workforce. The behavioral healthcare workforce includes
professionals trained in medicine, psychology, social work, and counseling. These workers have
either central or supportive roles in providing mental health and/or substance use disorder
treatment in a variety of outpatient and inpatient healthcare settings, as well as in jails, prisons,
schools and universities. The organization is funded through California’s Mental Health Services
Act (MHSA). The mission of the BHWC is to support the creation of a workforce that is
culturally diverse and provides wellness and recovery-oriented and evidence-based behavioral
health treatment for individuals, groups, and families through all developmental stages: infants,
children, adolescents, adults, and older adults. This mission is directly related to the behavioral
health workforce goals as promoted by MHSA: (a) creating a more culturally diverse and
responsive workforce, (b) increasing the involvement of consumers and family members as
providers, and (c) reducing mental health stigma while promoting a wellness and recovery-
oriented practice of behavioral healthcare delivery (Office of Statewide Health Planning and
Development [OSHPD], 2014). Regional workforce partnerships such as BHWC have been
created to create curricula, programming, and training opportunities that support training of
behavioral workforce providers with the assumption that improved diversity and training among
behavioral health care staff translates into improved treatment services in the community.
BHWC seeks opportunities to identify workforce development and service delivery gaps
that can be resolved by developing or adopting useful tools or practices to close these gaps.
BHWC's work has primarily responded to the needs of adults, but addressing youth involved in
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 3
the foster system will allow the organization to expand its services to a community that needs the
additional support. Engaging youth with prior foster care involvement in creating a curriculum to
train emerging adult behavioral health peer specialists addresses a number of BHWC's goals,
specifically: increasing the diversity of the workforce, engaging underrepresented youth in the
curriculum development, and ultimately offering the Emerging Adult Peer Specialist training to
youth formerly involved in foster care.
Youth involved in the foster care system would be considered a target group to receive
MHSA-funded services. These youths typically represent cultural groups that are poorly served
by current behavioral health practices (Kidsdata.org, n.d.). Such groups include ethnic
minorities, trauma survivors, and youth with behavioral, emotional, and/or physical disabilities
(California Department of Mental Health, 2005).
The BHWC has one full-time-equivalent project manager supported by a half-time
project assistant who completes most of the clerical assignments. The BHWC has a 10-member
steering committee that provided programmatic guidance by ensuring that organizational
activities are consistent with the organization's strategic plan. The BHWC consists of behavioral
health providers and college and university faculty members from 12 Bay Area counties, the city
of Berkeley, 32 community-based organizations (CBOs), and 13 colleges or universities. As the
universities serve the needs of the local behavioral health employers, the BHWC is able to
provide important educational linkage and support between universities and these behavioral
health providers. Community members, employers, faculty, and administrators use the BHWC as
a resource for innovative teaching and training practices and as a location to find collaborators
and potential financial resources.
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 4
BHWC is open to any county, CBO, or college/university that would like to participate in
programming. The county membership remains stable, but participation by colleges/universities
and CBOs varies. Due to turnover in participating CBOs and education institutions, BHWC
frequently loses its connections to these organizations as individuals leave positions or are hired
into new jobs. Such turnover and the relative low priority assigned to consistently addressing
workforce needs in many organizations keeps the BHWC active membership to between 30 and
40 members at any given time. The BHWC project manager thus works to promote, build, and
maintain connections with all participants in addition to managing the other ongoing BHWC
planning and training activities. The project manager further assists with allocating resources
among the BHWC projects, which might include three to four events or research/writing projects
at any given time.
The BHWC consists of dozens of organizations with diverse employee and stakeholder
memberships, but there was no available information documenting the ethnic or gender
breakdown of the organizations. Among the stakeholders are programs and providers who serve
youth, including traditionally at risk youth, as well as peer providers who use their lived
experiences and formal training to deliver culturally competent and relevant services to their
specific clientele. As members of BHWC, these stakeholders participate in meetings, forums,
and training to discover or develop tools they can use to improve services. These specific
stakeholders seek opportunities to bring others with relevant cultural and lived experiences into
the meetings in order to improve program development, delivery, and evaluation.
Organizational Performance Status/Need
The BHWC has successfully created innovative programming such as clinical practice
tool kits, curricula, and competency assessments. The stakeholders benefitting from these
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 5
resources include various ethnic/racial communities, low socio-economic and diverse college
students, and peer healthcare providers. Although the BHWC has identified ways to improve the
behavioral health and education opportunities of many underserved communities, it has not
provided innovation for how to address the educational attainment gaps of youth with foster care
involvement, many of whom have been receiving behavioral health and social services from
BHWC's members. The BHWC itself would be failing its mission to identify ways to achieve its
goals, as the mission requires producing deliverables that address the identified workforce needs
that ultimately improve the behavioral health and life functioning of diverse Californians.
Currently, BHWC provides innovative programming for some, but not all, of California’s under-
represented cultural groups. Providing a curriculum for emerging youth peer providers creates a
pathway for the needs of this particular under-represented group to be addressed. Identifying
ways to engage youth with system involvement as consultants in creating a curriculum also has
the potential to serve as a model creating additional programming for all emerging youth.
The BHWC currently has no programming in place to respond to the specific needs of
youth with histories of foster care involvement. In fact, much of the evidence-based programs
and workforce development efforts are oriented toward meeting the needs of the general
behavioral health community, with little focus on the needs of youth in general. Identifying the
motivation and knowledge youth with foster care histories need to successfully complete
academic goals will provide needed information for how to create targeted curriculum for current
emerging adults starting their academic careers. Such a resource can be used for other youth
program development and increased the BHWC's ability to respond to the community’s
behavioral health workforce needs.
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 6
Related Literature
The emotional and psychological abuse, lack of attachment, and disruption that children
involved in the foster care system experience prior to system involvement appear to have an
impact on these youths’ abilities to transition to the challenges of college (Chamberlain et al.,
2008; Naccarato, Brophy, & Courtney, 2010; Pecora et al., 2006; Rassen, Cooper, & Mery,
2010). Notable among the variables that potentially impact the youths’ participation in college
are untreated mental health issues, typically depression and anxiety including post-traumatic
stress disorder. Many youth experience multiple placements, with research showing that removal
from schools and falling behind in grade school also impacts school performance (Naccarato et
al., 2010; Pecora et al., 2006). A history of trauma can translate into disruptive, agitated
behaviors, and not all foster parents participate in effective strategies to reduce such behaviors,
which likely impact school performance (Chamberlain et al., 2008)
The legislation and programming designed to assist youth leaving foster care tends to
focus on the needs of younger foster children or on building foundational independent living
skills, such as cooking and hygiene. Such programming is typically less focused on the needs of
adolescent youth who require academic and career supports to be successful in post-secondary
education and employment settings (Dworsky, Smithgall, & Courtney, 2015; Merdinger, Hines,
Lemon Osterling, &Wyatt, 2005; Milesi, Lansing, Bell, Goerge, & Stagner, 2010). High school
academic programs designed for foster youth typically focus on keeping these youth in high
school, and not on the more advanced skills of planning and preparing for the academic and
lifestyle rigors of college life (Dworsky et al., 2015).
Contextual issues also create pressure for innovations in programming for youth in foster
care. California’s Continuum of Care Reform legislation is notable for its intent to improve
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 7
foster care outcomes by bringing together various best practices in child welfare (California
Department of Social Services, 2016). Central to such reform efforts are efforts to increase safety
and functionality of foster youth at all developmental levels, and improving educational efforts
support these broad outcomes. Identifying programming that assists youth in foster care and
creates such best practices, including those practices that support foster youth educational
outcomes, is an effort congruent with this larger cultural shift toward a more responsive and
inclusive process to involve foster care youth in their own life planning.
Given the shortcomings in these areas of advanced academic skill development and given
the larger systemic pressure to improve educational outcomes for youth in foster care, the
BHWC has an opportunity to address the educational needs of these youth through specific
programming designed to specifically support their academic success. Engaging the individuals
formerly involved in foster care and providing the knowledge, motivation, and organizational
contributors to their success will enable BHWC to develop tools to address the specific need of
transitioning these youths. Such tools address the organization’s goal to provide relevant and
disruptive solutions to health and social disparities in the Bay Area.
Importance of the Organizational Innovation
This problem is important for the BHWC to develop innovative practices that support the
achievement of academic success for youth with foster care involvement because the youth aging
out of care are vulnerable to increased mental health issues, substance use disorders,
homelessness, and criminal behaviors (Fisher, Chamberlain, & Leve, 2009; Mallett, 2016;
Scannapieco, Smith, & Blakeney-Strong, 2016). Youth formerly involved in foster care are also
more at risk for being caught up the in the “school-to-prison pipeline,” as these youths are more
likely to have risk factors of those students who receive punitive school discipline and end up in
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 8
out of school and incarcerated. These risk factors in include experiencing poverty, being a child
of color, having an abuse history, and being diagnosed with a mental illness or developmental
disability (Mallett, 2016). The ability of foster students to enter and remain in educational
settings has the potential to provide the skills and resources needed to prevent such behavioral
health and social problems (California Community Colleges Chancellors Office & Foundation
for California Community Colleges, 2014).
It is important for BHWC to determine the components of a specialized curriculum for
emerging adult peer providers for a number of reasons. The academic challenges of youth in
foster care are well researched and programs have been developed to assist these youth with their
successful completion of college. Despite such efforts, youth with foster care histories continue
to struggle academically.
An innovation created with input from youth formerly involved in care who have
navigated educational systems has the potential to create meaningful programming that is more
likely to be used by current foster-involved constituents. Without such innovative practices, the
educational, child welfare systems, as well as the BHWC itself, will likely continue to provide
minimal services created by youth formerly involved in the foster care system. The collaborative
also seeks to create resources and tool that can be replicated in a number of locations. The initial
problem to address is determining the motivation and knowledge components such former
system-involved youth will provide in order to perform as successful curriculum consultants.
Former youth involved in care who also achieved academic goals are important advisors who
potentially have various motivations to participate as curriculum advisors. For clarity, these
adults who were foster-involved and graduated from some college degree program will be
referred to as "the college graduates". First, these individuals often possess intrinsic motivation
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 9
to support younger system-involved youth as their lived experience provides useful modeling for
younger college students (Rios, 2009). The consultants are also likely motivated to "giving back"
to the foster care community by providing recommendations for innovations and change, and
such giving back would be consistent with data indicating youth formerly involved in care
demonstrate interest in assisting others (Sensiper & Barragán, 2017)
Organizational Performance Goal
The most recent BHWC strategic planning session was held in November 2014. A
strategic plan was created that included the general goals of promoting education and training of
the mental health/behavioral health workforce to increase the practice of culturally competent,
recovery-oriented services along the mental health/behavioral health career pipeline. Increasing
the number of behavioral health consumers and family members hired, retained and supported in
behavioral health settings, as well as increasing the number of culturally and linguistically
diverse workers are strategic activities to achieve these workforce goals. In the course of the
strategic planning, some BHWC members specifically mentioned the need to address the
workforce development issues of young adults with behavioral health or trauma concerns, a
category that would include youth with foster care histories. Although youth from foster care are
not specifically mentioned as a targeted group in the organization’s strategic action plan, their
needs are assumed in the larger global goal of creating a responsive behavioral healthcare system
through BHWC’s workforce development efforts and this intervention is responding to the needs
of the larger system.
An overarching goal to improve the workforce development opportunities for California's
youth population involved in foster care addresses BHWC’s primary goal of hiring culturally
diverse individuals, as well as those with lived experience (consumers and family members). By
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 10
2018, the BHWC had identified study participants who possessed the lived experience as both
foster care participants and college graduates to consult on the specific knowledge, motivational,
and organizational components that contributed to their completion of their academic goals.
These components will be used to create curriculum to train emerging adult peer specialists who
will be able to use their skills to support youth enrolled in college who are in or transitioning
from foster care. This goal was determined within the framework of more typical goals decided
by the BHWC's education and industry partners and is based on the amount of time generally
needed for completing curriculum projects for the BHWC (about one year). Stakeholder
members will review the curriculum development process at quarterly BHWC meetings.
Description of Stakeholder Groups
Four distinct stakeholder groups contribute to BHWC and benefit from the efforts of the
organization: (a) emerging adults who have histories in the foster care system, (b) higher
education institutions, (c) behavioral health providers, and (d) the consumers of behavioral health
services. An additional group of stakeholders, and those who provided data for this study, would
be college graduates with foster care histories. As former students, the college graduates could
have received the training and student financial aid that BHWC distributes, could have been
enrolled in a partnering educational institution, or could have worked for a partnering behavioral
health provider. They provided additional data for this study, contributing to the literature and
understanding of the knowledge, motivational, and organizational factors that support youth with
foster care histories in their efforts to complete college. This data will be used to specifically
construct the Emerging Adult Peer Specialist curriculum, which will be used to train the
emerging adult peer specialists.
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 11
The first stakeholder group consists of the peer providers who are currently or formerly
college students with foster care histories. The peer providers work in fields including social
work, counseling, psychology, psychosocial rehabilitation, nursing, psychiatry, and drug and
alcohol studies. The peer specialist training will occur in the community college and the
behavioral health provider stakeholders will likely employ the emerging adult peer specialists
who can then provide support for current youth entering college from foster care.
Providers of behavioral health organizations are the second stakeholder group. Of this
group, some might have been involved in the foster care system themselves. These providers
typically benefit from the BHWC-sponsored post-graduation training and loan assumption
programs. Some senior employees in the behavioral health provider organizations are managers
and leaders who provide policy and practice guidance for BHWC. Colleges and universities
contribute to the discussion of BHWC's training objectives and pipeline strategies to attract and
retain students in the behavioral health field. Consumers and families are the beneficiaries of the
behavioral health care taught to the students, practiced by employees, and taught in the
universities. Consumers of services are typically engaged to provide feedback to behavioral
health providers regarding the appropriateness of services. Genuine consumer feedback is often
used to adjust program policy and practices, and many consumers have needs and histories
similar to the challenges faces by youth in the foster care system such as poor educational
outcomes.
The adult consultants with foster care histories who have been successfully graduated are
typically former students, current students (if they are continuing with graduate degrees),
members of the provider group, and/or members of the consumer and family member group. The
college students with foster care histories who will benefit from the services delivered by those
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 12
trained in the Emerging Adult Peer Specialist curriculum will be students or consumers of
behavioral health services who are not yet students.
Table 1.
Stakeholder Groups' Performance Goals
Organizational Mission
The BHWC’s mission to increase the behavioral health of California's unserved and
underserved populations through diversifying and training the workforce in evidence-based
practices.
Organizational Performance Goal
By fall 2017 college graduates who were formerly involved in the foster care system
provided the knowledge, motivation and organizational factors necessary for the BHWC to
create recommendations for a 36 unit college-level curriculum to train former or current
youth with foster care histories as emerging adult peer specialists.
Stakeholder 1 Goal Stakeholder 2 Goal Stakeholder 3 Goal Stakeholder 4 Goal
Individuals who are
currently or formerly
involved in foster
care system with
higher education
experience selected
to train in the
Emerging Adult Peer
Specialist curriculum
training.
Ten stakeholders
from this group will
be chosen to
participate in the first
Emerging Adult Peer
Specialist training
Community college
and university
faculty
Six selected faculty
members at
identified California
Community colleges
will identify two
college graduates
with foster care
histories to
participate in the
interviews.
Behavioral health
providers
Behavioral health
providers will
identify four college
graduates with foster
care histories who
will participate in the
interviews.
Foster care leaders
Community members
from the foster care
leadership
community will
identify two college
graduates with foster
care histories to
participate in the
research interviews.
Stakeholder Group for the Study
Each of the stakeholder groups has important and unique expertise in identifying
participants with the knowledge and motivational factors to successfully engage in creating an
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 13
Emerging Adult Peer Specialist curriculum. Being the content experts, the college graduate input
is necessary to create student learning objectives and activities that are relevant for the students
who will eventually be trained as peer specialists. The college graduate participants are over 18
and have completed a post-secondary school academic program. Such programming would
typically be a certificate or credential program, a four-year degree, or a graduate degree. The
selected consultants/participants have been discharged from the foster youth system or are in the
process of being discharged from foster care.
Purpose of the Project and Questions
The purpose of this project was to conduct a needs’ analysis in the areas of knowledge,
motivation, and organizational resources necessary to reach the organizational performance goal
of 100% of completion of making recommendations for an emerging adult specialist curriculum.
The analysis began by generating a list of possible needs and then moved to examining these
systematically to focus on actual or validated needs. While a complete needs analysis would
focus on all stakeholders, for practical purposes the stakeholder to be focused on in this analysis
were adults who were formerly involved in foster care over who have completed post-high
school academic goals. As such, the questions that guided this study are the following:
1. What are the knowledge and motivation characteristics of college graduate
stakeholders with foster care experiences who have completed post-secondary
academic goals that the BHWC can use to create an emerging adult peer specialist
curriculum?
2. What organizational components helped or hindered college graduates with foster
care histories in attaining their academic goals?
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 14
3. What are the recommended knowledge, motivation, and organizational solutions to
the academic barriers emerging adults with foster care histories typically experience
as they enter college?
Methodological Framework
Clark and Estes’ (2008) gap analysis, a systematic, analytical method that helps to clarify
organizational goals and identify the gap between the actual performance level and the preferred
performance level within an organization, was adapted for needs’ analysis as the conceptual
framework. The methodological framework was created within a qualitative study framework.
Assumed knowledge, motivation and organizational needs were generated based on personal
knowledge and related literature. These needs were validated using interviews, literature review
and content analysis. Research-based solutions were recommended and evaluated in a
comprehensive manner.
Definitions
Aging out: The term aging out refers to the exit from foster care of individuals who have
reached the age of majority (typically 18), at which point they also lose all foster care program
supports. In California, foster youth are now able to remain in foster care until age 21.
Foster care: Foster care is a temporary guardianship for children – typically of a short- to
medium-length term – put in place for children whose parents are deceased and/or no able to
safely care for them.
Emerging adult peer specialist: An emerging adult peer specialist is a person with lived
experience in the foster system that uses his or her life experiences and formal education and
training to provide skills, educational assistance, practical aid, and emotional support for young
adults transitioning from foster care to college. Such a peer specialist will have skills to assist
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 15
many young adults transitioning to college from difficult situations such as incarceration,
homelessness, and involvement in behavioral health system(s) of care.
Foster youth/foster child: A foster youth or foster child is an individual who has been
placed by the state into a foster care environment before the age of majority. In this study, in
order to use person-first, strength-based language, these individuals will be referred to as
youth/adults/individuals formerly involved in foster care or child welfare systems.
Resiliency: Resiliency is an individual’s ability to thrive despite having been exposed to a
number of debilitating environmental factors.
School-to-prison pipeline: The school-to-prison pipeline describes the pattern of youth
failing out or being expelled from schools as the result of punitive disciplinary procedures, which
often results in these youth offending in the larger community where they are incarcerated. It is
believed that strict and punitive school discipline that is highly reactive to all infractions results
in students missing out on the structure and opportunity of school as they are quickly terminated
from school programs. Such lack of education and structure increases youth vulnerability for
being involved in criminal behavior and entering the prison system.
Organization of the Study
This study is organized into five chapters. This first chapter will describe the
organizational mission and the identified need this innovation study is intended to address that
will help the organization meet its mission. The organizational goals and stakeholders will be
discussed, and the research questions and methodology will be introduced. Chapter Two
provides a review of current literature surrounding the scope of the study. Topics of autism
spectrum disorder, supports and interventions, policy, and funding will be addressed. Chapter
Three details the assumed needs for this study as well as methodology for choosing participants
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 16
and for collecting and analyzing data. In Chapter Four, the researcher will present, assess and
analyze study data and results. Chapter Five will present solutions based on data and literature
for addressing the needs and closing the performance gap and will also present recommendations
for implementation and an evaluation plan for the solutions.
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 17
CHAPTER TWO: Review of the Literature
Having lived experiences and knowledge of the challenges youth with foster care
histories face as they age out of the system and enter college, the emerging adult peer specialists
serving as curriculum consultants have the potential to provide the expertise needed for the
creation of a course of study designed to train peers as mentors and advisors. (Cherna, 2012;
County of San Diego, 2010). In a peer specialist role, emerging adults trained with this
curriculum would be prepared to provide the specific support that youth in foster care need to
transition from the care system to being successful college students. Chapter Two is divided into
three sections in which the researcher will review the literature related to the emerging adult peer
specialist curriculum innovation. The first section will review literature addressing the impact of
peer-created programming in providing positive educational outcomes and current changes in
state and national policy that support the foster care reform. The section will also address
literature focused on the shortcomings of current higher education support services for youth in
foster care as they transition to college. The second section of the chapter will present the
literature related to the role that self-efficacy and value expectancy play in creating engaged
college graduate consultants, as well as the significance of leadership skills and care
management knowledge for providing effective programming. The third and final section of the
chapter will review organizational barriers that prevent young adults with foster care histories
from completing their academic goals and will explore the gaps in the knowledge and the
motivational factors that are most essential for adults with foster care histories to function
successfully as emerging adult peer curriculum consultants.
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 18
Factors Influencing the Educational Performance of Youth in Foster Care
Youth in foster care often have specific life experiences that create barriers to completing
higher education. Such barriers include difficulty engaging in the academic environment,
deficits in early academic achievement, and systemic shortcoming that create barriers for foster
youth entering college or vocational training.
Challenges of Engaging Youth in Foster Care in Higher Education
The transition from high school to college is a challenging time for young people with
new adult responsibilities. Such changes are especially challenging for youth in foster care who
are already behind in college before they start (Krebs, 2006; Milesi et al., 2010). Only about 50%
of youth with foster care histories complete high school, fewer than 10 percent of them enroll in
college, and one-third of them are arrested (Krebs 2006). Of those youth in care who drop out of
high school, only about 17% go on to college, and of this small group, less than one quarter
(24%) go on to a second year of college (Milesi et al., 2010). Two-year colleges are ideal
launching points for high school students who have dropped out of college. However, if such
schools do not have specialized programming in place to support the special needs of youth with
foster care histories, these youth are more vulnerable to dropping out early. Three quarters of
youth in care are people of color, and many of these students suffer from educational inequities
related to institutional failures to engage and retain these diverse youth.
In California, half of the state’s 62,000 youth in the foster care system are Latino and
about one quarter of the foster youth are African American (Kidsdata.org, n.d.). Traditionally,
higher education settings have not prioritized the needs of youth of color, and thus, deficits in
attendance and completion have been ignored on the institutional level (Harris & Bensimon,
2007). Instead, youth are often blamed for their own lack of performance and skill. Even when
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 19
attention is paid to youth of color, a performance gap exists between these youth and their white
counterparts, resulting in lower levels of academic performance (Massey et al., 2011).
Factors Related to Gaps in Foster Youth Educational Achievement
Youth with foster care histories have educational deficits that are directly related to being
disconnected from a consistent family system that remains constant over the many years that
these youth are preparing to become college students. Lack of parental support is one significant
predictor of lower educational aspirations among youth in care (Kirk, Lewis, Nielsen, & Colvin,
2011). Parents most typically play an advocacy role for their children in educational institutions,
and when a parent is absent, it is difficult to find an individual with the time and desire to invest
in advocating on behalf of the young person. Youth in foster care might have program staff
providing practical support, but often these youth are not experiencing strong emotional
connections to these service and support providers.
Many youths in the child welfare system have a number of social workers attached to
their cases, but it is common for these youth to be lost in the system as personnel changes and as
children are moved (Allen & Vacca, 2010; Havlicek, 2011). Even emancipated youth with
successful college outcomes reported issues with lack of college guidance in their earlier foster
experiences. Of those youth with foster care histories who are successful in the college
environment, 87% reported that they have support. More than 40% felt somewhat prepared to
live independently and 35% felt not prepared at all (Merdinger et al, 2005). Additionally, youth
with foster care backgrounds placed with family have higher educational attainment, likely due
to better emotional attachment and more physical stability. Consistent child welfare support is
also associated with educational achievement, as child welfare workers can play advocacy and
resource acquisition roles typically performed by parents (Hunter, Monroe, & Garand, 2014).
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 20
Youth in the foster care system are removed from their families of origin because serious
physical, emotional, and/or sexual neglect or abuse has occurred. These youth also suffer intense
and chronic trauma such as displacements from care, forced medications, and homelessness that
impact overall functioning (Riebschleger, Day, & Damashek, 2015). The resulting trauma of
abuse and neglect, as well as the lack of attachment and medical intervention, further impacts a
young adult’s ability to take on additional stresses such as college in young adulthood. Post-
traumatic stress disorder and impairments in executive functioning due to repeat exposures to
trauma have negative impacts on the youth’s academic performance. Traumatized youth often
develop mental health symptoms that interfere with academic performance, including anxiety,
depressive disorders, conduct disorders, and suicidality (Overstreet & Mathews, 2011).
The foster care system can contribute to feelings of distrust and lack of emotional safety,
with youth in care reporting that they are manipulated into attending appointments or
hospitalized without prior knowledge or consent. These youth also have experienced
misrepresentation and/or abandonment as part of their interactions with the foster youth system
(Morton, 2015), and such interactions decreased safety and trust between the youth and the
system designed to assist them. The system routinely disempowers youths and keeps youths in a
chronic state of anxiety as a result of not knowing what to expect next, producing angry, self-
defeating, and desperate youths who are unprepared to meet the academic challenges of higher
education (Morton, 2015).
Systemic Deficits in Higher Education for Youth in Foster Care
The foster care system is structured in such a way that children's lives are consistently
disrupted by moves that impact their ability to stay focused on the academic tasks necessary to
succeed in higher education. Frequent placement changes are examples of such structural
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 21
barriers, and it is common for a young person in care to typically change placements one to two
times per year. Changes in school placements result in loss of friends and social support as well
as falling behind academically as the youth need to catch up to their age-mates in school
(Morton, 2015; Sydow & Flango, 2012). In addition to official placement changes, youth leave
school when they run away from placements, contributing to the decline in educational
consistency (Center for the Study of Social Policy, 2003). For youth who do not run away, re-
engaging with a new set of foster parents takes time, as does the process of getting familiar with
their new home and learning new life skills (Greenen, Powers, Hogansen, & Pittman, 2007). The
time it takes to adjust to the new home environment distracts from learning about independent
living resources in their communities (Morton, 2015).
Sydow and Flango (2012) sought to identify wellness markers to help determine positive
educational outcomes for youth in the foster system that could be used by courts to determine
youth progress. Of the 14 markers identified in the review of relevant goals and implementation
practices, an identified focus group narrowed down the list to four relevant educational wellness
markers: (a) the percentage of youth who did not have a school change while in placement, (b)
the number of permanency hearings in which the child’s education was addressed, (c) the
number of children enrolled in early education programs, and (d) the percentage of graduate
GED holders accepted into post-secondary education. The identification of the behaviors
relevant to educational achievement allows the court to focus on the specific educational issues
that when overlooked can negatively impact educational performance of youth in foster care
early in their educational careers and set them up for further educational challenges later in life.
Youth change schools every time they change placements, and when they change placements,
their performance suffers.
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 22
Child welfare and educational systems fail to properly prepare youth in foster care for
independent living, which in turn impacts the youth’s ability to succeed in college. Traditionally,
youth in care have not been involved in their care planning and the care plans were not re-visited
or updated. Lack of youth involvement contributes to lack of college preparation, and traditional
care management does not prioritize effort to help youth build the relationship skills that will
allow them to succeed (Annie E. Casey Foundations, 2014). Those youth who have typically
been more successful with their care management processes typically had received early and
frequent efforts by their care managers to outline and review for them the tasks necessary for
independent transition (Annie E. Casey Foundations, 2014). The general approach to working in
residential treatment is still based on a deficit model of interaction that identifies problems
instead of supporting strengths and assets.
The system, as often represented by group home staff, might advise youth in care to
obtain GEDs instead of pursuing higher education. Youth following such advice often end up in
special education or tracked in remedial programming that does not sufficiently prepare them for
the academic rigors of college. Because schools often view youth in foster care as problematic
and lacking in interest and engagement, their issues of disempowerment, anger, frustration, and
academic deficits go unaddressed (Krebs, 2006; Morton, 2015). Given these system practices,
few youths in care feel prepared to live independently after discharge from foster care
(Merdinger et al., 2005).
Peer Providers as Support Professionals
Peer providers are individuals who use their lived experience to support peers with
similar conditions. Peer providers are especially effective at their jobs when they are able to
provide effective empathy and support to other individuals with similar lived experience. Peer
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 23
providers use their lived experience to strengthen to inform their interventions and the evidence
indicates that they are able to effectively provide care despite their own challenging histories
(Bond, Drake, Mueser, & Becker, 1987).
Impact of Peer Providers in Health Care and Education
Peer support services, in which those with similar live experiences are trained to support
their peers needing care, has consistently resulted in increased engagement and positive
treatment outcomes for those receiving services in the behavioral healthcare field (Bond et al.,
1987; Chapman et al., 2015; Hibbard & Greene, 2013; Verhaeghe, Bracke, & Bruynooghe. 2008;
Weinberg, Oshiro, & Shea, 2014). Peer providers of healthcare services are increasingly
becoming part of the healthcare community, providing emotional practical support to people
with behavioral health issues, and most states have some type of peer certification and training
(Chapman et al., 2015). Peer support is an effective strategy for increasing patient activation and
health outcomes as peers are able to develop positive relationships with other peers through
empathy and sharing their own peer experiences. As the result of this shared experience and
empathy, the peers receiving health care services are more engaged and have better health
outcomes (Hibbard & Greene, 2013).
Verhaeghe et al. (2008) specifically explored the impact of peer support on reducing
stigma among those experiencing mental illness. Almost 600 individuals completed
questionnaires ranking their levels of self-esteem and experience of peer support services using a
Likert-scale format. A brief symptom inventory was included as well to assess psychiatric issues
among the participants with the intention of determining the potential impact of stigma on
psychopathology. The study provided a set of complex results. Stigma appeared to negatively
impact self-esteem, while receiving peer-provided services appeared to increase self-esteem
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 24
among individuals and slightly mitigated against stigma. Peer support was the most effective
among those with low stigma experiences and did not seem to have an impact on stigma for
individuals with mental health challenges (Verhaeghe et al., 2008).
Peer support has also become an important intervention for students in academic settings
(Weinberg et al., 2014, Salazar, Haggerty, & Roe, 2016). Educational peer liaisons are associated
with increased success, overcoming challenges, and increased academic support (Weinberg et
al., 2014). Peer-based educational support programs have also targeted the specific needs of
youth in foster care using peer mentors who also had foster care histories. The youth receiving
services were engaged in the peer relationships, which they found comfortable and interesting
(Salazar, Haggerty, et al., 2016). Peer educational support typically is part of a peer service
package, but not often the sole focus of most youth in foster care peer specialist interactions.
Youth Peer Providers as Potential Support Professionals for Youth in Foster Care
Peer support has the potential for becoming an important resource for youth in care
attempting to compete their education. Peers are uniquely able, through lived experience and
training to provide the specific support youth in foster care need to remain in school (Center for
the Study of Social Policy, 2003; Clement et al., 2015). Educational success results support and
advocacy for these youth, and peer specialists have support and advocacy functions as their
central duties. In larger schools, the presence of a supportive staff person was critical for youths
in foster care to experience academic success. Peers can also be employed in larger numbers than
classified staff to meet the greater demands for their services (Center for the Study of Social
Policy, 2003). Because they fear discrimination, youth in foster care can have less trust toward
non-peer professionals, leading to low engagement. Intervening earlier in such a pathway of
distrust and offering collaborative care and noncritical listening is essential for clinical
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 25
engagement (Clement et al., 2015), and such skills are typically associated with a peer provider
approach.
Clement et al. (2015) studied engagement characteristics of 202 individuals receiving
mental health services to treat schizophrenia, bipolarism, and unipolar depression. The study
subjects completed a number of surveys that measured therapeutic engagement as well as
discrimination and stigma. Surveys used in the study included: the Service Engagement Scale,
the Discrimination and Stigma Scale, the Questionnaire on Anticipated Discrimination, the
Internalized Stigma of Mental Illness Scale, the Stigma Stress Appraisal, the Scale to Assess
Therapeutic Relationships, and the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale, as well as other adapted
scales. Results indicated that patients were reluctant to disclose their histories due to fear of
discrimination and indicated a connection between discrimination and low engagement with
health providers. The study concluded that a history of poor service experiences has resulted in
patient expectations of discrimination and that such a belief reinforces patient reluctance to
engage in care. The study cited clinical practices that promote engaged and caring listening and
collaborative care as being essential clinical skills for improving client engagement.
Similarly, a study of youth in foster care seeking mental health and other supportive
services pointed to the need for additional mentoring, brokerage, and support from youth with
similar experiences to promote engagement and retention in services. Such clinical practices are
included in duties of traditional peer providers (Gilmer et al., 2012).
Supported education, which involves students receiving a variety of wrap around
emotional, practical and support services while in school, is considered a best practice for
supporting mental health recovery (Slade et al., 2014). The traditional supported education
definition is the provision of individualized and practical support and educational instruction to
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 26
help people with psychiatric disabilities achieve their educational goals (Soydan, 2004). The
intention of supported education is to assist students in managing symptoms. If symptoms do
arise, the student/worker has new resources learned from the interaction, confidence, and
perspective gained in the supported education environment with which to deal with the issues
(Soydan, 2004). Emerging adult peer specialists can use the specific tools promoted in supported
education to provide the necessary support foster youth who are currently enrolled in the college
to help them succeed in completing their educations.
The Fostering Higher Education (FHE) intervention was created to identify the supported
education components that would be the most effective in providing relevant and useful support
for youth with foster care histories in higher education (Salazar, Haggerty, et al., 2016). The
study involved identifying through the literature and focus groups three categories of activities
most effective in supporting youth from foster care with college completion goals: educational
advocacy, substance use disorder prevention, and mentoring. Sample interventions were created
around each component and 13 former youths from foster care between the ages of 18 and 21
were selected as participants in the study. Following an overview of the FHE model, the youth
were engaged in modules from each of the three areas in the theater-testing format. Following
the test, the youth indicated the modules they most liked and disliked. The results indicated that
the youth overwhelmingly found the interventions to be helpful and appreciated the activities
tested, including specific goal planning and sleep management. The group also appreciated
discussions around substance abuse prevention, but they were also clear that this conversation
needed to be individually tailored to meet the needs of students who might want to disclose more
(or less) regarding their substance use. Mentoring was also supported by the youth, and attention
was given to the challenges of setting up consistent mentoring in addition to fostering natural
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 27
mentoring relationships already in the youth's lives. The study recommends placing such a
model, informed by research and shaped by youth stakeholder input, into the regional
independent living programs (ILPs) that are already established to serve foster youth in the local
community (Salazar, Haggerty, et al., 2016).
The Gap Analytic Conceptual Framework
Clark and Estes (2008) provided a gap analysis framework that clarified organizational
and various stakeholder performance goals by identifying the difference between the actual
performance level and the performance goal. Once the deficit is determined, this approach
specifically examines the stakeholder knowledge, motivation and organizational influences that
may impact the gap between actual and desired performance (Clark and Estes, 2008).
Knowledge and skills were divided into four categories: (a) factual, (b) conceptual, (c)
procedural, and (d) metacognitive (Krathwohl, 2002). Specific knowledge and skills were
identified for determining whether stakeholders knew how to achieve a performance goal.
Motivation influences included the consideration of goal-directed behaviors and the cognitive
and behavioral persistence needed to work toward and accomplishing the goal (Clark & Estes,
2008; Rueda, 2011). Performance gaps may be further understood through evaluation of
motivational issues such as self-efficacy, attributions, and identification of values (Rueda, 2011).
This framework also took into consideration the organizational factors that can impact
stakeholder performance – work processes, resources, and workplace culture, for example (Clark
& Estes, 2008).
These elements of Clark and Estes’ (2008) gap analysis will be addressed in regard to the
knowledge, motivation and organizational needs identified to meet the performance goal of
making recommendations for a 36-unit curriculum to train youth with foster care histories as
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 28
emerging adult peer specialists in California colleges. The first section will be a discussion of
assumed influences on the stakeholder performance goal in the context of knowledge and skills.
Next, assumed influences on the attainment of the stakeholder goal from the perspective of
motivation will be considered. Finally, assumed organizational influences on achievement of the
stakeholder goal will be explored. Each of these assumed stakeholder knowledge, motivation and
organizational influences on performance will be examined through the methodology discussed
in Chapter 3.
Stakeholder Knowledge and Motivation Influences
Identifying a program to improve youth with foster care histories' educational
performance necessitates a review of the knowledge, motivation, and skill deficits that when
addressed would close the performance gaps associated with a problem of practice (Cark &
Estes, 2008). The youth who are successful in college possess specific knowledge and types of
motivation that allow them to navigate the challenges of completing their academic goals. These
knowledge factors include factual knowledge regarding educational systems, procedural
knowledge in how to "work" the educational system, and meta-cognitive understanding of one's
own learning abilities. Important motivational components for youth include developing self-
efficacy and possessing intrinsic motivation regarding completing educational goals.
Knowledge and Skills
Clark and Estes (2008) indicated that the knowledge component of the gap analysis is
necessary in to determine if individuals understand “how (and when, what, why, where, and
who) to achieve their performance goals” (p. 44). Anderson et al. (2001) and Rueda (2011)
discuss the four dimensions of knowledge that can be used to in determining the manner in
which individuals understand and use knowledge. Factual knowledge is the basic informational
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 29
components individuals need to know about a topic. When individuals know how concepts
function together in a larger system, this is considered conceptual knowledge. Procedural
knowledge is an understanding of how to complete a process, and metacognitive knowledge is
the ability to have awareness of one’s own cognition, also known as “thinking about thinking”
(Anderson et al., 2001). Youth with foster care histories who complete college possess specific
types of factual, procedural, and metacognitive knowledge that enable them to achieve their
academic goals.
Youth from foster care who have found ways to obtain and maintain resilience and
achieve educational and life goals have a wealth of lived experiences to draw upon for creating
an effective curriculum for emerging adult peer specialists. Such life experiences result in
significant knowledge acquisition that help youth from foster care develop personal resiliency
and tools for engaging in the hard work of completing their college education. These individuals
need basic declarative and factual understanding regarding their basic ability to access an
educational system and whether such a goal can be achieved. To this end, youth with foster care
histories need to develop skills that allow them to navigate complex and obtuse health care and
education systems. The procedural understanding of how to work the system and access
available resources is essential for building the functional capacity of youth from foster care as is
conceptual knowledge around the importance of empathy, attachment, and trauma-sensitivity
(Forenza, 2016; Merdinger et al., 2005; Riebschleger et al. 2015; Salazar, Jones, Emerson, &
Mucha, 2016). Youth is foster care histories need skills that promote independence, and yet too
much independence among these youth can create a sense of invincibility that can result in lack
of empathy for others who have similar foster histories (Samuels & Pryce, 2008). Thus, youth
interacting with peer specialists would benefit from having meta-cognition of how they became
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 30
resilient to enable perspective taking that allows for the development of the empathy necessary to
connect to foster youth peers.
Knowledge Influences
Knowledge that promotes resilience among youth from foster care who are successful in
completing college include ability to problem-solve issues of daily life, such as financial
challenges or relationships setbacks, as well as the ability to take steps to self-regulate behavior
and affect (Daining & DePanfilis, 2007; Forenza, 2016; Foulk, 2015; Salazar, Jones, et al., 2016;
Samuels & Pryce, 2008). For the participants in this study, the acquisition of knowledge that
enabled their own success is essential to teach other youth from foster care that are training as
peer specialists, so they can promote such skills in a methodical way among youth with foster
care histories that are entering college. Such knowledge from lived experiences promotes
resilience among these transitional youth will be an essential piece of the Emerging Adult Peer
Specialist curriculum and will be passed on to the peer specialists and their clients as essential
learning designed to assist youth from foster care in meeting their educational goals.
An addition to the factual and procedural knowledge that supports resource acquisition
and resilience, conceptual knowledge of the trauma-informed approach to care is essential in
building a useful and relevant curriculum for peer providers. The trauma informed approach
would include building attachment relationships through mentoring and other types of
relationship-building exercises (Fallot & Harris, 2002). The basic principles of the trauma-
informed approach include promoting safety, predictability, collaboration and choice in systems
of care. Within the context of these principles, youth are able to learn alternative coping
responses that increase attachment and engagement, which are necessary for successful student
engagement and distress tolerance while in college. Mentoring, including the modeling provided
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 31
by the emerging adult peer specialists, is an additional piece of conceptual knowledge that is
effective in developing positive relationships and healthy attachments as mentoring allows foster
youth to develop trusting safe relationships and positive role models. Such relationships create
pathways for youth to learn how to manage their emotions and behaviors in educational and
employment environments (Price, 2013).
Finally, metacognitive awareness of behalf of the emerging adult peer specialists is
essential to prevent bias toward their clientele. Specifically, the peer specialists need to be able to
observe their own level of independence and understand that others are not flawed if they are
more dependent on external support for guidance. An important component of peer support is
lived experience, yet over-identification with one’s peer can lead to judgments regarding the
"right" way to make change. Empathic engagement requires the ability to self-regulate one’s own
perceptions and resist the temptation to try to fix others. Such a “righting reflex” often results in
resistance or disengagement among those receiving help (Miller and Rollnick, 2013).
Separating the knowledge components into specific types serves to clarify the different
tasks required of former youth from foster care consultants who participate in curriculum
development. The different types of knowledge will further assist the curriculum developers in
determining how to pace the dissemination of the knowledge as different types of knowledge are
best mastered through different activities. For instance, resource acquisition as procedural
knowledge will be best addressed in a practicum course where skills can be practiced, whereas a
discussion of concepts would likely have the most impact during group discussion.
Having lived experience is essential for constructing the curriculum for emerging adult
peer specialists, but it is likely that the peers participating in training with the curriculum will
need to have potential skills gaps assessed and addressed in order to successfully master the
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 32
curriculum (Clark & Estes, 2008). Specifically, the individuals participating understanding and
learning the curriculum will likely benefit from information on all the child welfare jargon as
well as the various supportive resources that exist for youth from foster care. These peer
specialist stakeholders will also develop skills in training workshops regarding how to interact
with clients, promote self-regulation, and teach resiliency skills. Job aids from such workshops
can be useful in helping to guide the skills and maintain consistency among the stakeholders'
transfer of knowledge in the field (Clarke & Estes, 2008).
Leadership Knowledge. Youth with foster care histories stakeholders need to possess
knowledge of skills associated with leadership, such as effective participation in meetings, ability
to organize thoughts, and ability to motivate others. Leadership skills, such as self-advocacy,
communication, negotiation, and group facilitation are associated with increased resiliency and
management of trauma (Forenza, 2016; Samuels & Pryce, 2008). Such knowledge is procedural,
as the stakeholders need to be able to learn skill sets and processes in order to successfully
master these components of leadership.
Another aspect of leadership knowledge essential for this stakeholder group is the ability
to self-regulate emotions. Effective leaders are able to recognize emotional dysregulation and
alter their behaviors to best meet their goals. For youths from foster care who succeed in higher
education, having such regulation skills are critical for managing ongoing novelty and stress
associated with college (Forenza, 2016; Foulk, 2015).
Resource Acquisition. For youth with foster care histories to be successful in college,
they need to know about not only college resources, but also about other community resources
such as housing, financial support, healthcare services (Daining & DePanfilis, 2007; Merdinger
et al., 2005; Salazar, Jones, et al., 2016). The content of a peer provider curriculum will need to
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 33
have content related to how to work complex systems of care and access resources such as
financial aid, health services, housing and food assistance. These are the skills of practical
support that virtually all foster youth will need while transitioning to adulthood and need to be
addressed by a peer provider.
Leadership skills, self-regulation, and knowledge of resources can be considered critical
basic skills in curriculum development. If peer providers lack the ability to effectively engage in
collaboration or assert themselves (leadership), it will be very difficult to understand their
recommendations or even if they are qualified to make curriculum recommendations.
Participants using the curriculum will also need to have self-regulation skills that allow them to
remain focused on and engaged in the task as hand. Whereas leadership and self-regulation skills
are important for the curriculum development process, the knowledge of resources, including
accessing educational systems, is essential content necessary for curriculum development. In
order for the curriculum to be relevant and useful for the trainees, the developers need to know
the basics of what foundational material should be included in the coursework related to how to
obtain and effectively use educational, practical support, and financial resources.
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 34
Table 2.
Knowledge Influences for College Graduates Formerly Involved in Foster Care
Assumed knowledge influence Knowledge type Knowledge influence assessment
College educated adults
formerly involved in foster care
(curriculum advisors) need to
know the educational needs of
youth formerly involved in
foster care system.
Declarative factual Semi-structured interviews to
assess the factual awareness and
expectations regarding facts and
knowledge transitional youth need
to succeed in higher education.
College educated adults
formerly involved in foster care
(curriculum advisors) need to
know how to successfully
navigate the college educational
system
Procedural
College educated adults
formerly involved in foster care
(curriculum advisors) need to
apply the skills of effective
leadership, such as how to
effectively participate in
meetings.
Procedural Semi-structured interviews to
identify the skills associated with
effective facilitation and
communication in a group
College educated adults
formerly involved in foster care
(curriculum advisors) need to
be aware of effective leadership
skills they possess, such as how
to become self-regulated.
Metacognitive Ask the participants to reflect on
what they do to manage their
emotions, behaviors, and thoughts
throughout the day. Such
reflection should include how
each of these processes is
managed during stressful
situations.
College educated adults
formerly involved in foster care
(curriculum advisors) need to
apply the skills of resource
acquisition.
Procedural Semi-structured interview will
address the steps involved in
identifying and attaining resources
for clients.
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 35
Motivation
Specific knowledge attainment is a necessary but not necessarily sufficient component to
close identified performance gaps. In addition to knowledge, individuals need proper motivation
in order to make use of knowledge and effective organizational structures available to improve
performance (Clark & Estes, 2008). Stakeholders who experience intrinsic value from
participating in the curriculum creation are engaged in the process of creating the material
because they find it enjoyable or rewarding (Eccles and Wigfield, 2002). The power of involving
adults who were formerly involved in foster care as curriculum developers is based on their own
experiences with increased independence and challenges as they transferred from foster care to
college. Such identification can provide intrinsic motivation for the emerging adult peer
specialists working on curriculum development, since their participation will likely be driven by
a need and/or interest in supporting youth starting college who find themselves on the same
challenging path that the specialists have already navigated. In addition to the personal value that
foster and former youth involved in care might experience when providing the input for the
curriculum and participation in such a project might be driven by other aspects of expectancy
value such as attainment and utility value (Eccles and Wigfield, 2002). Many youths formerly in
care who have completed college want to identify as recovery leaders and serve as role models
for younger youth currently in foster care and involvement in curriculum design can assist in this
goal of developing leadership credibility in the foster care community. Youth currently or
formerly involved in foster care that would have experienced academic success are more likely
to follow educational and/or career pathways. Participating in such a project can provide goal
value as they can use what they have learned and the completed project as part of their portfolio
of skills. Intrinsic value is likely the most relevant piece of expectancy value for the stakeholders
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 36
involve in curriculum design. Having meaningful connection to the completion of the project and
connecting to the reward of creating safety and advocacy for other youth formerly in foster care
will help the participants move through the difficult times of the project when they have internal
blocks such as a lack of ideas or external blocks such as other demands on time.
Self-efficacy is the belief that one’s behaviors will produce desired outcomes (Pajares &
& Schunk, 2001). In order for the former youth from foster care stakeholders to persist in
developing the curriculum they need to have a belief that this curriculum will effectively provide
the skills that emerging adult peer specialists need to successfully assist transitioning youth from
foster care and help keep such youth in college. Self-efficacy is vital for positive educational
outcomes and resiliency development for youth with foster care histories (Drapeau, Saint-
Jacques, Lépine, Bégin, & Bernard, 2007; Kalinyak, Gary, Killion, & Suresky; 2016, Kirk et al.,
2011; Morton & Montgomery, 2013). Thus, the Emerging Adult Peer Specialist curriculum
development stakeholders benefit from having their own self-efficacy in order to participate in
the process, as well as a meta-cognitive awareness of how to develop self-efficacy throughout
the coursework. Integrating material into the curriculum that supports self-efficacy will greatly
benefit the youth from foster care who take the curriculum and those who receive support from
trained emerging adult peer specialists.
Alignment of goals and readiness to participate in the project is to be assessed when
considering stakeholder motivation. Active choice, persistence, and effort are all required
elements for motivated behavior (Rueda, 2011). It seems necessary to determine what stage of
change the stakeholder is in regarding his or her willingness to be active in curriculum
development. According to the Transtheoretical Model, one moves from a status quo situation
toward change through specific stages (Prochaska, Redding, & Evers, 2002). There are three
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 37
stages: (a) precontemplation, in which an individual does not identify needing to change, (b)
contemplation, in which an individual is ambivalent about change, and (c) preparation, in which
an individual is preparing for change. In the last two stages, the individual is actively engaging in
change or is maintaining the new behavior (Prochaska et al., 2002). For the college graduate
participants in this study, each needed to be in the action stage – actively engaging in change – at
the beginning of the study. A related issue is to check the motivation of each consultant. An
individual can arrive for the project but have different motivations from the researcher.
Therefore, it is important to check the motivations of each participant to ensure that the
stakeholders actual possess a specific intention to participate in the curriculum development
instead of an alternative goal (Rueda, 2011).
Intrinsic motivation value. Youth currently and formerly in foster care find intrinsic
motivation in assisting youth that are still involved in care and/or transitioning out of care.
Intrinsic motivation for peer providers include the ability to share one’s own story, connect with
others with similar issues, and be of assistance to their peers (Moran, Russinova, Yim, &
Sprague, 2014). The value associated with participating in the curriculum development project
will likely be of situational interest as the curriculum is a novel and innovative intervention to
support youth in care (Eccles and Wigfield, 2002). Additionally, those participating in the
curriculum project will possibly possess additional values related to participating in this project
that are not intrinsic but continue to function as value-based motivation. For instance, some
participants might possess utility value around the project as they desire to build an activity
resume for entering college or graduate school and being a part of this project will help them
achieve their goals (Rueda, 2011). Many goal-oriented youths with foster care histories might
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 38
also take pride and build positive identity in completing quality work, so attainment value also
becomes a factor in participating in such projects.
Emerging Adult Peer Specialists' intrinsic motivation. An effective curriculum will
be created based on the needs of the youth being served. Putting the needs of the youth from care
first is an example of compassionate care (Miller & Rollnick, 2013). Therefore, experiencing
compassion for other youth from care can be understood as a factor promoting intrinsic
motivation. In order to thoughtfully develop a user-friendly and relevant curriculum, peer
specialist stakeholders need to be sensitive to the challenges youth from foster care face and the
importance of creating collaborative structures to promote resilience (Kalinyak et al., 2016;
Salazar, Roe, Ullrich, & Haggerty, 2016). Without a sense of compassion, it is likely
stakeholders might create a curriculum that is disconnected from the real needs of the youth
being served. Compassion will also be an essential stakeholder trait, as relationship building and
mentoring are identified necessary components for youth with foster care histories to experience
academic success. Therefore, the curriculum developers would benefit from having compassion
that informs not only the structure of the curriculum that directly relates to the foster youth
needs, but also the content of the curriculum, which will necessarily involve foster youth
students learning how to foster and develop their own compassion and relationship-building
skills (Drapeau et al., 2007; Salazar, Roe, et al., 2016).
Self-efficacy theory. Pajares && Schunk (2001) discuss self-efficacy as a partially being
driven by the belief that one's actions will benefit others. This manifestation of self-efficacy as a
central motivational principle functions on every level of Emerging Adult Peer Specialist
curriculum implementation. For instance, the adult consultants will not only possess self-efficacy
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 39
to advise on the curriculum, but the curriculum promotes self-efficacy among the peer specialists
who will be using the curriculum as service providers
Clark and Estes (2008) addressed two issues regarding motivation that are salient in the
stakeholder group and consultants. The first is the cultural issues impacting the participants’
motivation. The stakeholders can benefit from a “we” identity that impacts both intrinsic value
and self-efficacy. Taking an “I” approach will likely leave the consultants as well as the peer
provider stakeholder isolated, demoralized, and ungrounded in such a collaborative project
(Clark & Estes, 2008). Also related to self-efficacy is the confidence the peer providers have in
their ability to carry out the training as well as the consultants' abilities to advise on behalf of
their own experiences in care. The training and job aids provided to build knowledge would
likely have a positive effect on self-efficacy.
Emerging Adult Peer Specialist Consultants’ self-efficacy. In terms of school
performance and completion of educational objectives, self-efficacy promotes the belief that
individuals will attain their goals and self-efficacy has a positive impact on the emerging adult's
self-esteem. Further, both goal attainment and positive self-esteem are positively associated with
foster youth completing higher education (Drapeau et al., 2007; Kirk et al., 2011; Morton &
Montgomery, 2013; Salazar, Roe, et al., 2016). The development of leadership skills among
these youth is also identified as a component of resiliency and ability to attain goals (Forenza,
2016). As the college graduates consulting on the curriculum will be recruited from college,
professional, or charity organizations and have demonstrated some aspect of resilience, it is
assumed these will be the individuals who have significant self-efficacious motivation toward
completing the project (Drapeau et al., 2007). The Youth Efficacy/Empowerment Scale for
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 40
Mental Health will specifically assess the self-efficacy of the consultants regarding their own
self-care and using their lived experience to support the development of peers.
Table 3.
Motivational Influences for College Graduates Formerly Involved in Foster Care
Assumed motivational influences Motivational influence assessment
Self-efficacy:
Youth need to possess self-efficacy that
enables their active participation in
planning for academic careers and their
ability to assist in creating a curriculum
for foster youth peer specialists.
Administer the General Self Efficacy Scale, which
will be used to determine the basic levels of self-
efficacious behaviors and attitudes among the
participants (Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1995).
Intrinsic value:
Youth need to have compassion for other
youth and a desire to empathically support
peers through foster youth peer specialist
program design.
Administer the validated the Santa Clara Brief
Compassion Scale (Hwang, Plante, & Lackey,
2008), which will be used to determine the study
participants' level of compassion toward others.
Organizational Influences
Since 2000, the BHWC has brought together behavioral health educators and providers to
address best practices to develop and grow the Bay Area mental health and substance use
disorder treatment workforce. BHWC's membership has changed in its 16-year history, but the
organizational goal has remained focused on addressing the challenges of growing a workforce
that is both well-trained in current behavioral health treatment best practices and representative
of California’s diverse communities.
Addressing workforce development problems moves these individual organizations out
of the routine provision of these direct public services to plan and implement workforce
development strategies that will ensure each organization’s ability to grow and/or maintain their
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 41
services over time. The issue of behavioral health workforce development can be defined as a
“wicked problem,” which Head and Alford (2013) defined as “complex, unpredictable, open
ended, or intractable” (p. 721). Behavioral health organizations and universities have such
complex issues, as both institutions are governed by their own set of rules and expectations.
Complexity increases as both organization are expected to deliver large amounts of services to
diverse communities. This complexity can be seen in the variety of organizations that make up
the BHWC: county-run behavioral health clinics, community-based providers (typically non-
profit), K-12 schools, community colleges, and public and private four-year universities.
As a solution to complexity, public management has come to rely on collaborative
structures among partnering organizations to address issues, such as workforce development, that
each program would not be able to manage sufficiently on its own (Agranoff & McGuire,
2004; Head & Alford, 2013, O’Leary & Vij, 2012). Modern organizations find themselves in
relationship with other organizations across many sectors with many virtual, as opposed to
physical boundaries (Agranoff & McGuire, 2004). Although bureaucracies continue to exist in
the public sector, public organizations are increasingly called on to break down silos and find
ways to collaborate to get the work done (Agranoff & McGuire, 2004). Individual managers in
public management setting are also more likely to find participate in collaborative efforts to
solve complex problems as collaboration becomes more of an expectation in the public sector
(O’Leary & Vie, 2012). Recognizing the importance of the collaborative structure in addressing
complex issues, Head and Alford (2013) using the unique characteristics of collaborative
leadership to bring together diverse agencies to work on complex issues, provide focus, and
improve communication around specific goals such as workforce development.
The BHWC’s role in addressing the challenging workforce development issue became
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 42
more focused with the passage of MHSA. The law levied a tax on California’s millionaires to be
used only for mental health purposes. Ten percent of these revenues – estimated at $700 million
to $1 billion per year – was set aside to improve workforce education and training among the
state’s behavioral health providers (Feldman, 2009). MHSA was designed not only to bring
money into California’s chronically underfunded mental health system, but also to transform the
system to be more in line with culturally-responsive and person-driven care (Cashin, Scheffler,
Felton, Adams, & Miller, 2008). With MHSA funding driving policy, and because the legislation
was in line with the values of the larger behavioral health care community, organizations such as
the BHWC incorporated into their values and missions achieving the systems transformation
goals set out by the MHSA. In the case of the BHWC, engaging underserved communities and
involving stakeholders, such as consumers of mental health services, became goals driving the
organizational outcomes. BHWC's yearly and bi-annual outcome reports and work plans
submitted to OSHPD reflects each of these priorities and indicate how the organization achieved
or aspired to achieve completing such goals.
Recovery treatment models function by promoting person-driven care, which shifts
power from the medical establishment to the consumer. Recovery treatment models also
recognize the importance of selecting and training a workforce that is able to apply the
components of the recover models in consumer care. (Slade et al., 2014; Deegan, 2003; Doughty
& Tse, 2011). Supported education programs, such as college services designed to engage
individuals with behavioral health issues, and individualized (employment) placement and
support, are two effective recovery-oriented workforce interventions (Slade et al., 2014). The
workforce priority in these models that involve hiring peer providers is essential to transforming
the system; individuals with mental health and addiction challenges have empathy and
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 43
perspective that engages patients, which non-peer providers might not have. In an early article,
Gene Deegan (2003), a researcher and educator who has experienced his own behavioral health
recovery, spoke to the power of peer specialists as behavioral health providers. He wrote about
the strengths that peer providers possess and the benefits they receive delivering behavioral
health services. Additionally, he outlined the systems transformation promoted by such workers,
including restoring hope, reducing labeling, skills of working with symptoms, building
connections in the community, and creating a meaningful life (Deegan, 2003). Peer-delivered
services have demonstrated effectiveness in providing traditional behavioral health services,
especially for housing and employment, and have been shows to reduce psychiatric
hospitalization. Peers engaged as providers also benefit from providing these services through
increased confidence and meaningful life activities (Doughty & Tse, 2011).
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 44
Table 4.
Organizational Influences
Assumed Organizational Influences Organizational Influence Assessment
The Behavioral Health Workforce Collaborative
was developed to create and/or promote
educational strategies to engage underserved
populations in the behavioral health workforce
(MHSA, 2005; OSHPD, 2014).
Review for organizational outcome data
regarding change in numbers of diverse
individuals entering to Bay Area Workforce.
Diversity is established through statewide
definitions of underrepresented cultural groups
(OSHPD, 2014).
The Behavioral Health Workforce Collaborative
has a mission to promote culturally sensitive and
relevant educational strategies to develop the
behavioral health workforce.
Assess at end of each year the number of and
quality of training provided in each sub region
Survey Bay Area behavioral health managers in
each region assess the staff behavior changes and
potential outcomes resulting from training.
The Behavioral Health Workforce Collaborative
approaches workforce development from a
strength-based approach that is driven by the
needs of the client/consumer ( Slade, Oades, &
Jarden, 2017).
Survey Bay Area behavioral health managers to
determine change in staff members approach to
clients to determine if strength-based training is
being learned and applied meet treatment needs
of clients/consumers.
The Behavioral Health Workforce Collaborative
needs to strategize methods to engage educational
partners in behavioral health peer specialist
curriculum development and dissemination as
such partners might not prioritize such
programming.
Behavioral Health Workforce Collaborative will
continue to develop, promote, and offer to
implement peer specialist curriculum training.
Will do yearly assessment regarding the locations
and size of peer specialist programming
throughout the Bay Area.
The BHWC has pursued the workforce development goals promoted by the vision of
MHSA, including developing peer provider education and training. Over the organization’s 16
years, the BHWC has engaged in many workforce development projects as the task of creating
and sustaining a representative workforce is a long-term project with various targets. The BHWC
determines which workforce targets to pursue based on the input and interest of the active
members. As a learning organization, the BHWC is adapting to the needs of the larger behavioral
health community as the leaders of partnering organizations assess workforce needs in a
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 45
consistently changing environment (Senge, 1990). BHWC partners need to consistently address
the gaps between the vision of a diverse, skilled, and inclusive workforce, while being aware that
many underrepresented groups are still poorly represented in the workforce (Senge, 1990).
The workforce needs of youth with foster care histories have not yet been addressed by a
BHWC initiative; therefore, creating an Emerging Adult Peer Specialist curriculum will address
a gap in the current workforce efforts while moving forward the mission and vision of the
BHWC (Clark & Estes, 2008). By addressing a workforce gap and moving the vision and
mission of the workforce toward the person-driven model of care, the BHWC is providing an
organizational solution to the low college graduation rates of emerging adults who have foster
care histories (Clark & Estes, 2008).
Additionally, the Emerging Adult Peer Specialist curriculum addresses a workforce gap
among youth from foster care. Addressing the needs of youth with foster care, the curriculum
creates an opportunity to close a workforce development gap in three underrepresented
communities: youth from foster care, youth of color, and transitional age youth/emerging adults.
It is important to note here that the curriculum would be training peer behavioral health providers
but the emerging adults these providers assist will not necessarily become behavioral health
providers themselves but will have potential improved health and quality of life outcomes as the
result of completing their educations (Okpych & Courtney, 2014; Peters, Dworsky, Courtney &
Pollack, 2009). Therefore, the Emerging Adult Peer Specialist curriculum will assist both the
direct development of the behavioral health workforce as well as potentially improving the
behavioral health status of participating youth formerly involved in foster care.
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 46
Conclusion
Multiple interacting organization and individual factors contribute to poor higher
educational outcomes for youth with foster care histories. Youth from foster care can have
deficits in factual and procedural knowledge and lack motivational factors that impact their
ability to complete higher education. The successful college completers with foster care histories
have knowledge of education/service systems, themselves, and intrinsic motivation and self-
efficacy that can be used to support younger foster youth entering a system of care. The
Emerging Adult Peer Specialist curriculum has the potential to effectively train peer specialists
to provide the needed knowledge and motivational supports for emerging adult peers to
successfully navigate the educational system. Accurately assessing the motivational, knowledge,
and organizational gaps allows for innovative organizations to better determine how to close
such gaps (Clark & Estes, 2008). The BHWC is in a unique position to help resolve such gaps in
practice through organizing and leading the curriculum development efforts among BHWC
partners who have active college graduate consultants and emerging adult stakeholders willing to
participate in creating a curriculum based on their lived experiences (Clark & Estes, 2008).
Youth formerly involved in foster care who have successfully navigated higher education
will help determine the content for the Emerging Adult Peer Specialist curriculum. Central to
creating this curriculum will be identifying the knowledge and motivational components these
adults with foster care histories have used themselves to engage in and remain connected to
higher education. The literature indicates the importance of ongoing supportive relationships to
provide guidance and mentorship for transitioning youth from care that assist with the
development of positive assets for growth that enable academic success. Self-efficacy,
leadership, and self-compassion are all additional motivational and knowledge components
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 47
central to foster youth academic achievement (refer to Table 3). Peer providers are highly
effective in delivering supported educational programming given their ability to relate to their
peers (Bond et al., 1987; Weinberg et al., 2014) and using emerging adult peers trained in
delivering these interventions has potential for improving academic outcomes for youth from
foster care settings. The critical components necessary for these youth to succeed will be
identified and used as the basis for the curriculum coursework, and the methods to obtain this
information will be determined through interviews, and surveys. Chapter Three will discuss the
conceptual framework for this study, the sample selection, and the methods used to attain and
validate the data.
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 48
CHAPTER THREE: Methodology
Youth in foster care receive specialized services depending on their age and needs,
including when they age out and transition to independence. College programs are also
established to support youth from foster care in completing their goals, yet only a fraction of
these youth complete college or vocational training. Those youth formerly involved in care who
do complete college appear to have knowledge and motivational factors that enable them to
successfully complete their training, and strengths-oriented and trauma informed organizations
enable such success. The conceptual framework, research design, and methods for data
collection and analysis will be presented in this chapter and each have been designed to address
the research questions:
1. What are the knowledge and motivation characteristics of college graduate
stakeholders with foster care experiences who have completed post-secondary
academic goals that the BHWC can use to create the Emerging Adult Peer Specialist
curriculum?
2. What organizational components helped or hindered college graduates with foster
care histories in attaining their academic goals?
3. What are the recommended knowledge, motivation, and organizational solutions to
the academic barriers emerging adults with foster care histories typically experience
as they enter college?
Chapter Three will provide the conceptual framework, describe the participants, and
address survey sampling. Data collection and instrumentation and data analysis will also be
reviewed. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the ethical considerations and limitations
of the study.
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 49
Conceptual Framework
The conceptual framework functions to brings together the various theoretical approaches
and ways of thinking about a specified problem of practice by organizing the existing literature,
determining if the topic has been explored, and identifying relevant questions remaining to be
addressed (Maxwell, 2013). The conceptual framework thus offers the researcher an opportunity
to explore how to create a relevant research design, and it enables the reader to understand the
basic components that have informed the current research.
In addition to the literature review, the conceptual framework explores and links the
theoretical approaches that inform the study (Maxwell, 2013). The literature review provides an
illustration of the research terrain, whereas the theoretical approach is a map for moving through
the comprehensive literature. The Emerging Adult Peer Specialist curriculum research is
informed by extensive outcome research on the educational achievements of young adults aging
out of foster care, and the research questions also rely on an extensive integration of theoretical
approaches from the education and behavioral health fields.
Exploring the relationship between the role and mission of the BHWC and educational
and behavioral health outcomes for youth with foster care histories requires a detailed integrated
conceptual formulation. This specific case formulation will help provide the necessary linkage
between the various concepts that will explain the relationship of the BHWC to the Emerging
Adult Peer Specialist stakeholders’ motivation and knowledge to create change. The case
formulation will also address the significance of having a trauma-informed approach and a
strengths-base orientation toward care that will inform the research questions and surveys.
Clark and Estes (2009) provided a framework for organizational improvement that
identified knowledge and motivation deficits within an organization that impact an individual’s
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 50
performance. Large systemic issues, such as the functioning of the child welfare systems and the
structure of institutions of higher education are examples of organizations that can impact youth
educational performance for youth with foster care experiences. This study addressed how the
BHWC can approach the problem of practice (higher education completion among youth
formerly involved in foster are) though identifying the motivational and knowledge needs that
can be engaged to increase school completion among these youth.
The wellness and recovery model approach to mental health care provides a global view
of how this study frames the behavioral health recovery process. A national wellness and
recovery movement exists in psychiatry as a response to the medical model that informs the
traditional behavioral health treatment approach (Slade & Wallace, 2017). The wellness and
recovery orientation are client-driven and promotes a variety of behavioral activities associated
with building vocational and academic options, personal relationships, spirituality and leisure
opportunities (among others) to address mental health concerns. The medical model, on the
other hand, promotes the use of physician-directed care and medication treatment that
significantly restricts client control over their mental health outcomes (Rapp & Goscha, 2012;
Slade & Wallace, 2017). Wellness and recovery concepts place significant importance on
behavioral health consumer self-empowerment and education, so approaching access to
education as a critical and central process to ensure recovery from illness justifies the importance
of addressing this problem of practice.
Additional person-driven approaches to understanding wellness are also central to the
ability of mental health consumers, and youth with foster care histories in particular, to achieve
wellness and engage successfully in higher education. The concept of trauma-informed care has
become increasingly important with national efforts to establish the definitions of trauma and
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 51
make attempts to reduce practices proven to cause re-traumatization, such as seclusion and
restraint (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [SAMHSA], 2015). The
concept of creating a supportive job position such as an emerging adult peer specialist is
consistent with central concepts of the trauma-informed approach that advocate healthcare and
supportive services be provided (at least in part) by those individuals who also have lived
experience (SAMHSA, 2015). In order to be trauma-informed, the services emerging adult peer
specialists provide would need to establish trust, safety, predictability, and cooperation, all of
which are recommended approached taught in peer mental health peer specialist training
(Blanch, Filson, & Penney, 2012). Youth with foster care histories are exposed to trauma not
only before placement, but during and after placement as well (Riebschleger et al., 2015). Due to
the prevalent nature of the trauma experienced by youth in foster care, offering trauma-informed
services in all settings is critical to provide the support necessary for the desired outcomes, such
as engaging and remaining in higher education.
Supported education is another promising practice that theoretically bridges the concepts
of attaining wellness and recovery with the practice of making education attainable for
individuals with mental health challenges. Further definition of the supported education approach
is needed in addition to more rigorous studies to determine the best practices and most effective
components as many approaches are described as “supported education” and might have
significantly different intervention components (Ringeisen et al., 2017). The supported education
practice considered in this study included those typically offered to transitional age youth
(generally between 16 and 25 years of age). Supported education for this age group typically
involves finding and linking support resources on college campuses to students with disabilities.
Many of these students receiving disability support are students with behavioral health concerns
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 52
(Ringeisen et al., 2017). Students within this age range with some manifestation of behavioral
health challenges are typically descriptive of youth from foster care who enter college for the
first time. The Emerging Adult Peer Specialist curriculum will be informed by supported
education theory, as well as add to the supported education resources by providing practitioners
who have the training and attitude necessary to work with the special needs of foster youth who
would benefit such a supported education curriculum.
Developmental Assets for Youth (Search Institute, 2017) will also inform the research, as
ultimately the Emerging Adult Peer Specialist curriculum will address the developmental assets
most essential to successful college completion and will look to further the building such assets
into the curriculum. Various deficits in functioning for youth from foster care have been linked
to lack of specific developmental assets (Graham, Schellinger, & Vaughn, 2015; McDaniel,
Courtney, Pergamit, & Lowenstein, 2015; Storer et al., 2014). Asset development is
recommended to improve youths' ability for independent functioning after aging out of foster
care (Graham et al., 2015). Assets related to supportive relationships and boundary development
are central to youth connection to foster parents, relationships the youth find important for
developing the confidence and skills needed to successfully transition to adulthood, and to
complete such tasks as going to college (Storer et al., 2014). The connection between successful
youth transition from foster care to adulthood depends on attaining the critical developmental
assets related to social skills, individual self-regulation, relationship building, “soft” skills, and
academic skills. The ability to be successful in these areas depends on both individual traits and
foster care supports (McDaniel et al., 2015)
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 53
Figure 1 illustrates how the Behavioral Health Workforce, whose values and mission are
based on the tenets of wellness and recovery as well as supported education, interacted with the
former foster youth participants to determine the components of a foster youth peer specialist
curriculum. The BHWC consists of behavioral health provider, community college, and
university faculty that have come together to shape curriculum and training to best meet the
needs of behavioral health consumers in the San Francisco Bay Area. The BHWC mission is to
Organization
Workforce development
collaborative between
behavioral health service
providers, educators
employing a wellness and
recovery-
Oriented approach to
Care.
Stakeholder - Peer Specialist
Knowledge:
understanding of how to successfully
navigate the educational system.
self-regulation – self-awareness
Skills:
effective leadership, such as how to
effectively participate in meetings
Motivation:
self-efficacy
intrinsic value, etc
Goal for Stakeholder :
Selected college graduates with foster
care histories will participate in
interviews to determine the
motivational and knowledge factors
needed for peer providers (former
youth from care) need to learn to
become emerging adult peer
providers.
Figure 1. Relationship between organization, stakeholders, and stakeholder goal.
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 54
promote behavioral health practices to meet the wellness and recovery expectations of
California’s MHSA (California Department of Mental Health, 2005). The BHWC is able to
collect and connect resources to build workforce and education strategies for specific
communities and individuals, such as youth with foster care histories, that are not typically
directly participating in BHWC activities.
The BHWC participants do have connections to the foster care community and had an
interest in creating and promoting curriculum that will help these youth succeed in as adults.
Such BHWC participants included behavioral health providers who work to engage youth from
care in pro-social activities, such as entering and completing college. College and university
faculty teach youth with foster care histories and were aware of the youths’ academic and social
challenges from a very close perspective. However, these BHWC members were not the
identified stakeholder group that will be interviewed for this study. Consistent with the wellness
and recovery and trauma-informed care models, the expertise needed for effective program
development comes from those who have lived experience and can function as content experts
for the curriculum (Rapp & Goscha, 2012; SAMHSA, 2015; Slade & Wallace, 2017).
Adult college graduates who have the lived experiences of being in foster care used their
expertise to guide the study. A number of motivational and knowledge factors were identified as
essential in for youth from care attaining educational success. The role of such knowledge
components, such as knowledge of the educational resources (factual knowledge), how to access
educational resources (procedural knowledge), and self-awareness regarding one’s own point of
view and preferences (metacognition) were all necessary components for creating a responsive
curriculum for peers providing emerging adult support services. Peer consultants will also
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 55
possess and promote intrinsic motivation for engaging their peers from foster care and would be
able speak to the role of self-efficacy in their own goal attainment.
The college graduates with former foster care histories were central to this study as
resources for understanding the components of a relevant and impactful emerging adult peer
specialist curriculum, as indicated by the bottom square in the figure. As shown by the arrows,
the college graduate consultants offered the necessary input for the curriculum, and the
relationship between the consultants and the organization – in this case, BHWC – was
interactive. The BHWC will also take leadership in engaging the emerging adult peer specialists
and these stakeholders will in turn provide additional feedback to the larger organization
regarding the most effective interventions for the emerging adult community. Ultimately, the
college graduates with foster care histories provided the components for the foster youth peer
specialist curriculum, which will eventually be refined and distributed to the BHWC’s members.
As consultants with lived experiences in foster care and later as college graduates, the
consultants contributed to identifying the gaps in knowledge, motivation, and organizational
structure that can be incorporated into the curriculum. The intention is to have the final
curriculum available to the education community within the BHWC that can then promote the
inclusion of the curriculum in community college or other programs.
Participating Stakeholders
College graduates who have successfully completed a two-year or four-year college
degree program were the primary participant group informing the creation of the Emerging Adult
Peer Specialist curriculum. Attempts were made to select college graduates who represented
diverse cultural communities that make up the Bay Area foster care community and to have
gender balance among the participants. The first criterion was for the sample to include adult
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 56
individuals who have been involved in the child welfare system as youth in foster care. The
status as former youth in care ensures life history homogeneity among the participants, as all had
their histories in foster homes or kinship care as unifying experiences (Robinson, 2014). The
project required foster youth have lived experience in order to function as consultants, so the
main criterion is that the adults will have completed a two- to four-year college program. Having
achieved the goal of successful college completion, these participants demonstrated an ability to
succeed where many foster youths fail. As successful examples of college completers with foster
care histories, they were in the best position to reflect on and speak to the knowledge and
motivation components that had allowed them to complete their higher education goals.
Selecting college graduates who represent different ethnic cultures was as important for
identifying cultural strengths in terms of processes or beliefs that had a positive impact on
academic performance. To the extent possible, attempts were made to have gender balance
among the sample, with sexual “minorities” also represented. The gender balance created
opportunities to identify any male or female differences in how the individuals orient toward
college and make choices that support college completion.
Given the relatively small numbers of former youth from foster care who have completed
college, snowball sampling was used in this study to recruit participants. The snowball approach
to purposeful sampling relied on stakeholders to refer other potential former youth from care to
participate as interview subjects (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). The snowball approach to sampling
is a common form of purposeful sampling and, in the case of the small and insular foster care
community, was the most efficient and realistic method used to locate potential interview
subjects. As the initial stakeholders had met the sampling selection criteria, they potentially were
able to assist in identifying qualified college graduates who could function as effective interview
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 57
subjects (Merriam & Tisdell, 2011). Regarding incentives for participants, the behavioral health
community has a tradition of offering consumers of services a monetary or gift incentives for
providing their time on committees or workgroups. However, participants for the study were not
offered payment in order to avoid the appearance or actuality of the subjects' lack of intrinsic
motivation as participation for rewards has the potential to negatively impact the quality of the
data (Robinson, 2014). Snowball sampling was also chosen given the use of this data collection
method in the literature. A study similar to this current study used a process of interviewing
youth with foster care histories to provide input on the best ways to successfully transition out of
the system. This study provided a comprehensive description of the snowball sampling approach
to obtain thorough data that answered their research questions, and this process was used as a
model for obtaining subjects to speak on college success factors among these participants
(Graham et al., 2015).
Interview Sampling Criteria and Rationale
Criterion 1. Subject members were individuals over 18 years old who were placed in
foster care as youth.
Criterion 2. Subjects had completed college coursework for an academic or vocational
certificate or for an academic degree awarded at a community or four-year college.
Criterion 3. Racial and gender diversity. Efforts were made to identify stakeholders of
different racial groups, sexual orientation, and gender so the sample has sufficient variation
among the participants.
The snowball approach was used to identify qualified participants from a small
population of adults with foster care histories who have completed college. Effort was made to
obtain maximum variation in the sample in order to identify core experiences and processes
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 58
(Merriam & Tisdell). Eight college graduates were selected in order to provide the individuals
with significant attention, so each voice is heard (Robinson, 2014). Adding or deleting sample
participants was considered if data collection indicated that additional participants were
necessary to add to or validate results or if the data revealed focusing on fewer individuals would
have provided more significant material (Robinson, 2014). Eight individuals participated in the
interviews, and this number was sufficient to obtain consistent results. The subjects were
interviewed individually between October 2017 and December 2017. Each interview lasted
approximately one hour.
Survey Sampling Criteria and Rationale
The single criteria for survey sampling is the requirement that participants complete the
survey.
Survey Sampling Strategy and Rationale
This study will use an embedded mixed method research design. Validated surveys
identified in the literature were used to further describe the qualities of the identified skills or
motivational components youth with foster care histories needed to successfully complete
college (Creswell, 2014). Specifically, the Santa Clara Brief Compassion Scale (Hwang et al.,
2008) will be used to determine ability to demonstrate compassion toward others. The General
Self-Efficacy Scale will be used to understand the participants' self-efficacy, ability to actively
oversee resources, and willingness to use their own lived experience to help other youth
(Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1995). The instruments were given to all the interviewed individuals,
and the data was analyzed to support or disconfirm the most essential knowledge and
motivational characteristics of the youth who complete college.
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 59
Each of the two identified collection methods generated new data regarding the
motivational and knowledge needs of youth from foster care who successfully completed
college, further described this data, and/or validated the data initially collected. As each method
was able to address the theme from different perspectives, the combination of each approach
deepened and confirmed the data indicating the most essential components of academic success
that would be used to inform the Emerging Adult Peer Specialist curriculum. The curriculum
will be used to train peers who will possess the most effective skills and motivational
enhancement techniques to support youth in college. The BHWC will thus be able to promote the
final curriculum as the basis of a course to train emerging adult peer specialists. The peer
specialist professionals would be able to work in schools, colleges, health centers, and clinics
where they would assist foster youth to complete college.
Data Collection and Instrumentation
Surveys
Two surveys will help to identify the relative levels of self-efficacy and compassion
among the interview participants and will help to understand the study subjects, all of who have
completed academic goals. The surveys will measure for these traits, and the survey results can
be added to the motivational data collected during the interviews and observations.
The Santa Clara Brief Compassion Scale (SCBCS) measured the participants' ability to
be compassionate and engage in pro-social behaviors (Hwang et al., 2008). The instrument
contained five questions taken from the Compassionate Love Scale, and correlation between the
two scales is 0.96. The SCBCS was created to provide a quick and secular measure of
compassion toward non-intimate others. Because of this content, the questions are more
appropriate in determining how peers might compassionately relate to others, such as other youth
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 60
who might be seeking support from an emerging adult peer specialist (Hwang et al., 2008). The
instrument measures vocational identity, religious faith, empathy and compassionate love. The
correlation coefficient between empathy and compassion is 0.65 and the correlation between
compassion and vocational identity is 0.48. The internal reliability for the SCBCS as determined
by Cronbach's Alpha is 0.90 (Hwang et al., 2008) The strong relationship between compassion
and empathy and the moderate relationship between compassion and vocation can be important
for the study as if this group of successful college completers also demonstrates elevated levels
of compassion, their compassionate worldviews will likely be useful in determining the values
and attitudes components of the Emerging Adult Peer Specialists curriculum.
The General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE) is a 10-item survey that assesses an individual's
ability to take initiative in managing various life challenges (Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1995). This
instrument was chosen because each of the questions could be easily applied to general life
challenges that the participants might experience. Many self-efficacy scales are not generalized
and appear to be more understandable when provided a specific context (e.g. nursing or grade
school situations). The reliability of the GSE, as determined by Cronbach’s Alpha, completed in
samples from 23 nations, ranged between 0.76 and 0.90, with the average scores ranging in the
mid-0.80's (Schwarzer & Jerusalem 1995). Reliability scores in the mid-0.80 indicate strong
reliability (Merrill & Tisdale, 2016). In terms of validity, the GSE has demonstrated positive
relationship between self-efficacy and extroversion (0.49), extroversion (0.64), failure or action
orientation (0.43) and decision or action orientation (0.49).
Interviews
The researcher completed eight individual interviews with adults with foster care
histories who had completed vocational certifications, two-year college programs, four-year
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 61
academic degrees, or graduate training. Each interview was approximately one hour in duration
and each participant was interviewed once. The interviews were conducted in English and
occurred in a confidential and private location most convenient for the interviewees. Such
locations included the participants’’ worksites (private office), the interviewer’s office, or a
private double-encrypted and HIPAA compliant Zoom web meeting room obtained for the
interview.
The interviews were semi-structured and formal, with the same protocol used in each
interview. The protocol was semi-structured, with the interviewer asking the same questions in
each session but asking varying follow-up questions depending on the original answers given.
This approach allowed for general consistency among the interviews, but the flexible follow up
questions enabled the researcher to explore more thoroughly important themes specific to the
individual being interviewed (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). All questions were open-ended and
intended to evoke content related to concepts central to the study questions regarding factors
related to successfully attaining academic goals: knowledge, motivation, organizational factors,
student strengths, supported education, and trauma-informed care. Each interview was digitally
recorded, and the recordings were transcribed.
Documents and Artifacts
The researcher viewed and coded the videos available on the Storyboard Project
regarding the lives of youths and adults who have experienced foster card. The online video
resource features a collection of videos by adults speaking about how they successfully obtained
their academic or career goals. Many of the college graduates featured in the interview discussed
their academic success by speaking of motivational, organizational and safety factors and of
knowledge and strengths that enabled them to achieve their goals. The researcher viewed and
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 62
codes such videos for themes that related to these concepts as the videos offered additional
“ready-made” data for the study (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016, p. 162). The researcher or the
research process did not impact the data collected in videos, as the recordings had been created
independent of the research (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
Data Analysis
The interview analysis will begin during data collection. Analytic memos for each
interview were completed and each summarized the researcher's thoughts, concerns, and initial
conclusions about the data in relation to the conceptual framework and research questions. After
each interview, the recording was sent via encrypted digital transportation to the transcription
service Rev.com. Open coding was completed first, empirical codes identified, and priori codes
from the conceptual framework were also collected. A second phase of analysis was conducted
in which empirical and a priori codes were aggregated into analytic/axial codes. In the third
phase of data pattern, codes and themes that emerged in relation to the conceptual framework
and study questions were analyzed. Documents and artifacts were reviewed for thematic
evidence consistent with the concepts in the conceptual framework.
Credibility and Trustworthiness
A number of interview dynamics had the potential to impact the validity (credibility) and
trustworthiness (reliability) of the study. The study subjects could have felt compelled to provide
answers to questions they thought the researcher wants to hear. In the case of the college
graduate consultants, the participants might have felt pressure to provide a good example for the
youth in the foster care community and reveal only pro-social behaviors and attitudes
traditionally associated with academic achievement. The researcher addressed concerns during
the informed consent process and remained aware of potential reactivity on the part of the
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 63
interviewees that might have indicated that they were only revealing a limited aspect of their
experiences (Maxwell, 2013). The researcher also came to the study with over 20 years of
experience as a psychotherapist and had specific therapeutic approaches and experiences that
could influence data interpretation. To mitigate such possible bias, the researcher ensured that
interview and observation notes were completed immediately after the interviews and meetings.
The interviews were also recorded, which will improve content accuracy. The notes contained
observer comments indicating areas of potential bias, including potential therapeutic bias, which
needed to be explored and addressed during ongoing and final data analysis.
The researcher employed additional procedures to reduce bias in the study. The
researcher also obtained rich data by using multiple collection techniques to collect large
amounts of data (Maxwell, 2013). The amount of the data and the triangulation between
collection techniques was used to check the consistency of themes between the interviews and
artifacts; the trustworthiness of the data was improved as common themes were consistently
identified using multiple collection techniques. Dominant themes emerged with increased data
collection, and the stronger the main themes; the less likely outlier data contaminated the overall
study results (Maxwell, 2013). Finally, the researcher will made it a point to include any
examples of cases or themes that disconfirm expectations regarding the traits that enable foster
youth to succeed in academics. Seeking out the discrepant information helped to ensure that the
researcher is not intentionally or accidentally ignoring disconfirming information, and this data
will be considered and addressed in the final data analysis (Maxwell, 2013).
Validity and Reliability
To promote survey standardization in order to reduce potential error, the surveys were
self-administered after the formal interview to all participants. The intention is to give the
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 64
surveys after the interview process so none of the participants are unintentionally influenced by
the survey questions. For the greatest ease in administration and to reduce any potential
respondent error, the instruments were provided in Qualtrix or in paper and pencil form. Each
interview participant was advised of the survey during the informed consent process. The nature
of the surveys (what they measure), the length of the surveys, approximate time to administer
(less than ten minutes), and the placement of the surveys after the interview process was
disclosed as part of the informed consent. The intention of this disclosure is to meet ethical
standards and to engage the participants fully into all components of the research (Gideon, 2012).
Every effort was made to encourage timely completion of the survey as opting out would
reduce the overall data collection. If participants did not complete survey(s), this was reported in
the results. Although the goal was to obtain data from every interviewee, a limitation of this
survey administration is that this was a very small convenience sample (Gideon, 2012).
However, given the function of the survey is to further develop themes related to the research
questions and shaped by the literature, the limited but strategic sample was appropriate. The
GSE developers indicate that three incomplete answers on the instrument invalidate the score
(Schwarzer & Jerusalem 1995). The SCBCS does not have such a recommendation, but given
the instrument contains only five questions, any test missing two answers will not be used for
this study.
Ethics
This study determined the motivational and knowledge components necessary to
construct the Emerging Adult Peer Specialist curriculum. Interviews with former foster youth
who have successfully completed college were used to establish the initial recommendations for
the curriculum content. As research subjects, every effort was made to adhere to ethical
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 65
principles that respect and promote the safety and privacy of the interviewees (Glesne, 2011).
The participants were selected via snowball sampling and when contacted, the full intent and
process of the research will be thoroughly reviewed with the subjects. This informed consent
included any risks or adverse effects that might occur for the individual during the interviews.
Individuals with trauma might have trauma issues emerge as they speak about their history, and
interviewees were advised of their right to exit the study at any time, and referrals for support
would also be provided if requested. All of the above informed consent information had been
included in a written format that the subjects reviewed with the interviewer prior to engaging in
the interview or observation. The investigator also ensured the interviewees of their right to have
a confidential interview. To ensure confidentiality, digital recordings and notes had names coded
with the coded names kept in a separate location from the recordings and notes. The data and
notes were kept in a locked cabinet for security. The informed consent process included
information on how recordings will be kept private and when and how the recordings are deleted.
Participants were not provided payment or reimbursement upfront for their participation,
but they received thank you notes as acknowledgement of the time. This process is intended to
prevent any actual or perceived coercion and promote the voluntary participation of the
interviewees. A summary of the research, including data collection and ethical practices, was
submitted to University of Southern California’s Institutional Review Board for approval. All
documents provided to potential participants that explained the research process and provided
informed consent will be reviewed with dissertation committee and peers to ensure ethical and
consistent recruitment and collection strategies.
As the researcher is also a known psychotherapist in the Bay Area mental health and
education communities, efforts were made to clarify her role as a researcher. She is also a
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 66
workforce development project developer with significant history of promoting peer employment
in behavioral health settings. Given these experiences, the researcher initiated a reflective
practice that required review of data content and process after each observation or interview.
The intention was to attempt to identify any researcher biases or assumptions that might have
emerged and to account for any such potential bias in the data.
Limitations and Delimitations
Limitations of the study included challenges associated with snowball sampling. The first
limitation was the non-random sample and cannot be considered representative of all the Bay
Area youth with foster care histories. Because of ethical issues related to obtaining participants,
the researcher was limited to those who came forward through referral from friend or network.
The self-referral process potentially further limited the sample size as the researcher is not able
to obtain subjects through direct request of individuals known to have a foster care history.
Finally, the researcher had no control over how the subjects answer the question and some
information might have been distorted due to memory or emotional connections to the material.
The study occurred during a six-month period from October 2017 to February 2018. The
eight interviews provided data about the motivation and knowledge of youth formerly in in
different interactional contexts. The interview consisted of 14 questions that addressed
knowledge, motivational and organizational factors that influenced academic performance.
Questions that explored the participants' strengths and experiences of trauma-informed care were
also asked to further determine the impact of these factors on college graduates from foster care.
The questions and observational protocol were based on the study's conceptual framework. This
framework included addressing gaps in knowledge, motivation and organizational performance
that can impact outcomes (Clark & Estes, 2008). As the literature identified strengths of youth in
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 67
care and the management of their trauma experience as important for successful college
completion, these concepts were also part of conceptual formulation, the interview, and artifact
review processes (Fratto, 2016; Rapp & Goscha, 2012).
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 68
CHAPTER FOUR: Results
Young people who were formerly involved in the foster youth system are significantly
under-represented in the college graduate population. This study was intended to determine the
knowledge, motivational, and organizational components that help contribute to the success of
those students with child welfare histories graduate from college. The components supporting
their success would be used to inform a curriculum to train peer specialists that would then
enable them to provide evidence-based support and guidance to college students with the unique
foster system histories. These peer specialists could be employed at college-based foster youth
support programs, Extended Opportunity Programs and Services programs, school guidance
centers, and behavioral health clinics, as well as other locations where transitional youth peer
specialists could be useful in providing their specific skills to assist college youth in transition in
the college environment.
The innovation lies in training individual peer specialists in specific knowledge informed
by individuals with lived experience and this distinguished them from other peer specialist who
provide support services to the general population. The data was collected using semi-structured
interviews of adults with histories in foster care that successfully completed some level of
college. Online videos of adults with foster care histories were also reviewed for relevant study
content. The interview items (see Appendix A) addressed the following research questions:
1. What are the knowledge and motivation characteristics of college graduate study
participants with foster care experiences who have completed post-secondary
academic goals that the BHWC can use to create an emerging adult peer specialist
curriculum?
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 69
2. What organizational components helped or hindered college graduates with foster
care histories in attaining their academic goals?
3. What are the recommended knowledge, motivation, and organizational solutions to
the academic barriers emerging adults with foster care histories typically experience
as they enter college?
Study Participants
The study participants were adults who were involved as youth in the foster care system
and who had graduated from some college or credential program. The participants are distinct
from the young adults who will be trained as peer specialists as these individuals have already
completed college and their experience, along with the literature, will determine the curriculum
that will be developed to train the peers. The participants involved completed associate of arts
degrees at community colleges, four-year bachelor’s degrees, master's degrees, and a doctorate in
education. The intention of the study is to identify the knowledge, motivation, and
organizational factors these stakeholders identified as being essential to their academic
successes.
The information from this group of stakeholders will be used to create a curriculum to
train peers with histories in the foster care system as support and mentoring professionals for
emerging adults entering college and (typically) aging out of foster care. Additional stakeholders
include faculty in community college and other credentialing programs who would take
leadership in offering the peer specialist training to interested peers.
Eight individuals were interviewed and six additional video artifacts of college graduates
with foster care histories were reviewed for this study. The ages of the interviewees ranged from
25 to 46. The eight individual interviewees all identified as female. Three of the video presenters
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 70
were men and three were women. The college experiences ranged from completing two-year
associate degrees, four-year bachelor’s degrees, and master’s degrees. One participant completed
a doctorate. The eight interviewees were all in foster care as children or adolescents, with most
of them entering foster care as teenagers. The amount of time in foster care varied from six
months to nearly 10 years.
Table 5.
Demographics of Study Participants
Age range Gender Race/ethnicity
Time in
foster care
Highest degree
attained
25 to 46 F interviews–8
F videos–3
M videos–3
Latina–5
Asian/Pacific Islander–2
White–3
Multiple categories–2*
6 months
to 9 years
Associates–2
Bachelor’s–3
Master’s–2
Doctorate–1
* One participant identified as both Asian/Pacific Islander and Latina, and one participant identified as both
white and Latina
The college graduates who participated in the study were from diverse educational and
cultural backgrounds and obtained a wide variety of academic degrees. Amy identified as mixed
race and is in her late 40s. She has a doctorate and works in a large non-profit organization. She
spent two years in foster care as a teenager. Bea is 26 years old, was in and out of foster care
from infancy and stated that she spent a total of nine years in care. She identified as being of
European descent, she obtained a bachelor’s degree and she works in education providing
support services to youth in care. Brittany was in foster care from ages 15 to 18 and is currently
25 years old. Her highest level of education is a master's degree and she works in education.
Frances is in her early 30s. She is finishing a medical training program and has already received
a bachelor's degree in social sciences. She was in kinship care as a child and adolescent. Gwen is
29 and works at a large non-profit social service agency. She identified as both Asian Pacific
Islander and Latina. She has an associates degree and a bachelor’s degree. Micah works in social
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 71
services and is 27 years old. She identified as Latina and spent most of her life in and out of
foster care. She is studying to be a masters-level social worker and she has already completed a
bachelor's degree. Pam is 30 and lived in foster care settings from the age of 11 to the age of 18.
She identified as Latina. She works as a caregiver in a group home and received an associate’s
degree. Shelbi is 39 years old and also identified as Latina. She was in foster care for about six
months as an adolescent, she obtained an associate of arts degree, and she works in the medical
field.
All participants expressed the desire to be a part of creating a novel program to address
the needs of foster youth as a primary motivational factor for volunteering for the research. All
eight of the respondents indicated the presence of some aspect of intrinsic motivation to
participate based on identifying as adults who were formerly involved in the system and a need
to support what was often referred to a foster care “family.” Regarding her reasons for
participating in the study, Brittany took the social justice perspective of wanting to address
performance gaps of youth in care so that they can have resources to complete college. She said:
I think it ... and there's clearly a lack of support, so I think that projects like these are
really important and I wanna support them. Especially when they are focused on having
former foster youth's voices being heard because I think too often that, that's not the case.
And so, the narratives that are being told are not productive. I think it's really important
that we have narratives that are from us, and then, also that, yeah. I just feel like there's a
huge epidemic that is going unnoticed, that we're just not getting our bachelor’s degree, if
we're graduating from high school.
Micah has leadership experience participating and organizing various youth outreach
activities in her high school and college. She spoke touchingly about her relationship to the foster
youth community and how such connections are driven by her intrinsic motivation to create and
grow a family. She said:
A lot of times people have children, so they hold on to their children. If they have
siblings, they hold on to their siblings or family or something. But I had to cut everybody
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 72
off. So, I didn't have that. I didn't have kids I didn't have ... so it was like I was around 17
or 18 or so I started my own foster youth club at my high school and we called ourselves
the Resilient Youth. And my social worker on site helped me bring them all together.
And I would do every other week I would do lunch workshops with them where I would
teach them the things I just learned. If I just learned an icebreaker I would teach them.
And I took them to Guardian Scholars for a tour.
Although not stated in as much detail, other participants expressed an interest or moral
obligation to reach back and provide support to upcoming foster youth. In regard to her
participation, Gwen stated, “I wanted to participate because I heard you were looking for data
and I wanted to know how I could contribute to helping foster youth. I did a study before on
mentorship and data. I am a supporter giving to foster youth.” Pam added, “[when I heard about
this research], as soon as it said this is going to help other people, that just really hit home for
me.”
The participants' responses regarding the potential for supporting their younger peers who
are entering college is consistent with peer provider attitudes in other settings, where intrinsic
motivation is driven by the power of identification and relatedness in the peer relationship
(Moran et al., 2014). A positive attitude toward the clients served are a willingness to share lived
experience has also been identified as a core competency for peer providers working with young
adults the mental health issues (Gypen, Vanderfaeillie, De Maeyer, Belenger, & Van Holen,
2017).
Findings
The college graduates had unique paths to their academic successes. Each of the eight
individuals interviewed as well as the stories of those in the videos revealed complicated lives
that required the students to be thoughtful and strategic about moving toward their goals and
correcting any missteps. Regardless of the diversity of each individual’s story, clear themes
emerged, revealing the core knowledge and motivational and organizational factors that
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 73
promoted the graduates' academic achievements. Safety and strengths components associated
with each of these factors are also identified within the knowledge, motivational and
organizational components that promoted academic success.
Knowledge
The college graduates identified specific knowledge and skills components that enabled
their academic success. Factual knowledge of support services offered and procedural knowledge
of how to navigate the complicated systems that provide resources were also identified. In some
cases, the identified resources were consistent with the literature and emerging in virtually every
interview: financial aid, understanding of college supports and housing, as examples. Other
sources of essential knowledge and skills are not so obvious, such as how to ask for help (often
in order to make use of factual knowledge obtained), and how to develop a sense of self-
knowledge in order to self-regulate and make effective decisions in the college environment
Knowledge of Campus Supports
Participants confirmed the importance of knowing about the college system in order to
successfully engage and complete their higher education. Bea speaks to learning in high school
many college requirements, and her early awareness that having such knowledge would be
necessary for academic success. The knowledge of campus resources needed was both factual –
what resources are available to students – as well as procedural – how are these resources
obtained. Most of the knowledge components identified by the participants as being essential to
their success were both factual and procedural in nature. Half of the respondents identified
having knowledge of the college system as important to their success. For those who identified
knowledge of college as important, the topic generated significant discussion. Bea said:
…in terms of just the school experience, and my education, because I had the stability, I
built off it a lot. And so, by the time again, in twelfth grade, I knew what A through G
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requirements were, and I was hitting them. And I was meeting with my counselor, and
they were making sure that I was doing that. And they were talking to me about college,
where nobody else really in my family was, or my social workers … In terms of
knowledge, it's kinda two-pronged. There's the knowledge and skills that you need to be
savvy as a college student. So, there's knowledge and skills in terms of being able to
navigate campus resources was critical. If I didn't know where to go, or who to talk to in
financial aid, or that we even had a whole program just for foster youth, which I got
involved with, I would have had a much harder time.
Brittany also acknowledged her systems knowledge as being important for success and
noted awareness of her relative privilege that allowed her more access to the essential college
information necessary for success. She said:
I feel like I had most of the knowledge that I think a lot ... I think I had a lot of the social
knowledge and knowledge of academia that I needed to be successful, but I think a lot of
foster youth don't have, and I think that's what led me to being successful. And I mean, I
think that is partly because my mom has a bachelor’s degree, and partly because, maybe
also, I didn't enter care until I was 15, so my narrative was a lot different than people who
were in the system when they were like, three.
Pam had an early understanding of the need for knowledge about how to work the college
system early, and like Bea, she found ways to obtain knowledge about what she would need to
be success, and she is focused on the questioning process to learn about requirements and
resources. She stated:
You just really have to give it a chance, and you have to ask all the questions. If you don't
really know something about college, you have to ask the questions. I think the
terminology, knowing the different degrees available, the different types of things that
you can earn there. Just knowing everything. And having access to financial aid. That
was a huge part of it.
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Table 6.
Identified College Supports that Promote College Success
College support Type of support
College requirements
Financial aid information
Available degrees
Housing options available
Resources of obtaining books and/or book vouchers
How to obtain and maintain financial aid
Factual
Factual
Factual
Factual
Factual and procedural
Procedural
The participants' seeking knowledge about resources is consistent with the research
indicating that for college graduates to be successful in college, they need to know about not
only college resources, but also about other community resources such as housing, financial
support, healthcare services (Daining & DePanfilis, 2007; Merdinger, et al., 2005; Salazar,
Jones, et al., 2016). Figuring out the larger college system was clearly a larger priority for the
successful graduates and each came to knowledge of the system through their own individual
understanding of the system as well as their specific support networks. Within the larger
systemic knowledge, the graduates identified specific areas of knowledge that were critical to
their ability to complete their academic goals.
Financial Knowledge
For the college graduates, having knowledge of financial resources – specifically
financial aid – as well as how to manage money, were essential for completing college. Most
college students struggle with finances, but for youth raised in the foster care system, financial
struggles occur as a result of not having parental or family financial resources, not having
opportunities to learn about handing money and struggling to set limits with family members
who seek financial assistance from the students (Hernandez & Naccarato, 2010); Katz &
Courtney, 2015). All eight of the respondents identified the importance of having specific
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financial knowledge as well as the procedural knowledge to help them access resources. The
participants identified deficits in their financial knowledge due their lack of experience with
money. Amy states:
If you're a foster youth, I was never allowed to have money. Until I had my own job, and
I earned my money, I didn't have an allowance, or anything like that at any of my foster
homes. And then you're expected to pay $12,000 a year to some university. It seems
completely intangible.
Micah spoke to the importance of picking up skills of financial management from
mentors during her adolescence. The fact that she had the opportunity to learn from a mentor
about finances was a random but important series of events that contributed to her financial
literacy. Regarding one mentor, Micah stated, “She hired me, but as I was cleaning her house
and she was paying me, she would teach me things. Like, ‘Come here, let me teach you how to
write a check. And this is how you do your taxes.’”
Amy also had a fortuitous encounter with a mentor who helped her build the skills
necessary to work independently. She stated:
I had an accountant that took me under his wings and trained me how to be a very high-
level bookkeeper and I was able to do that for 13 years and get extra money and work as
a consultant where I could work from home. But get paid for my age, really high dollar
amount. Like $25 an hour for some clients and stuff like that, and at that time, that was
unthinkable for somebody who didn't have much education or work background.
Micah provided an additional example of building financial skills through specialized
programming designed to educate individuals in financial literacy. She explained that she was
able to take what she learned and strategically apply it to increasing her financial independence
and ability to remain in college. She said:
I learned about savings through a program called earn.org. And earn at that time had an
IDA account where if you saved money they would match your dollars. And this
computer meeting people with I bought with that money. So, I learned about savings.
And I was 18 surrounded by other people in these trainings of savings and investing. And
I was the youngest person there. And I was learning about debt and how you manage
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your money and long-term money and short-term money. And those programs really
helped me.
Whereas Micah and Amy gravitated toward learning how to be more financially
independent, not all the graduates had the same level of motivation or opportunity to obtain
financial training. Nonetheless, financial knowledge was seen as essential for college success.
Pam addressed the challenge of being an emerging adult and needing to learn financial skills
even when not ready to take on increased responsibility. She stated:
It sucks, in terms of you're an adult and you choose what you want to do. But I kind of
feel that I wasn't ready to be that adult-ish. I really still needed, even after 18; I needed
things to be more mandatory, things to be more serious. I need that. I needed things to
have more consequences still.
All eight of the participants spoke to receiving foundation grants, Board of Governors fee
waivers, or other public/private assistance for being financially in need and/or formerly involved
in the foster care system. Each grad mentioned ways in which they obtained the grants, usually
with the guidance of a mentor or program, but graduates also spoke of financial limits on the
grants. Scholarship and financial aid award limits, for example, felt random and limiting and the
graduate question why they had to endure additional hardship. Brittany stated:
I remember asking, 'Well, how do you determine who gets 32500 and who gets 25,000?
Is it merit or is it need?' And she was like, 'Well, it's mostly need.' But then, I ended up
getting 12,000 and I was really confused because I was like, my EFC is zero, I have been
doing AmeriCorps for two years, so I've been earning $12,000 a year for the last two
years. I don't really know what other needs ... like, who could have higher need more
clearly than I could?
Amy, who like Brittany, also attended a public school and questioned receiving
prestigious financial awards that also came with unclear award limits. She explained:
They would give you a maximum of 50 thousand a year. It was usually the school that
limited the amount that you can get, which I think is horrible. It's like saying you could
only live at this level of poverty here to go here. And it's like if somebodies willing to
give me 50 thousand, why would you block me from getting 50 thousand? But they do.
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Financial aid as an identified priority for young people in college is not surprising, and
for foster youth access to financial aid resources are critical given their financial precariousness
(Kinarsky, 2017; Randolph & Thompson, 2017). Unrau, Dawson, Hamilton, & Bennett (2017)
identified financial aid assistance as the most important component of a support program for
students who aged out of foster care and were attending college to complete a degree. It is
important to note that many component support programs studied were broken down into more
specific categories. Of the top eighteen programming categories, eight were related to college
finances: tuition and scholarships, paid internships, financial incentives for academic
performance, scholarships for study abroad, help with financial aid, funds for professional attire,
help finding job/work study, and budgeting support (Unrau et al., 2017). Each of these topics
were also mentioned by participants when asked what knowledge components were essential to
their successfully completing their college degree.
Asking for Help as Skill for Obtaining Mentorship
Obtaining mentorship on a formal or informal basis proved to be a dominant motivational
component for the college graduates, but mentors also assisted mentees with obtaining essential
knowledge of the work and college systems (Blakeslee & Keller, 2013; Morton, 2017). The
ability to ask others for help proved to be an important skill possessed by the graduates that
allowed them to connect to mentors as well as other individuals who could help meet their needs.
Two-thirds of the participants identified having procedural knowledge of how to ask for help as
important for their college success. Specifically, asking for help allowed them to obtain the help
they needed during challenging times. Bea spoke to the importance of learning how to reach
other to others:
Just the having the savvy, and skills going along with that. Knowing how to talk to
people, knowing how to start a conversation, understanding that they really are there.
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They work for you. They're there to support you as the student. And so, not being
intimidated to ask for help. Kind of these things are more subtle. I think the soft skills
that you need to put yourself out there.
Gwen also identified the ability to ask for help as a core knowledge and skill strategy she
refine in college, saying, “Asking for help. (My mentor) helped me get through it. She had a lot
of experience. She helped me get my first car and I appreciated her support.” Pam also learned
that asking for help was crucial for receiving needed resources in college and went as far to state
that reaching out was mandatory in order to receive necessary support services. She said:
So, it was kind of like instead of just being given them, it almost felt like I wouldn't be
given the resources unless I asked for them, so I wasn't ... I want to say I wasn't as in need
as other people in the system at the time, so maybe people working with me thought
"Well, she's doing okay, so we'll just leave her alone." I don't know. But it could very
well be that I was giving off that vibe that I was doing okay, even though I really wasn't.
The experiences of the participants are consistent with research indicating that successful
foster youth identify natural mentors in their environment and call upon them to address their
activities of daily living through support and advice (Rutman & Hubberstey, 2016). Natural
mentors can be defined as “the presence of a caring, supportive non-parental adult from within
the youth's social network” (Thompson, Greeson, & Brunsink, 2016, p.40). The ability to
identify and reach out the friends, instructors, and community members is a life skill that needs
to be developed as youth transitioning to college consistently call on such supports to help them
navigate challenging systems and overwhelming life events. Having such a skill set allows the
college grads to access support throughout their lives as they know how to ask others for support
and use the support they receive.
Creating Opportunities for Natural Mentorship
Five of the eight college graduates spoke to not only the importance of developing the
engagement skills that enabled them to make mentoring connections, but to their development of
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an understanding of the importance of creating natural mentorship connections. Natural mentors
are those individuals that a youth already has in his or her network that can be used to help
connect him or her to more resources and contacts. Natural mentors are able to broaden resource
acquisition and social capital for students who were formerly involved in the foster system. The
more natural mentors students have, the broader and deeper their network potentially becomes
(Hass, Allen, & Amoah, 2014; Keller & Blakeslee, 2013). According to Frances:
These mentors were not like formal mentors. They were just people that I met along the
way who I was able to go to and ask for help. They provided the help that I needed. I felt
like they were looking out for me, but it wasn't like an exclusive thing, but they were
looking out for my well-being, and making sure that I was aware of different things going
on, so that I could get involved if I wanted to. If they felt like I was a really good
candidate for it, that they would actually push me, put the pressure on me to get involved
in these things.
Gwen added examples of how her mentoring relationship developed and expanded to
include different topics over time:
She helped me figure out decisions I had to make: to go to school or not. She was a
retired DA. (The mentoring) was not a formal process. I also went to her for advice on
my major. She also gave me recommendations and wrote letters for schools and jobs.
Professors and other professionals are clearly identified as knowledgeable about systems
and have formal training and experience in the world to provide effective guidance. However,
participants also found peers to be effective natural mentors and supports. Participants
discovered that friends were often critical not only for emotional support, but also for academic
guidance. Shelbi explained her conscious decision to connect with peers who could help her
through the program, saying “[I connected with] other college students that were in the same
classes ... That they might have known something I didn't know or could help me with the
project.”
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Ability to Self-Regulate
Emotional and physical trauma negatively impacts a young person's ability to self-
regulate their emotions, but self-regulation skills can be developed through therapeutic
intervention (Fratto, 2016). Typically, youth from foster care might be provided opportunities for
developing self-regulation skills in therapeutic environments. Six out of the eight were able to
identify ability to self-observe and regulate behavior and call up their own resiliency skills to
overcome academic and personal challenges. However, the college graduates spoke to their own
development of meta cognitive skills that allowed them to identify behaviors, thoughts and
attitudes that they needed to adjust in order to obtain or maintain academic success. Frances
spoke to her learning about “being a pushover” and adjusting her behavior so she could set better
limits remain focused on her own academic goals and needs. She said:
I feel like when I was younger, I was a big pushover. I feel like as I've had more
experiences interacting with people in my life, whether they were brief interactions or
whether they were longer-term interactions, it really helped me to see that I was a
pushover. Every new person that I was meeting, I was convinced that I was going to
change my ways and not be such a pushover. So, through time, I've been able to stand up
more for myself and not bend so fast to other people’s wants or expectations of me. It's a
process.
Micah added her own awareness of needing to learn how to observe relationships and
determine which were “healthy” and which were “unhealthy” so that she could choose which to
develop and those to discard. She stated, “[I would have wanted] interpersonal relationship
support ... I would have wanted to learn really young that some things are unhealthy in
relationships and learn how to say no and how to put space. Yeah. Romantic relationships.”
Gwen was able to reflect on her internship experiences by using her developing self-
knowledge to determine career goals. She revealed:
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I wanted to be a [probation officer]. I did the internship and decided it is not what I
wanted to do. I shifted around and learned. I do not intend to be in the mental health field.
I like the fast pace of the [MH] work. Creativity. I like to use creativity.
Using self-reflection, Gwen was able to make rule out an unsuitable career option.
Having such skill was especially useful, as she had limited number of adult and family supports
to provide her career guidance.
Mastery of self-regulation skills is viewed as important for early childhood academic and
social development as well as for reduction in delinquency in adolescence (Florez, 2011;
Sorensen & Dodge, 2016). Additionally, the college graduates have discovered the importance of
observing (mostly interpersonal) behaviors to screen for those behaviors that might keep them
from obtaining their academic goals and adjusting accordingly.
Knowledge of Mental Health Resources
More than half of the college graduates specifically stated they used or would have liked
more access to behavioral health service, specifically mental health services. Although young
adulthood is a challenging transitional time of life for many young adults, the study participants
reported that having additional mental health supports made the challenges of being a student
and dealing with specific issues related to trauma and/or separation more manageable.
Specifically, the graduates spoke of needing supports to manage the stress related to being in
contact with biological family members, or conversely, having no contact with family members.
Bea spoke of the struggles she endured as biological family members came in and out of her life
in ways she was not able to easily predict. Nonetheless, she felt compelled to reconnect with
family whenever they re-emerged in her life, even though dealing with the family needs
distracted Bea from her studies. Regarding the nature of her emotional distress as a young adult,
she said:
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And that was even more important because, again, for me it wasn't so much the actual
academics, it was getting distracted by the other pieces. And with the bio family coming
back in my life, and not knowing how to separate that, and how to just kinda look at that
as what it is and focus on this over here. That was the biggest thing that I think.
She went on to stress the importance of being in therapy as a way of managing her
stressors, including the stress of family members that came in and out of her life and had
expectations that she would assist them with their needs. She discussed the stress that is typical
for many foster youths who are attempting to establish boundaries with their family members
and said that mental health therapy continues to be important for her as well as for her peers:
It's still something I'd struggle with. I'm about go to back into therapy to deal with my
mom. And those feelings are very toxic, kind of co-dependent relationship that we have
together. And it's something that I live with. Our relationship, our dynamic, for many
youth, no matter what your experience was, you're gonna come back. You're gonna age
out, and you're gonna have choice. Are you going to interact with your biological parents
or not? If they're in the picture, or not.
In situations where biological parents were not present and/or creating conflict, the
participants were able to report the absence of their parents as a source of emotional distress.
Sadness or feeling different or odd became issues for the youth during times that parents would
typically be present at college events. Bea spoke further regarding the emotional distress related
to parental absence emerging during a such a time:
And you should expect that you're gonna have real bad emotions come up that you might
not even think are gonna be so bad. When you get to school especially because for me,
one was moving into the dorms and seeing everybody and their parents they're moving
them in.
Micah's emotionally distressing experience also occurred in the dormitory environment
during transitional times and when her fellow students left for home and she was left by herself
in campus housing. As the dorms are the location of campus domestic life, it is understandable
that the lack of a biological family (or lack of consistent family) would engender significant
emotional distress. Micah recalled:
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And then I think the biggest hardship I have sometimes is my own emotional stuff. I had
to cut of my biological family and I haven't talked to my mother or anybody for 11 years.
So, the holidays would be really sad. Even though I lived in the summer in the dorms
people would leave. Even other foster youth had sisters or brothers or something to go
back to and I didn't have any of that. So, the dorms were really lonely, and it was really
hard to ... like every birthday I got really sad. Every holiday I got really sad. And I had
not processed, I had not overcome that feeling of other people have the mother
privileged. They have parents and care packages and they got a lot of extra love from
their parents. And that depressed me a lot. That was really hard to keep going sometimes.
Even for foster youth who did not have especially distressing relationships with present
or absent families, the challenges of setting boundaries, managing depression, and accessing
strengths were additional mental health issues that the participants would have wanted addressed.
Micah spoke of the difficulty she had determining boundaries given her history of disrupted
attachments with family members. Regarding boundaries, Micah stated, “I still struggle with
knowing what's healthy, what's not healthy. Where are my limits you know since I was abused so
long I don't always have limits of like this is not okay and stuff like that.” Pam spoke of her
intermittent depression that occurred at various times during her academic career, saying, “So, no
matter how much I had going for me at the time, I was very lost. I went through ups and downs
emotionally, in terms of depression and giving up and feeling like I wasn't going to further
myself or my education.” Fortunately, Pam was able to access services to address her mental
health needs, but even the persistence to attend to proper self-care was a source of stress. Amy
reflected on her relationship to resilience and self-care when she stated:
I know what people call perseverance and resilience and stuff. I'm often really resistant to
those words because I know the toll it took on my mental health in order to be that
resilient person or that person who perseveres. But sometimes I really did just need a
break.
Although resilience, persistence, and self-care are identified as important components for
preserving mental health, Amy experienced consistently practicing these self-care behaviors as
stress inducing.
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Not all youth with foster care histories have significant mental health challenges but
having opportunities to address mental health issues in the college setting can help address the
emotional and behavioral issues that these youth experience (Hernandez & Naccarato, 2010;
Phillips et al., 2015; Salazar, Roe, et al., 2016). Effective mental health supports include
normalizing mental health challenges college students from foster care experience as well as
identifying their strengths (Phillips et al., 2015). In addition to mental health and problem-
solving skills supports, students from foster care also benefit from substance use disorder
treatment when they enter the college environment (Hernandez & Naccarato, 2010; Salazar, Roe,
et al., 2016).
Ability to Manage Time
The college graduates specifically and repeatedly identified time management skills as
very important to meeting their academic goals. Two-thirds of the participants spoke to the
procedural knowledge of time management that helped them balance their responsibilities in
order to succeed academically. The ability to observe how they were managing time and adjust
their behaviors appropriately was also a metacognitive skill the graduates used to succeed in
college. Concrete support, such as time management among other study skills, are foundational
to academic success for students formerly involved in the foster system (Salazar, Roe, et al.,
2016). The concept of time management skills is typically combined with other life skills
typically targeted in independent living programs and academic support programs (Casey Family
Programs, 2017; Kinarsky, 2017). Amy stated how important time management was to her
success in college when she referred to the importance of “really valuing time, like being on time
to class … being on time with my assignments.” Gwen added, “Skills I used to succeed in
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college: time management. I had to juggle work, school, and personal life.” Shelbi provided
additional detail when describing the central role time management played in her college career:
Making time for studying. Being that I didn't graduate high school and I didn't focus on
school when I was younger, going to college was completely out of the realm of what I
thought I could do. Studying and taking time for each class and how much time you had
to take for studying for each class was way more than I thought I could do, or even
handle.
In addition to balancing school assignments, work and family, the participants also found
they needed to time their college experience so to graduate before they ran out of resources. Pam
pointed out the organizing role that time management played in her academic experience and the
challenge of keeping time restraints in mind while attending to her multiple responsibilities:
The biggest challenges for me was time and pacing myself. I had to work. After financial
aid runs out, you slow down because you have to work and take care of yourself. You
have to pay your rent. You have to ... You have other responsibilities. I went from those
nice, comfortable three years of not having any of that to having financial aid for some
time, but then I had all these things. And even today, I'm like "How am I even managing
all of this?" You know? It's a lot.
Shelbi said that she had a similar strategy of attending to time management in order to
successfully graduate:
I wasn't going to be a drop out. I told myself I'm not doing that. I'm going to get through
it. It did actually take me four years to graduate as opposed to two because I took my
time. I didn't rush myself. I didn't try to jam pack everything. I spread it out and I tried to
make time for family as well as make time for my studies and everything else.
The role of time among the college graduates is ever-present yet appears to function on
both micro (classwork and daily schedules) and macro (taking time for relationships and work)
levels. Individual students found ways to manage time in ways that made sense to them and
helped them organized their competing and complex responsibilities in ways that allowed them
to succeed academically.
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This knowledge component was often discussed within a conversation about the
motivational aspects of resilience or persistence, which the college graduates consistently
demonstrated throughout their academic careers. Five of the participants spoke of having an
awareness of how important finding and using their voice was as a college student and as a youth
without consistent family or social supports that had special needs. The participants identified
self-advocacy as being essential to obtaining much needed resources and support. Self-advocacy
is distinguished here from asking for help as it is identified as more assertive and associated with
an awareness of needing specific supports as a youth transitioning from foster care. Bea spoke
of her self-awareness of her unique situation as a youth that needed to speak up for herself when
she stated:
I feel like I represent a very unique and opportunist kind of sub-niche of youth in that I
was able to stay in the same high school, and that I did have connections that I was able
to build. But, part of that was because I advocated for it too, and because I had people
advocating for me for that.
Micah took advocacy to the next level by organizing a high school support group for
other youth in care. She spoke to how the group functioned to help organize the foster youth and
create an environment in which they could learn and advocate with each other. Her motivation
for the group was to create an advocacy network that would help with
Motivation
Goal achievers, including college graduates, possess a variety of motivational traits
including, but not limited to self-efficacy, intrinsic motivation, self-regulation, and volition
(Eccles & Wigfield, 2002). The college graduates with foster system histories also had
significant motivation in many forms. Although individual students had various manifestations
of motivation, the role of motivation drove powerful forms of adaptation and goal setting among
the participants.
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Self-efficacy
Completing any goal, especially one as complicated as completing an academic degree
requires an ability to have an expectancy that the outcome occurs because of the effort and that
one possesses the competency to perform and tasks needed to complete the goal (Bandura,
1997). Youth from foster care settings need to have a sense of self-efficacy as would any other
student, but for foster youth in particular a strong believe in one's abilities to perform and persist
are critical factors in educational attainment (Philips et al., 2015; Schneider, 2016). The college
graduates in the study affirmed that they all found ways to develop self-efficacious believes to
move them forward in college even if they came to understand their own abilities and skills over
time. Self-efficacy was identified by all of the college graduates as being an important
component of their college success, and self-efficacy came up explicitly in one Storyboard video
as well.
For some of the college graduates, survival as young people who had been in and out of
foster care settings provided a sense of strength and accomplishment as they were able to
recognize their strengths and competencies manifested in their ability to survive the arbitrary and
often difficult foster care system. Bea expressed this perspective when she stated:
I've gone through so much; I can certainly make it through that. And so, it's interesting
because we gotta change that frame of mind of looking at kids look at college as this big,
scary, unpleasant, daunting task. This unachievable goal. But, you've already made it
through some of the most heinous, and challenging situations a human being can be put
in. And you've made it; you're standing here today. College, where you can get paid to go
have this experience, this actually could be pretty good.
Frances adopted a similar perspective when she identified her ability to solve problems in
college as being shaped by years in the foster care system where she had to deal with various
disappointments and confusion on a regular basis. She said:
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As a student you have these deadlines and you have these expectations, your expectations
and the school's expectations and your peers’ expectations of you. A lot of times they
don't all jive. So, there's a lot of opportunities for miscommunication, misunderstanding.
The point is that we all push through it, but I feel like being a former foster youth, the
fact that I have had those experiences where things didn't go my way, that I'm able to use
those skills that I had to learn before.
Sometimes the connection to self-efficacy was simply used as a type of motivational
mantra that helped push the graduate through school. One of the participants in the Storyboard
videos, Marquis, stated:
I just remember telling myself that this is something that I can do I have the support I've
made it this far, but I didn't even think would make it past my first year so I just kind of
made a promise to myself to keep going after that.
Marquis’ self-talk was reinforced by his academic successes that proved his self-efficacy
and continued to move him toward his academic goals; the more he achieved, the more he was
proving to himself that a college degree was in fact something he could achieve.
Identifying as resilient also assisted the college graduates in connecting with their ability
to be self-efficacious and persisting in college even when they felt unsupported by their external
environment. Brittany spoke to her ability to identify with her ability to be resilient when
speaking about her success at an Ivy League University:
Going to Stanford, and being a foster youth in that environment, where I didn't really feel
like I was supposed to be there. Like, just resiliency, like, when things were feeling
overwhelming, or I didn't perform the way I wanted to do on something, like, not letting
that stop me, but continuing on and learning from it. And doing it anyway.
Resilience often contributed to persistence, which itself appeared to reinforce the
graduates' sense of determination and confidence in pushing through the most challenging parts
of the college experience, including not having resources or support that other students who were
connected to their family might have. Pam observed that she found pride in completion despite
her own expectations that she needed to progress more rapidly through college, saying:
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I always go back to how long it's taken me, that I'm not very proud of that. But I am
proud that I've stuck with it, and that I didn't give up. And I've learned to accept what I
said earlier about I will experience, when I apply myself, I will experience the same
steps, but maybe not at the same pace.
Similar to Pam, Shelbi experienced some shame about the slower pace at which she
progressed through college. However, she also developed an earned sense of pride from
successfully completing college. As she pointed out, completing college meant a lot to her not
only in terms of the actual accomplishment, but it also shifted her sense of self from a non-
completer to a goal achiever. She said:
I lived most of my childhood I put a lot on myself. If I didn't do well on something, I just
gave up on it. Throughout my life, that was kind of my thing. When it got too hard, then
just don't do it. Just give up. For me to go to college was a humongous undertaking. I was
really scared of it. I was very intimidated by it. I jumped in because I wasn't going to be a
drop out. I told myself I'm not doing that. I'm going to get through it.
In Walter's Storyboard video, he shared a similar theme of determination that fed his
persistence in college. He stated, “it doesn't matter where you come from it only matters where
you're going you know you may take two steps forward only to take five steps back, but you
have to know within those steps going back that you're still going to move forward.”
The participants spoke of many stories of persistence and resilience, and six of the eight
students interviewed had examples of significant setbacks that put their resilience to the test.
Setbacks are part of transitioning to adulthood and college presents a set of challenges that need
to be managed by any college student. What is remarkable about the college graduate stories are
the seriousness of the disruptions, lack of (consistent) family support, and early histories of
trauma or attachment ruptures that would likely typically impact coping skills. Amy's discussion
of her mental health challenges speaks of the intrinsic motivation inherent in her persistent
determination to finish college:
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I went through severe depression. So sad ideation, pretty severe mental health
experiences throughout my 20's and early 30's. And to be honest with you, even through
today. But that just created barriers and a couple of breakdowns when I was in school.
Continued school, which I think speaks more to my lack of self-care than anything else,
but it was important for me to complete because I just wanted to have it.
Frances completed her undergraduate degree and is currently completing a master's
degree, but she spoke about the difficulty and shame she felt failing out early from a science
major. For her, persistence was positively impacted by her foster youth status as she found it
important to prove to the community and herself that she was able to complete college:
It's something that I have been struggling with, because I just feel like there was an
injustice done to me... But at the same time though, I guess, I was just too bogged down
with the drama of it, basically (for) 10 years and God knows for how much longer. But I
feel like that's also the motivation as to why I am pursuing a different career, because I
want to basically be rid of that black history of mine.
In addition to potential emotional or academic challenges, the financial issues
consistently created barriers to college attendance at some point for each of the participants.
Having school disrupted by needing to take work breaks created another level of challenge that
each participant had to resolve in order to move forward academically. Gwen shared a typical
experience when she said:
I did start at SFSU but then I took a break as I needed to make money. The financial
piece was hard. I felt like rent was my focus and I had to choose between rent (and other
things). I took out loans.
Resilience and persistence as a function of goal-directed and self-efficacious behavior
was made even more apparent by such potential roadblocks that added additional stress to the
students and provided reasons to give up on goals.
Self-efficacy also appeared to be linked for some participants to choice and increasing
independence. When speaking of her ability to complete college, Pam said:
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You just really realize that you're on your own. Even though you have a wonderful
family, even though you have a whole support team, you realize that you're on your own,
that this is it. This is where you choose what you're going to do from now on.
In the context of Pam's success story, the belief in herself and the belief she could achieve
was motivated by her increasing autonomy and realization that she was needing to take more
independent action as a young adult.
The strong sense of self-efficacy among the college graduates is consistent with research
identifying learned helplessness as a factor for non-college completion among youth in care who
did not obtain support or opportunities to attend college (Gomez, Ryan, Norton, Jones, & Galan-
Cisneros, 2015). Schneider (2016) identified self-efficacy as a significant factor in motivating
youth with foster care histories in achieving their goals. Self-efficacy was promoted by
mentoring relationships in which a care adult was present and provided support and
encouragement while also being someone with whom students could share their academic goals
(Schneider, 2016). Mentors as motivating factor was also identified by each of the participants as
being essential for developing and growing the self-efficacy necessary to complete college.
Self-Efficacy and Mentoring
Mentoring is a complex relational process that involves many aspects of knowledge and
motivation in practice. Mentors need factual knowledge of the areas in which they are advising
mentees. The process of mentoring – engagement, appropriate boundaries, relationship building
– involves procedural knowledge. Mentors often teach or model self-reflection skills and thus
need metacognitive knowledge in order to properly instruct on the use of such skills. The impact
of mentoring is presented here as a mechanism for promoting self-efficacy as the participants
most frequently identified a mentor or multiple mentors as sources of confidence and promoters
of goal-oriented direction, which moved them forward in their college experiences.
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Mentors included those in the immediate environment for college students: teaching,
counseling, and other university staff. Bea's relationships with her instructors were typical for
many of the participants. She stated, “I did have certain teachers. Certain counselors that were
saying, ‘You can get this. You can do this. This is totally possible for you.’” Frances also spoke
of the powerful influence her faculty member on helping her learn how to be a student and
identify and someone who could successfully engage in college even thought at times she felt
they were leading her along the academic path:
I'm sure there was some degree of like pressure from the mentors to actually just like ... It
was like they were pushing me, although I was kind of skittish about it. They pushed me
to go and explore, and I did. If they hadn't pushed me, I don't know that I would have... I
was not in that mindset before I met my mentors and before I got involved in all the
programs that I did.
Pam spoke to the practical side of the self-efficacy aspect of her mentoring relationship
with faculty by stating how they went out of their way to show her the skills she would need to
be successful, which functioned to build her self-esteem and encouraged her ongoing
participation in college:
But I always keep thinking if I could go back to high school and apply what I applied in
college, I would be fantastic. Because a lot of my grades, in my essays and things like
that, were like B or higher. And my professors would always tell me, or still do, they say
stuff like it was really good. And they show me ... They would tell me ways of how to
even improve it, or how to even advance, or what I could do with it.
College faculty are accessible to all the graduates and some were more included to
connect with faculty than others, but most had an experience to share regarding the impact a
caring faculty member had on their college career. However, the college graduates also proved
adept at finding other mentors in their communities to build their confidence and self-efficacy.
Gwen spoke extensively about a professional in the community who connected with her as a
mentor and remained connected with her for years, most notably through her college career.
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Gwen states, “She was a retired DA. [The mentoring] was not a formal process. I also went to
her for advice on my major. She also gave me recommendations and wrote letters for schools
and jobs.” Though out the interview Gwen referenced her mentor as an advisor on other life
tasks as well, such as financial advisement and work advice.
Storyboard participant Monique spoke about her mentor, Jen, who was matched with her
to provide specific tutoring support, but who gradually shifted to becoming a consistent guiding
force in her life that helped shape her direction and supported her academic achievements. She
revealed in her Storyboard video:
They asked if I wanted a tutor and I said yeah, I need a tutor for math and so they gave
me Jen and the first thing Jen said to me was I can help you with anything, but math and
she helped me finish high school she helped me go to prom …the only adults that was at
my graduation was Jen. Before Jen I didn't really trust anyone, I didn't believe that there
really was hope for anyone good in the world …someone who's there for you emotionally
guides you through life helps you make the really important decisions I'd like to be able
to do that for someone one day think that I could be a really great mentor to a kid one day
I just need to get through college I need to get an education I believe that one person can
make all the difference.
Mentoring is consistently identified as critical for successful youth transition out of care
as well as into college environments. Mentoring for youth with disrupted family relationships
provides opportunities for youth to obtain essential modeling of effective adult roles, learn how
to problem-solve, and obtain essential factual and procedural knowledge about college and ways
to succeed in school (DuBois & Karcher, 2014; Pryce. 2013; Salazar, Haggerty, et al., 2016;
Williams, 2011). Mentoring also provides opportunities for youth to engage in relationships that
support their social and emotional development they might not have access to in foster care
(Randolph & Thompson, 2017). Mentoring can be seen as a relationship that promotes various
types of critical knowledge: factual, procedural, and metacognitive, and combines this
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knowledge with the support and emotional connection necessary to promote the confidence and
determination to persist in challenging academic environments.
Each study participant and most of the Storyboard video participants identified mentoring
as central to their growth, development, and eventual success as college students and adults. An
important subtheme that emerged in the mentoring discussions was the variety and location of
mentors selected by each participant and the highly individualized nature of the mentoring
experience. Amy and Brittany had close relationships with selected professors and/or faculty
advisors. Pam and Shelbi were very connected to peers – not necessarily young people with
foster histories, but fellow students in classes or extracurricular activities that gave advice or
illustrated coping modeling skills they could use. Gwen developed a strong relationship to a
mentor she connected with initially as an academic and career advisor, and Micah had a number
of mentors she identified and connected with throughout her academic career and during her
transition from high school to college. Her mentors have included program directors, social
workers, teachers, and program aids among others.
Some participants were involved in formal mentoring at some point in their lives, but
many located their own mentors at school or in the community. Natural mentoring is the process
of identifying and growing one's mentoring relationships outside of the formal programs that
assign mentors to mentees. The natural mentor can be thought of as “the presence of a caring,
supportive non-parental adult from within the youth's social network” (Thompson, Greeson, &
Brunsink, 2015, p. 40). The participants varied in their recognition of selecting natural mentors
with some being more conscious of it than others. Bea works closely with foster youth and is
aware of the impact mentoring has on young adults through her own lived experience, the
experiences of those she supports and the child welfare policies that she studies. She said:
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So, how do we go about supports that are natural that are gonna be there, after a system,
or program has been long gone? 'Cause you're gonna age out of all of it at some point.
But M., and C., those are real human beings that I was able to connect with… that goes a
long way too. Just knowing that somebody was really there consistently, was huge, huge,
huge for me.
When asked about what specific supports were the most useful for her as a student,
Frances also immediately identified the professors she met as a student who became ongoing
guides and sources of support. She indicated that the mentoring she received was never titled as
such, but that it grew out of her developing college community. She explained:
These mentors were not like formal mentors. They were just people that I met along the
way who I was able to go to and ask for help. They provided the help that I needed. I felt
like they were looking out for me, but it wasn't like an exclusive thing, but they were
looking out for my well-being, and making sure that I was aware of different things going
on, so that I could get involved if I wanted to. If they felt like I was a really good
candidate for it, that they would actually push me, put the pressure on me to get involved
in these things.
Bea observed that at school she was able to develop a natural mentoring connection with
someone who could just be a support for her and help her feel like a “regular” student. She said:
At school, I was able to make that with a genuine connection with somebody outside of a
foster care system. Outside of a mentoring program that was where you pair up with
somebody. It wasn't any of that. And that speaks to that peer-to-peer piece too. Is that that
was such a huge catalyst for me of just having some normalcy.
Gwen also specifically identified natural mentorship by name and indicated the important
of expanding one's network to include people who have broad experiences that can be useful in
everyday life and applied to thriving in both the college and local community. She stated:
As a foster youth there is so much to think about after leaving the foster care system. It is
good to have siblings, mentors, and people at jobs who support you. It helps to have
foster youth connect to more natural support...so much to juggle that school is not
[always] a priority.
Throughout her interview, Gwen made clear that the community and school often
competed for time and having their well-placed supports throughout her life helped support her
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efforts to focus in college. Micah offered a heartfelt and intuitive process of collecting natural
mentors when she stated, “And I just saw people ... you know I just I don't know what it was, but
I just asked people for help as best as I could.”
Recognition of the steps youth with foster care histories employ to develop functional
and deep networks is still in developmental phase, yet the fact that youth in child welfare
placements benefit from networks is increasingly acknowledged. In addition to unstable
circumstances, the child welfare system itself can disrupt mentoring network development
through its inherent structure and service provision (Blakeslee, 2015). Specifically, having
caseworkers as support can inhibit the connection to other individuals who might otherwise
provide support after the youth exists care. In the case of the study participants, each located
additional support outside their assigned caseworker. Review of the emerging literature indicate
improved wellbeing among youth with natural mentors and the practice of promoting natural
mentorship relationships is currently considered a promising practice deserving more study
(Thompson, Greeson, & Brunsink, 2015).
Self -Efficacy vs. Self -Concept
The participants spoke not only of their self-efficacy, but also of their own self- concepts.
The self-efficacy and self-concept theories are similar in terms of impacting motivation, but the
concepts have specific distinctions; self-efficacy is motivated behavior driven by an
understanding of one's skills and facilitated by movement toward a specific goal, self-concept is
determined by individual self-judgment, involves performance comparison to others, and is
typically stable over time (Bong & Skaalvik, 2003). Successful self-efficacious behavior can
shape a positive self-concept, and eight out of the nine participants were able to speak to the
positive shift in how they viewed themselves as successful college graduates and students.
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Bea spoke discussed the college and extracurricular experiences that enabled her to view
herself an individual separate from her identify as a child in the foster care system:
I started building up the student role more, and the community member more, and the
volunteer role, and the public speaker role, and all these other roles that I had. And other
hats that I could put on. And Psi Chi honor member, and all these other titles that I had
now that were different. That was not foster youth label. It was very empowering. Very,
very empowering.
Amy also addressed the strong sense of empowerment she experienced as the result of
achieving multiple degrees, saying:
I said, other than having my daughter, was the time when I felt this overwhelming pride
and love for myself and just really feeling accomplished. So, I think that that gave me a
base of even though I would go through ups and downs, even to now, it gave me a base
of ‘you're worthy.’
So, although the graduates had significant goal-directed behavior that promoted self-
efficacy, the impact of goal attainment was transformative and set the stage for additional
statements. Gwen stated:
Personally, I felt is it was one thing to prove myself. (I am) first gen. I am humble and
proud I accomplished it. I could do other things (because I completed college), I
something I liked and enjoyed. [Now] I want to pursue a masters.
In addition to being a subjective and mostly stable trait, self-concept outcomes are also
related to intrinsic motivation (Bong & Shaalvik, 2003). The college graduates and the literature
identified intrinsic motivation as a powerful driver of college completion and it occurs in a
variety of forms.
Self-concept and stigma
A sub-theme among the graduates related to the unique self-concept each experienced as
former youth in care during their college experiences. Some of the graduates were very public
about their histories and were inspired to take leadership in their college or university foster
youth programming, whereas others were eager to be mainstreamed into non-foster oriented
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programming as a way to develop an identify separate from that of being involved in the foster
care system.
Six of the eight participants had brought up identity issues associated with being formerly
involved in the foster care system and discussed how identifying or not identifying as a foster
youth while on campus impacted their ability to engage in services. For Amy, being involved in
programming that specialized in providing services to college students who left care was highly
reassuring, and she was not as impacted by identifying as former youth in care. She stated:
I think sometimes just being surrounded by people that you don't have to explain your life
to is really important. Where I don't have to say any details, but just by saying that I used
to be homeless or in foster care.
Frances was able to identify with the need to prove her academic ability as a former
youth in care as she experienced judgments about her ability to succeed in college. She spoke
about her experience identifying as both a former youth from foster care and a college student:
Every person, every experience, every success, and every failure has helped mold me in
that way. I think that's the reason why I used to be so afraid of judgment, everybody's
opinion of me, especially I feel like it's a little heavier because I have that former foster
youth association. I constantly felt like I wasn't good enough, so I was constantly trying
to prove to people that I had a voice, that it mattered, and that I should be valued, because
I had something to bring to the table.
For Bea, being at college was a relief from the history and potential burdens of having a
history in foster care. She spoke of her desire to blend in and not be identified as separate and
unique from her fellow college colleagues. However, she was also able to toggle between the
worlds of the mainstream campus life while taking advantage of the resources offered to youth
previously involved in the foster care system. Regarding her identity on the college campus, she
said:
And the thing I love the most is that in college, I was a college student. I wasn't a foster
youth. I was just a college student like everybody else. And I could choose to access
resources that were foster youth specific if I wanted to, but I also could keep that very
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close to me. And nobody could know, and nobody needed to know if I chose, within
certain settings. I was still taking advantage of every kind of foster youth program, but I
also could go in and talk to my professor on a professor student level, and not have to
worry about all the other parts of it, if that makes sense.
Individuals who have separated from the foster care system report experiencing
stigmatizing statements from friends, and/or are not considered "college material" by some
academic staff (Batsche et al., 2014; Clemens, Helm, Myers, Thomas, & Tis, 2017). Given this
stigma, any reticence about identifying as a former youth from foster care is understandable as
such identification during college could potentially promote additional stigma and stress.
Although each of the participants spoke to their current identification as having histories in care,
their own actual experiences as young adults in college appeared to represent the ambivalence
regarding embracing their self-concept as foster youth likely due to stigma. Such ambivalence
will be important to consider when addressing which services emerging adults will want to
access during college.
Intrinsic Motivation
Much concern is placed on the challenges youth formerly in care face in completing a
college education. Although the rates of college graduation are low, with only 55% attempting
college and only 8% of those students graduating from college (Promises2kids.org, 2013), the
participants placed a high value on being educated. This value on education was stated by eight
of the nine participants and served as a consistently reported source of intrinsic motivation.
Many of the participants indicated that they develop positive values toward education
even if they did not have strong role models who taught them the importance of an education.
Amy gave a response that was typical of many of the participants' developing values supporting
education. She stated:
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I always knew degrees were important. My parents didn't guide my brother and me to
education, they weren't helpful. We did all of our own prep and stuff like that, but for
whatever reason, the message was still there that school was important.
Pam had a more process-oriented connection to education as her intrinsic motivation
developed as she engaged in the learning process. The love of learning resulted in her valuing a
higher education, and her college experience was driven by her intrinsic desire to learn new
things. When asked about the most important factors that contributed to her college success, she
described her love of learning as a major internal driver pushing her toward her educational
goals:
I really like assignments. I really like to do good work. I'm a really studious person. Once
everything is just kind of set in place for it to happen, I'm really good. I love to write. I
love reading. And those skills go back to even further, deeper into my education in
childhood. I learned to read and write at a very young age. I mastered a lot of skills at a
young age, so I think that was something that just came naturally. I think that's a really
key point, too, is the education as a child.
Brittany also valued knowledge and being a good student was a primary part of her
identity throughout her early educational career. Like Pam, she experienced enjoyment in
learning and also in discovering the world and possibly more about herself and her own
motivations:
School was always really important to me, and I kind of ... I never considered not going
to college. So, I think I knew that I was preparing myself for college for most of my K-12
career … I'm a teacher now, but I'm just always one that has education for the sake of just
learning, so I think gaining knowledge was just one of my primary motivations, and
things that I was hoping to gain was figuring out more about myself and about the world
and feeling more confident in what I knew. And figuring out what I wanted to do as a
profession was a big motivating factor.
Storyboard participant Walter shared in his video that intrinsic motivation to achieve was
driven by his sense of needing to contribute or build up his community. He stated: “I knew I had
to do something you know for my family for my lineage and for my generation like I knew that I
knew that I had to be the one to do it.”
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The participants' valuing of education mirrors the literature, which also indicates that
youth formerly in foster care value higher education and want to continue to complete their
academic goals after aging out of care (Day, Riebschleger, Dworsky, Damashek, & Fogarty
2012, Salazar, Roe, et al., 2016). The consistency of this motivation toward obtaining their
education demonstrates the power of wanting to learn and be connected to the world through
increase knowledge and skills. The pride each of the participants demonstrated in their
achievements and the enthusiasm in which they spoke about their collegiate experiences attest to
a high level of engagement in the educational process.
Organization
The BHWC exists to innovate solutions to challenging workforce issues. The
collaborative is only as strong and relevant to the extent that member organizations are involved
in determining, planning, and implementing the collaborative's change initiatives. The
collaborative has an important role in identifying need in the community, such as the Emerging
Adult Peer Specialist curriculum and promoting it among those stakeholders who have an ability
to participate in any of these change processes. The collaborative is important in creating a
flexible innovative framework, but as it does not provide any direct service, community
members do not necessarily know the collaborative by name. For this reason, the participants
were asked about what organizational needs or gaps they could identify as existing when they
were in college, with the indication that the study was intended to help identify gaps that could
be addressed by other organizations (such as the collaborative) that operated based on goals of
changing systems. Specifically, the graduates were able to identify what services were in place
that supported their academic achievement, and which organizational elements were missing.
Such information could then be used to shape how emerging youth peer specialists assist college
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 103
students toward certain organizational supports, and how they help identify those organizational
support that might be missing from any given campus.
Organizational Strengths
The college graduates all had experiences with some on campus programming designed
to support academic achievement. The individual needs and preferences of the participants as
well as their unique contextual situations, including whether they attended a two-year vs. four-
year institutions, shaped the programming the received. The diversity of the programming and
the participants' abilities to access the needed resources were overwhelmingly considered
organizational strengths, and each of the eight participants was able to identify the importance of
such supports in helping them engage and remain in college.
Programming designed specifically for students transitioning from foster care. If
there was a functioning on-campus foster youth program on campus, the participants took
advantage of it, and some youth were taking advantage of off-campus programs for foster youth
as well. The programs specifically designed for foster youth are able to link youth to services and
help translate the college experience for the new college students. The programs also offered a
place of familiarity where the youth could be themselves and be around other youth with similar
histories in the child welfare system. Due to stigma and assumptions, youth who have spent time
in foster care do not often feel safe telling others their foster care history. Amy stated, “I think
sometimes just being surrounded by people that you don't have to explain your life to is really
important. Where I don't have to say any details, but just by saying that I used to be homeless or
in foster care, there's just a group of people that get it without me having to explain anything.”
Bea was among many of the participants who spoke of the positive impact made by
Guardian Scholars, a collaborative program of private and public organizations and funders
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located on college campuses to leverage practical (usually financial), academic, and emotional
support for foster youth (Adam, 2012). Similar to the other Guardian alumnae interviewed, she
received not only important practical support and advocacy through the Guardians, but also a
non-stigmatizing comfort and the safety that comes with a program that understands the cultural
need of youth from foster care. She said:
The Guardian Scholars. The EOP program, or whatever it's called, that's a huge support
for sure. And ideally if they're doin' it right, they can understand it on that level. And for
me, as much as I said I loved having the opportunity to remove myself from the foster
youth piece, there were also moments where it was really important that I talk to
somebody who understood, who had some kind of clout, and some kind of influence at
the university, but also was understanding of the nuances of foster care. And that's where
that conversation came in.
Guardian Scholars and other programs oriented to support students from foster care also
functioned to help to actively keep many of the participants in school. About half of the
participants experienced significant academic challenges that threatened their academic standing.
In his Storyboard interview, Marquis discussed the critical support he received from the
Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) at Cal State Northridge, and how the program support
from this program gave him enough scaffolding to build the self-efficacy that motivated him to
complete his degree. Marquis spoke of a difficult childhood and then added:
I applied to college anyway and I was a special admit to Cal State Northridge through the
EOP program who wanted to give me a second chance to redeem myself. I also was
accepted to the Resilient Scholars program for former foster youth. I remember spending
most of my freshman year in college is terrified of the next test the next quiz is this gonna
be where I mess up is this one gonna be where I stumble. What the Resilient Scholars did
was talk about the challenges we were facing, and I just remember the last meeting and
the last final night before heading into summer for my sophomore year. I just remember
telling myself that this is something that I can do. I have the support I've made it this far.
Campus supports did not have to be elaborate to be effective and important to the foster
youth. Amy spoke to the importance of " he day to day people in the offices. When something
gets screwed up, the willingness for people to fix things. I remember a note had to be written in
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order for me to be able to buy books because something happened with my book voucher. Just so
many little things.
Campus programs are designed to meet the specific financial, community, and academic
needs of youth transitioning from foster care, with some components of programming, such as
financial aid and housing supports, being of special importance to this community (Morton,
2015; Randolph &Thompson, 2015) Although campus support programs for foster youth can
vary widely, the participant feedback indicate that such programming is useful for supporting a
variety of needs throughout the school year. The needs include obtaining financial aid and
consistent year around housing, as well as offering academic support to help foster youth catch
up, and engaging in support and advocacy efforts that support the youths' emotional and practical
needs (Dworsky & Perez, 2010; Hernandez & Naccarato, 2010)
Campus as a source of safety. Another benefit of the college campus was the safety it
offered the youth transitioning out of care and into college. While it might be assumed that the
college environment would be especially intimidating or alien to youth with foster care
backgrounds, for these college graduates, college was overwhelmingly a safe, positive and
hopeful environment. Even if experiencing some trepidation due to internal fears or external
experiences with stigma, eight of the nine college graduates identified safety components in the
college environment that they experienced as reassuring and even inspiring. Shelbi spoke of her
ambivalence toward being an older college student faced with determining whether she belonged
on campus and experiencing safety when she discovered her age-mates and developed her own
accepting attitude about being back on campus. She said:
It's a little intimidating being that it's college. You see movies about it. You hear things
about it. Your mind wonders. It's completely an amazing experience. It's great. It feels so
good to, especially at the age I was. I was 30 years old going into college which that's
unheard of too. A lot of people don't go that late in life, but I was like, "I'm going to do it
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now. It's now or never." It was great. There's people my age there. It's never too late to
go. People are very understanding. They're willing to help. You meet so many different
kind of people there. You're learning so much.
As Shelbi's quote indicates, many of the graduates in the study did not have experience
with college, and the alien nature of the college campus could be experienced by any of them as
unsafe. However, many found the campus to be an engaging, inspiring, and safe environment.
Gwen spoke both to the enjoyment of learning (intrinsic motivation) as well as her experience of
safety when she stated, “I felt safe in school. I liked my major. I liked the lectures. I thought it
was fascinating. I enjoyed the college experience.” Micah touchingly spoke about the history of
school as a safe escape in life. Her connection to school made her decision to go to college a
natural next step, and she was able to speak about the safe environment her college created,
saying:
Since a kid ... the only place I could escape from my mom was school. So, I've always
seen school as my only safe place. And school is the one thing that will get me out of any
bad situation … I used to hold my masters for the worst time. If everything goes bad I
can still go back to school and get my masters.
Emerging adults who engage and remain in college, whether or not they have a history in
foster care, do so when they receive social support, are able to be involved in the campus
community, and find they are able to learn a variety of academic skills (Salazar, 2012). Overall,
the extent to which students “fit” into the campus environment, as determined by successful
engagement with faculty and campus institutions also improves academic outcomes (Brock,
2010). The college graduates were overwhelmingly able to specifically speak of feeling safe
through some combination of engagement experiences and individuals at the college were
typically the source of such support.
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Organizational weaknesses
For the participants, the college environment was made safe typically by a group of
caring people and/or through support programming specifically established for youth
transitioning from foster care. However, participants had specific experiences that allowed them
to identify missing organizational campus supports, as detailed in the sections below.
Limitations of independent learning programs (ILPs). One identified gap was the lack
of college-oriented education in independent learning skills program. Although five of the
participants spoke of the important developmental support, mentorship, and skills provided by
ILPs, some of the college graduates wanted ILPs to offer college guidance and information.
Gwen spoke about the limited college exposure she received through ILPs:
Starting at CSM I didn’t know what I wanted to do as a major. I wanted to explore other
colleges. When we are in care we should be shown more options. I only know San Mateo
because of ILP. We should be able to do college trips. I met with a social worker in high
school and I told her I wanted to do UCB. I told her my GPA. She encouraged me to go
to community college. That shut down other ideas. Should explore other (college) options
early.
Brittany had a similar perspective regarding limited ILP college preparation
programming, which she found alienating and unhelpful as a teenager transitioning from high
school to college. She explained:
I remember multiple times where I was just so uncomfortable in those [ILP] meetings,
because there were meetings where post-high school plans. And it would be like, ‘Here's
how you get an apartment. Here's how you apply for a job. Here's how you fill out your
taxes.’ Which, are really important things to know, but there were very few workshops
about how to apply to college, and then, when I would get that help, I would remember
being really uncomfortable because I would be applying, like I needed help applying to
schools. Not a community college. I didn't want help applying to a community college.
And I didn't ... and then, also applying to a school that was not in the town that I was, I
was leaving to go to college. It's not something that happens, either. Right? Like if you do
go, it's like you're gonna go, like, you're not gonna create that extra obstacle for yourself,
I think, is the mindset.
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Although the study participants had positive impressions of their ILPs, the main concern
appeared to be the lack of detail and specificity regarding higher educational programming. The
graduates who described this concern were aware of the importance of having information
regarding higher education early in their academic careers instead of having to wait until they
were on campus to learn more about important programs and supports. Recent review of
programs for youth aging out of care indicate that independent learning programming is highly
variable regarding the both the breadth and depth of instruction addressing how to access higher
education resources (Woodgate, Morakinyo, & Martin, 2017).
System barriers. The participants also identified various seemingly arbitrary barriers
denying them access to educational support services as significant organizational (systemic)
barriers. The identified roadblocks vary as each participant had distinct experiences that
characterized her perception of such barriers. Brittany was frustrated with the seeming
randomness in which scholarship funding was distributed and how she could best improve her
chances for obtaining sufficient financial supports. She said:
I waited a really long time, like up until a week before my decision deadline to confirm,
'cause I was considering a lot of different schools, and I don't know if it's because I
waited, or they just knew, but they ended up offering me another $5,000, but it wasn't
until a week or two before I was supposed to make the decision that they decided to offer
me the extra money. But I just still don't understand how that works. And there was also
like, they offered money to some people to refund their plane ticket if they flied out for
admit day, but I didn't end up qualifying for that. And she later said it was because I
wasn't a first-generation college student, which is true, and I understand that. But it was
also, I don't know, I felt like I existed in another category that wasn't being
acknowledged. But that's an interesting idea, though, of you, just in terms of the trying to
figure that out. And then, sometimes these rules aren't going to protect ... they just can be
very slow and rigid sometimes. You're just like, ‘Okay yes, but …’
Discussion
The semi-structured interviews as well as the analysis of the video artifacts established
the connection between the current literature and the experience of the college graduate
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participants. The data indicated the importance of distinct areas of knowledge that youth
formerly involved in foster care need to be successful in higher education. The motivational
factors also were consistent with those themes identified in prior research. The participants’
interviews allowed for a deeper understanding of the nuanced ways in which these knowledge
and motivational components were used to promote their academic successes.
One of the most impactful findings was how each successful college graduate had
incorporated the knowledge, motivational, and organizational factors that contributed to their
success in very individualized ways. For instance, in terms of mentoring, about half of the group
used faculty members as their primary mentoring support, while half found community
members, extended family, or even peers to be their primary sources of support. Another
example of individual connection to resources came in the form of which campus resources the
students used. Some students immediately gravitated to the non-foster-specific programming of
EOPs, whereas others preferred foster care-oriented programs such as Guardian Scholars. Part of
the preference had to do with the specific programs offered at colleges and universities, but some
graduates were more identified as part of the community transitioning out of foster care, while
others were trying to blend in with the larger campus community and relished the opportunity of
being someone else besides an identified youth from foster care. The participants named both
stigma as well as pride regarding their involvement in the foster care system as issues that
impacted how they used campus resources. The varied ways in which the foster youth used their
community and individual resources emphasized the importance of a peer specialist that would
mediate the individual needs and preferences of each student so services ensuring thoughtful and
compassionate delivery of services based on individual not program needs.
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The college graduates also found their college environment to be supportive and not
intimidating, and this discovery was not expected. The ideas of addressing the trauma-informed
approach when considering potential programming needs was to identify those items that youth
transitioning from foster care would find intimidating or unsafe. Some of the graduates spoke of
feeling unprepared or isolated at times, but all discussed the pride of being in college and the
feeling of empowerment that came from earning an education. At least two discussed feeling
safer on campus than anywhere else in their lives. Unlike some of their living situations, campus
provided hope, predictability, and opportunities for transformation. The overall conclusion was
that college can be challenging and intimidating at times, but ultimately it was not unsafe.
College was actually the opposite of unsafe – instead, it was seen as a source of support and
hope.
The participants were invited to be a part of this study as they were formerly involved in
foster care and graduated from college. The data collected were consistent with the research, but
questions remain about whether these supports would be effective and regarding the critical
components for emerging adults who were not as motivated. A theme emerged in the memos
titled “superhero,” as so many of the participants repeatedly overcame remarkable odds to reach
their academic goals. All of the interview and video participants engaged in highly motivated,
focused, and purposeful behavior when they decided to enter and complete college. Two-thirds
of the participants had very challenging life situations that almost derailed them from these
goals. Yet, they were able to pull together the resources and supports and get back on track. A
question remains around the uniqueness of the participants' abilities to persist and how much
even very well trained and supervised peer specialists can assist any given individuals who do
not have a high baseline of intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy. Such questions would be
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important to follow up on in future research. Specifically, it would be interesting to track the
outcomes of academically diverse students and see how the programming is impacting their
success. The emphasis on person-centered and motivational support and advocacy strategies
were chosen to address the specific needs of a variety of learners. Research addressing program
outcomes will be beneficial in understanding the effectiveness of these teaching and learning
approaches.
Finally, the foster care backgrounds of the participants were not specifically queried in
the research. The intention was to look at the knowledge, motivational, and organizational
factors that helped the college graduates reach their goals regardless of their abuse and/or family
histories. Based on individual needs stated above, as a peer specialist program emerges it will
likely become important to consider some specific needs of students who might be experiencing
barriers to fully engaging in academics due to their own abuse, trauma, or attachment issues.
Nonetheless, the intention of this study was to move away from pathologizing youth with foster
care histories and to look instead at what worked for them in achieving their goals. Developing
consistent themes among college graduates with diverse histories was important in terms of
creating a peer specialist approach and being able to look at what was “strong” vs. what was
“wrong” with the graduates was consistent with a strengths approach to care. The interview
process was also very upbeat and energizing as well as deep and at times intensely emotional.
The power of what these adults achieved and the potential their self-understanding contributed to
creating an effective approach to care was a meaningful and moving experience that has the
potential to impact lives.
The research outcomes and the process of collecting the data were highly meaningful to
me as a researcher and behavioral health professional. The study brought together a number of
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professional interests of mine: (a) programming for Continuum of Care Reform in California, (b)
best practices for assisting emerging adults live rewarding lives, (c) practices to promote
motivation, (d) trauma informed care, (e) strengths models, and (f) workforce development for
behavioral healthcare staff. Through the interview process, the researcher learned to listen and
inquire from a research perspective instead of a treatment perspective. As is often the case,
listening and being curious brings up more material than would otherwise be expected and the
interviews themselves became powerful experiences for both researcher and participants. The
researcher found it extremely moving to hear stories of persistence and determination in light of
some traumatizing and unsafe environments, to hear interviewees express the desires they had to
show themselves and others that they could do accomplish their goals, and to observe the
determination of participants to sure others benefit from what they learned during the process. It
was inspiring to work with the participants, who came to the meetings with the passion and
determination to make their experiences matter for the next generation. Having the necessary
data to build a program that would make use of their experiences has been highly rewarding to
me and it is with the determination to create a powerful resource from the experiences of others
that the Emerging Youth Peer Specialist curriculum emerges.
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CHAPTER FIVE: Discussion and Recommendations
Young adults transitioning from foster care to college are challenged with the usual
concerns that face youth entering adulthood: the ability to live independently, success at school
or work, safe and nurturing relationships, and progress toward future goals. Such tasks are
challenging for all emerging adults and for individuals transitioning from foster care without
consistent familiar support, such developmental milestones can be especially precarious. This
study identified the problem of emerging adults not obtaining the support they need and sought
to obtain data from “expert” college graduates regarding the components of the behaviors that
allowed them to be academically successful. The intention was to take the wisdom of their lived
experience to form the basis of a curriculum to train other young adult peers to offer targeted
knowledge and skills as well as promoting specific motivation to encourage academic success
among youth with foster care histories.
This chapter will address the basic components of an Emerging Adult Peer Specialist
curriculum based on the data received from the expert college graduates with lived experience in
foster care. A discussion of the data will set the context for the recommendations. The
knowledge, motivational, and organizational recommendations are based on the validated
findings in combination with the prior literature. From these recommendations, an integrated
implementation and evaluation plan has been created based on Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick’s
(2016) new Four Levels of Training and Evaluation. Based on this model, the developed
Emerging Adult Peer Specialist curriculum will consistent of four levels: (a) Level 4, a level that
connects the peer specialist course to the organization's primary goals; (b) Level 3, the behaviors
of the trainees; (c) Level 2, the knowledge obtained as the result of training; and (d) Level 1, the
trainee feedback regarding training engagement and relevance. Each of these levels for the
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Emerging Adult Peer Specialist curriculum will be described as well as the evaluation tool for
each level of training.
Discussion of Study Findings
This study addressed a number of diversity and access issues prevalent in the lives of
emerging adults aging out of foster care and moving toward college and greater independence. It
explored the apparent service gaps that occur when specific knowledge and motivational issues
for this community are not addressed. The study also considered the potential for using such
knowledge of these gaps to create innovative programming using peer providers who themselves
have lived experiences and the potential to use such experiences to empathically engage and
support current students. Finally, the study also contributed to relevant mission issues for the
BHWC, which has an organizational goal to develop and/or support innovative solutions to
access and strength-based recovery services for the community. The data collected from the
participants addressed these issues and added specificity to how such programming could be
conceptualized and implemented.
The outcomes indicated a need to understand the typical and global needs that many
emerging youths have around accessing support services such as financial aid and housing and
have the skills and knowledge to address such needs. Although certain needs were expected
given the developmental nature of young adulthood and the potential lack of family resources
typical for youth transitioning from foster care, what was most striking was the individual
manner in which the services were needed, understood, and used. The diversity in resource need
and usage appears to support the implementation of a peer provider programs, as the peers are
able to individualize services and supports. The peers also have the ability to function as bridges
between what is needed and what is offered as any one campus will likely not have the services
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individual peers need and the ways one connects to services will likely need to be adapted based
on specific abilities and needs. Peers who are able to adapt services for individuals can also
address the specific academic and support needs of those emerging adults who would like to
attend college, but who are not as academically proficient as those interviewed for this study.
Each of the participants interviewed was able to find ways to access resources and individuals
while staying focused on goals. A peer provider will likely be an important resource for helping
to scaffold learning and build motivational supports for the less prepared as well as support the
stellar students. This discovery is consistent with recent research indicating that generalization
regarding educational concerns for college students formerly involved in foster care might be
useful for understanding the nature of their needs, individual solutions are necessary given the
unique perspective and goals of individual students (Sensiper & Barragán, 2017).
As indicated in the methodology section of this study, two surveys were given to
participants to determine self-efficacy and compassion. The initial reason for these surveys was
to identify the characteristics of the college graduates that related to literature addressing the
positive role of compassion and self-efficacy in completing college requirements for those
individuals with foster care histories. Upon reflection, it appears that the surveys were not
needed for the participants as they will not be the individuals providing services, and the semi-
structured interviews were able to generate more than sufficient material to answer the research
questions. However, such surveys would likely be useful for helping to select peer specialists as
research supports for the screening of counselors to determine if they have a significant baseline
of empathy as those who do appear to be able to work more cooperatively and compassionately
with their clientele and such screening might prove to be useful for peer specialists as well. A
screening alone would likely not be sufficient to accurately identify high levels of empathy
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among potential peer specialists, but pre-employment surveys along with specific interview
questions that assess for empathic traits can be useful in selecting or training support staff
(Moyers & Miller, 2013). At this time such surveys are not written in to the implementation
protocol, but surveys might be considered after implementation and initial outcome assessment
help establish need for such tools. Once established, such screening will likely serve well to help
set the outcome performance expectations for the peer specialist trainees. It is likely that the
implementation teams will consider more specific surveys or protocol to identify more specific
components of self-efficacy, compassion, and self-compassion as doing so will likely improve
the training content and delivery.
The data collected from this study established a framework for fleshing out the training
program, which would be a natural next step for any project based on this research and
implementation plan. One of the next steps in implementing the program would include creating
the specific learning plans and weekly lessons/coursework for each of the knowledge and
motivational topics outlined in this chapter. The discussion below outlines the various
knowledge and motivational components supported by the research, but the specific essential
course information and germane learning through exercises and practice are yet to be
determined. The organizational inputs are also outlined below and once the curriculum is more
fully developed, it along with the implementation plan will be critical for promoting the training
program and building buy in among organizational stakeholders.
Recommendations
The knowledge recommendations are presented below along with the knowledge and
learning principles that inform the recommended actions. The types of knowledge verified in the
study include declarative, procedural, and metacognitive knowledge, and recommendations have
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been made on each. The motivation recommendations are based on reported self-efficacious
beliefs and behaviors as well as the intrinsic motivation that promoted each graduate's academic
success. Finally, organizational recommendations addressing the policy, cultural settings, and
cultural models related to the BHWC will be discussed.
Knowledge Recommendations
College graduates who have been involved in foster care system have developed specific
forms of factual, procedural, and metacognitive types of knowledge that have contributed to their
academic success. The knowledge of how to function in day-to-day life through problem-
solving, obtaining emotional support, and finding ways to self-regulate, have been validated
through participant interviews. Factual knowledge of the college system, including ways to
obtain essential support services and housing were also identified as critical in completing
college for youth exiting foster care. Closely related to the factual components of knowing which
resources to obtain for college success, the successful college completers identified the
importance in obtaining the procedural knowledge of how to obtain the identified resources.
Financial aid, for instance, was identified as an essential resource, and the successful college
graduate were able identify how they came to learn the processes in which they obtained access
to the scholarships and other financial resources. The concept of leadership was best
demonstrated in more broadly making connections between foster youth and taking charge of
participating and in community and college/university programming in a variety of contexts. The
concept of learning the procedures of meeting facilitation as an example of leadership
participation was too narrow and limited for the wide variety of formats in which leadership
manifested for these youth.
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Metacognition proved to be an important component for college success as young adults
with foster care histories found using their ability to be aware of behavioral health needs as
essential for seeking and obtaining the support necessary to succeed in the academic
environment. Self-knowledge, in terms of one’s own strengths and weaknesses were also
identified as essential for these college graduates as they were able to regulate their behaviors
and seek additional support based on how they were understanding their own internal needs and
responses.
Successful college graduates relied on skills that allowed them to collect and prioritize
important facts and procedures regarding how to access and appropriately use various support
systems (e.g., financial aid, housing, academic support, and behavioral health services). They
also use skills of self-appraisal and self-regulation, so they could anticipate their needs and
effectively initiate help-seeking behaviors. The use of factual, procedural and metacognitive
knowledge validates that three of the four types of knowledge active in learning were used by the
successful college graduate to achieve their academic goals (Krathwohl, 2002). The college
grads also endorsed collaborative learning that enabled them to work together with mentors,
instructors, and peers. Collaborative learning is also consistent with trauma-informed and
strengths models of service delivery (Fallot & Harris, 2009; Rapp & Goscha, 2012).
The summary of knowledge influences and recommendations are made for young adult
peers who are enrolled in peer certification training to deliver effective support services to young
adults with histories of systems involvement. These peers will be enrolled in an ongoing
educational program that will help them develop factual, procedural, conceptual, and
metacognitive knowledge that will enable them to provide the most appropriate services to their
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clients and enable the peer workers to respond to unanticipated issues that emerge with young
adults as they respond to individual needs and concerns (Clark & Estes, 2008).
Table 7.
Summary of Knowledge Influences and Recommendations
Assumed Knowledge Influence:
Cause, Need, or Asset, with Asset
listed as Declarative (D),
Procedural (P), or Metacognitive
(M)
Validated
(Y=yes,
N=no,
HP=high
probability
Priority
(Y=yes,
N=no) Principle and citation
Context-specific
recommendation
Peers need knowledge of the
educational and practical supports
that college students who were
formally involved in the foster
care system need for academic
success. succeed (D)
V Y Learners' ability to
understand, process and
store factual
information is
improved when
instruction is focused
on internal information
processing and how
learners learn and store
declarative content
(Rueda, 2011).
Information valued for
its relevance and linked
to prior knowledge is
remembered more
quickly and accurately
because it is elaborated
with prior learning
(McCrudden, Schraw,
and Hartley, 2006).
Peer specialists trained
will be taught factual
information regarding
the community and
academic resources
youth in the foster care
system need to learn in
order to succeed.
Peer providers to be
trained on relevant
resources and systems
knowledge in chapters
and make links
between the factual
information and peer
learners’ own
experiences and prior
knowledge so they can
better understand and
remember the facts in
a variety of contexts.
Peers will be provided
factual information
regarding the resources
college students need
for everyday life (e.g.
housing and financial
aid) and job aids will
provide post training
support for
remembering and
applying detailed
resource information
to unique situations.
Peers need skills to effectively
educate college students who were
formally involved in the foster
In order to develop skill
in a new behavior,
individuals need
Peers will be trained in
the techniques for
effective delivery of
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Assumed Knowledge Influence:
Cause, Need, or Asset, with Asset
listed as Declarative (D),
Procedural (P), or Metacognitive
(M)
Validated
(Y=yes,
N=no,
HP=high
probability
Priority
(Y=yes,
N=no) Principle and citation
Context-specific
recommendation
care system how to access
educational and practical supports
they need for academic success.
(P)
opportunities to practice
new skills, start to
integrate them into
current behaviors, and
accurately determine
when and how to apply
the skills (McCrudden
et al., 2006).
information and advice
and new information
will be connected to
prior knowledge
and/or organized by
type in order to be
effectively used in
practice.
Peers will have
opportunities to
practice skills and
receive feedback on
their performance
(Mayer, 2011;
McCrudden et al.,
2006).
Peers need to know how to
successfully navigate the college
educational system and resource
acquisition (P)
V Y To develop skills
individuals must
participate in the
process of deliberate
practice: participate in
a defined task,
determine the proper
difficulty level,
participate in feedback,
and re-do task with
correction and feedback
(McCrudden et al.,
2006)
Provide practice
sessions (training) in
which peers identify
which college
resources are needed in
different situations.
Practice via role-play
the skills of providing
information, support,
and linkage to service
in a variety of contexts
in order to meet the
individual needs of
diverse students.
Identifying resources
and practicing these
skills are the defined
tasks. Peers will coach
each other and provide
feedback based on the
skills practice, and
each peer will have
opportunities to
incorporate feedback
in subsequent practice.
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Assumed Knowledge Influence:
Cause, Need, or Asset, with Asset
listed as Declarative (D),
Procedural (P), or Metacognitive
(M)
Validated
(Y=yes,
N=no,
HP=high
probability
Priority
(Y=yes,
N=no) Principle and citation
Context-specific
recommendation
Peers need to apply the skills of
effective leadership, such as how
to effectively participate in
meetings (P)
N N Not a priority
Peers need to be aware of effective
leadership skills they possess, such
as how to become self-regulated.
(M)
V Y The use of
metacognitive strategies
facilitates learning
(Baker, 2006).
Strategies include
ability to identify
effective cognitive
strategies for learning
and using skills as well
as behaviors to
effectively regulate
emotions (Baker, 2006;
Mayer, 2011).
Train peers to identify
their own knowledge
base and leadership
skills to identify what
is already known and
what the need to learn.
Train peers how to
monitor and correct
their behavior, skills
and thoughts, through
self-observation,
discussion, and
development of
alternative strategies.
Peers will observe
each other and listen to
recorded exercises in
order to practice
providing feedback on
their own skills and
practice new skills
learned.
Declarative description of needs or assets. Peers need knowledge of the educational
and practical supports that college students who were formerly involved in the foster care system
need for academic success. In order to learn the significant amount of practical and basic life
support resources in the community, peers will need to be able to understand, process, and store
large amounts of information. To develop skills individuals must participate in the process of
deliberate practice: participate in a defined task, determine the proper difficulty level, participate
in feedback, and re-do task with correction and feedback (McCrudden, Schraw, & Hartley, 2006)
Peer specialists can be trained in the specific resources that exist for supporting college students
and which resources are used in specific situations followed by role play practice the skills of
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providing information, support, and linkage to service in a variety of contexts in order to meet
the individual needs of diverse students. Using the deliberate practice model (McCrudden et al.,
2006), identifying resources and practicing these skills are the defined tasks. Peers will coach
each other and provide feedback based on the skills practice, and each peer will have
opportunities to incorporate feedback in subsequent practice.
Factual knowledge regarding college and community resources are necessary in
promoting resilience among college students who have histories in the child welfare system
(Daining &DePanfilis, 2007; Forenza, 2016; Salazar, Jones, et al., 2016; Samuels & Pryce,
2008). Students are able to find resources specific to their needs online or in specialized campus
programs, but not all campuses have the resources that youth with foster care history might find
beneficial in terms of how to navigate the college environment or access resources specifically
designed to meeting their needs (Kaplan, Skolnik, & Turnbull, 2009). Peers with lived
experience in the foster care system have specific knowledge of services and effective system
navigation techniques based on their own lived experience. Strategically applied learning
strategies that build on peers’ prior knowledge in systems and methods for providing support can
help peers learn new systems approaches and deepen their understanding of how others might
learn from their lived experiences (McCrudden et al., 2006).
Procedural knowledge description of needs or assets
Introduction. Peer specialists need to know when and how to provide specific
information and advice regarding the academic and daily life supports that college students need
to succeed. According to McCrudden et al. (2006), skills are best developed when integrated into
existed skills and practices, so the learner can develop an awareness of which skills are best to
use in specific situations. For peer specialists, this approach would be best applied in a training
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program in which the peers would identify the skills and knowledge they already process, and
practice learning new skills that they can connect to skills groups already mastered. Skills
practice and feedback on when and how the new skills can be used will assist peers in building
an effective package of tools to assist college students.
Whitmore (2010) stated that coaching is indispensable when learning new skills, as the
learner is more likely to recycle old practices or use ineffective approaches without the
observation and feedback. A coach is able to provide the necessary innovative feedback that
allows for improved performance that a new learner has not yet developed early in his or her
career. Once individuals have sufficient practice for skills mastery and opportunities to respond
to feedback, they are more likely to have self-reflective (metacognitive) abilities, but coaching is
the best approach until that time (Whitmore, 2010). Coaching is effective teaching to
individualize education in ways that benefit not only the learner, but also the organization (Jones,
Woods, & Guillaume, 2015). For peer specialists, coaching and feedback is an important method
for specifically tailoring the types of information needed and how to apply the specific resources
to specific needs.
Metacognitive knowledge description of needs. Self-regulation is an important skill set
for peers to have in order to identify and regulate their leadership abilities. Peers identify
effective cognitive strategies for regulating emotion, behavioral, and thought processes, as well
as when to apply such strategies through the process of learning. Mastery of these strategies
enable peer to become aware of how their own thoughts, feelings and behaviors impact their
behaviors, including their communication techniques (Baker, 2006; Mayer, 2011). In order to
learn and practice self-regulation, peers will be trained to identify their own self-knowledge as
well as techniques to build on their self-knowledge resources. Peers will also be taught how to
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 124
reflect on behavior, affect, and thought through learning self-observation techniques as well as
skills in how to modify behavior to improve performance. In this case, improving leadership
performance will be the identified behavioral goal subject to regulation.
For youths who succeed in higher education, having such regulation skills are critical for
managing ongoing novelty and stress associated with college (Forenza, 2016; Foulk, 2015). Peer
providers who are advising youth formerly involved in care have skills and behavior based in
lived experience that they can access to teach others allows them to provide appropriate
modeling for their peers and contributes to their ability to create opportunities for teaching others
the skills of self-regulation (Phillips et al., 2015). An example of such modeling would be talking
through their thinking and behavioral processes, so their mentees can observe how successful
regulation occurs, and how their peer specialist role model is able to acknowledge strengths and
successfully manage weaknesses (Baker, 2006). Peer specialists supporting college students can
also provide transfer of metacognitive awareness to the college students they serve. When taught
metacognitive skills, such as reflective observation, college students can use these skills to
discontinue unhelpful behaviors and adopt practices that will help them succeed in college.
Motivation Recommendations
Introduction. Peer specialists assisting college students have unique opportunities to
promote interest in college and engagement in learning ways to successfully cope with the
challenges of higher education. Motivation is not directly taught to college graduates, but the
conditions are provided that create optimal learning environments.
Promoting self-efficacious behavior is one element of motivation that can build interest in
college student’s persisting with the challenge of learning and practicing academic success skills.
Creating opportunities for practice and mastery enables the new college student to experience
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 125
success and builds confidence in their ability to use skills in “real life” situations. Central to
increasing self-efficacious behavior is mastery over skills and ability to apply knowledge
regarding resources. Mastery occurs as the result of practice and learning when and how to refine
skills and correct mistakes.
Emotional safety is another aspect of motivated behavior as an individual who feel
emotionally safe and protected is more likely to take risks. Peer specialists can increase
emotional safety and increased willingness to engage in novel behavior if they are able to use
compassion toward the college student to create learning conditions that support acceptance and
collaboration (Miller & Rollnick, 2013). The ability to engage the college student through
compassionate and empathic care is not just “nice,” it is an important strategy to promote
motivation to change.
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 126
Table 8.
Summary of Motivation Influences and Recommendations
Assumed motivation
influence
(Cause, Need, or Asset)
Validated
(Y=yes, N=no,
HP=high
probability)
Priority
(Y=yes,
N=no) Principle and citation
Context-specific
recommendation
Peer specialists need to
identify self-efficacy in
college students and learn
how to promote self-
efficacious behavior among
the students they support.
Y Y Opportunities to observe
others model skills and the
ability to receive feedback
on skills practiced will help
build self-efficacy among
learners (Pajares &
& Schunk, 2001).
Train peers in how to
model effective
resource acquisition,
self-regulation, and
coping behaviors, and
provide feedback on
performance. Peers
will learn these
methods through a
parallel process of
being coached (with
feedback) on how to
coach and give
feedback.
Peers need compassion
toward others and self to
build the safety and trust
needed for students to
engage in support services.
Y Y Motivation is enhanced in
environments that are
sensitive (compassionate) to
the various needs of
learners. Such needs include
ensuring physical safety;
developmentally appropriate
assignments and
expectations, ability to
participate, and moral and
emotional support (Eccles
and Gootman, 2002).
Peers will be trained in
an evidence-based
communication skills
model that promotes
empathic listening,
compassion, and
collaboration between
helpers and students
receiving support.
Such behaviors on
behalf of the peers
help build safe and
predictable learning
environments.
Self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is an essential motivational component of peer
specialists to promote among college students in order to facilitate their confidence in their
ability to change. Peer specialists need to identify self-efficacy in college students and learn how
to promote self-efficacious behavior among the students they support. Critical to self-efficacious
behavior are opportunities to observe others model skills and the ability to receive feedback on
skills practiced will help build self-efficacy among learners (Pajares && Schunk, 2001). In order
to promote such self-efficacy, peers will be trained in how to model effective resource
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 127
acquisition, self-regulation, and coping behaviors, and provide feedback on performance. Peers
will learn these methods through a parallel process of being coached (with feedback) on how to
coach and give feedback.
Self-efficacious behavior is an identified component of successful college completion
among young adults formerly involved in the foster care system (Drapeau et al., 2007; Kirk et
al., 2011; Morton & Montgomery, 2013; Salazar, Roe, et al., 2016). Given the importance of
self-efficacy in completing college goals, techniques to promote self-efficacy beliefs among
college students working with peers are an important component of promoting college success.
In supported education programs also seeking to develop positive career outcomes, promoting
self-efficacy among individuals with mental health challenges seeking jobs is a significant
intervention in the theory of planned behavior grounded model of occupational achievement
(Corbière et al., 2011). A literature review of the most important components of peer support
among individuals receiving health care interventions show self-management as an important
outcome of peer intervention with self-efficacy also being an important part of such an outcome
as self-management requires at least some ability for behavior activation” (Cabassa, Camacho,
Vélez-Grau, & Stefancic, 2017). Specifically and strategically implementing strategies to
promote self-efficacy is also essential for college success as understanding and using college
resources requires students to have some ability to follow through on the declarative and
procedural knowledge received from peer support specialists.
Emotion and affect. Peers need to have compassion toward their college student clients
in order to create the safety that young and potentially vulnerable students need to engage in
support services. Such safety needs include ensuring physical safety, developmentally
appropriate assignments and expectations, ability to participate, and moral and emotional support
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 128
(Eccles and Gootman, 2002). As motivation is enhanced in environments that are sensitive
(compassionate) to the various needs of learners, peer providers will be trained in an evidence-
based skills model that promotes empathic responding, collaborative interventions, and
compassionate engagement to teach skills.
The compassionate emotional support that clients receive from peer supporters has been
found to increase the ease and comfort in the helping relationship so more practical and
informational support can be more successfully exchanged (Houston et al., 2015). Peer support
workers are generally viewed as more compassionate toward those they support because of their
own lived experience. Such experiences result in peers being highly valued for their ability to
avoid emotional barriers with clients and provide effective services to the community (Gray,
Davies, & Butcher, 2017).
Organization Recommendations
Introduction. The BHWC is one of five regional partnerships in the state of California
created to address the current and future behavioral health workforce needs in the state. Each
regional collaborative has its own unique history of local development and organizational
involvement. In general, each collaborative is a collection of educational providers, typically
community colleges and universities, and behavioral health service providers. The service
providers include but are not limited to county-operated and county-contract mental health and
substance abuse treatment programs. Other organization such as guild or professional
organizations are also members of the collaborative.
Since the founding of the BHWC in 2000, a number of important workforce initiatives
have occurred through partnership between members in the organization. The activities include
but are not limited to: conferencing and training to promote peer behavioral health peer specialist
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 129
skills and scope of practice development; training and implementation support in culturally
responsive evidence-based clinical skills; and various pipeline programs to assist local providers
in “growing their own” culturally diverse and knowledgeable workforce through university
stipends and high school and college peer programming.
Each of the above initiatives is complex and involves the cooperation of multiple
collaborative partners to ensure various innovative workforce projects that meet the values of the
MHSA of 2004 and are coordinated and initiated throughout a large and diverse web of regional
communities. The collaborative is thus qualified to take on leadership in promoting the
Emerging Adult Peer Specialist curriculum development, and activities that support such
collaborative work, which are based on principles of best practices for organizational change.
Table 9.
Summary of Organizational Influences and Recommendations
Assumed Organization
Influence
(Cause, Need, or Asset)
Validated
(Y=yes, N=no,
HP=high
probability)
Priority
(Y=yes,
N=no) Principle and citation
Context-specific
recommendation
The BHWC needs to create
and/or promote educational
strategies to engage
underserved populations in
the California behavioral
health workforce (California
Department of Mental
Health, 2005; OSHPD,
2014).
(Cultural setting)
V Y The organization needs
make clear and consistent
connection between the
mission and values of the
organization and its change
initiatives (Kotter, 2007;
Levy and Merry, 1986)
Ongoing communication
regarding MHSA values and
the importance of peer
providers in connecting to
these values would be
repeatedly communicated
and reinforced through
collaborative
communication channels
(Kotter, 2007).
Train collaborative
members who would
be responsible for
recruiting and
educating peer
providers in the values
and goals of the
organization. The
collaborative would
make the explicit
connections between
the values and goals of
the MHSA and the
importance of training
peers to connect to
transitional youth in
college.
The values of the
MHSA as manifested
in the emerging adult
peer specialist training
would be consistently
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 130
Assumed Organization
Influence
(Cause, Need, or Asset)
Validated
(Y=yes, N=no,
HP=high
probability)
Priority
(Y=yes,
N=no) Principle and citation
Context-specific
recommendation
and repeatedly
communicated in
order to build
momentum for the
change effort.
The BHWC needs to
promote its mission to
develop and promote
culturally sensitive and
relevant educational
strategies to develop the
behavioral health workforce.
(Process)
V Y Individuals in an
organization are often
wedded to their individual
perspectives that allow them
to make sense of the status
quo and potentially resist
change (Weick, 1995)
The leaders of change
initiative need to commit to
an innovative change effort
in order to engage the rest of
the organization in the
change process and make
sure the right people are
occupying roles for a
powerful change coalition
(Sirkin,Keenan, & Jackson,
2005)
Train collaborative
educational partners in
principles of cultural
humility to increase
buy-in for developing
and supporting peer
specialist training
programming.
Collaborative
leadership to hold
kickoff convening to
educate collaborative
membership about the
peer leadership project
and promote the
curriculum
development.
The BHWC must approach
workforce development
from a strength-based
approach that is driven by
the needs of the
client/consumer (Slade &
Wallace, 2017).
(Cultural model)
V Y Client outcomes are
improved when the
traditional organizational
hierarchical structure is
flipped, with the
consumers/client driving
behavioral health service
provision (Poertner & Rapp,
2007)
Organizational change
efforts are move forward by
a team composed of
individuals who are
representative of the
stakeholders involved in the
change process and who
have the skills and
knowledge necessary to
achieve the desired
outcomes (Kotter, 2007;
Sirkin et al., 2005).
Peer providers provide
training to educational
partners regarding the
outcomes of peer
driven services. Peer
partners also actively
contribute to the
construction of the
peer specialist training
curriculum.
Peer leaders occupy
leadership positions as
consultants and
designers of the
curriculum, with the
collaborative project
manager overseeing
project coordination,
and industry and
education partners
providing
coordination.
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 131
Assumed Organization
Influence
(Cause, Need, or Asset)
Validated
(Y=yes, N=no,
HP=high
probability)
Priority
(Y=yes,
N=no) Principle and citation
Context-specific
recommendation
The BHWC needs to
strategize methods to engage
educational partners in
behavioral health curriculum
development and
dissemination as such
partners might not prioritize
such programming.
(Cultural model)
V Y Organizations need to feel a
sense of urgency to compel
them to participate in
change efforts (Kotter,
2007)
Second and third level
schemata change - the
ability to recognize options
besides the status quo
(second level) and ability to
reflect on thoughts and
actively change behavior
(third level) - can be used by
individuals in organizations
to engage in change
processes (Bartunek &
Moch, 1987).
Collaborative
leadership to host
public convening
sharing new
behavioral healthcare
research indicating the
need to train more
behavioral health
providers including
peer provider with
specific knowledge
and skill sets
(Coffman et al., 2018).
Provide schemata
training for
educational partners to
engage members in
ability to recognize
their assumptions
about peers and
challenge such
assumptions to
promote
organizational change
that supports training
peer providers.
Cultural setting. At the organizational core of the collaborative are the values and
leadership provided by California’s MHSA (California Department of Mental Health, 2005;
OSHPD, 2014). In accordance with the principles of MHSA, which shaped the policies for
behavioral health programming throughout the state, the BHWC was developed to create and/or
promote educational strategies to engage underserved populations in the behavioral health
workforce (California Department of Mental Health, 2005; OSHPD, 2014). The main goal for
the collaborative is to remain focused on the principle of making clear and consistent connection
between the mission and values of the organization and its change initiatives (Kotter, 2007; Levy
and Merry, 1986). The Collaborative’s promotion of the MHSA principles and the values of the
recovery-oriented care model create a cultural setting that promotes the training and
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 132
dissemination of evidence-based behavioral healthcare practices throughout the larger
community (Clark & Estes, 2008). In order to support the collaborative’s principles, members
would recruit and educate peer providers in the values of goals of the organization and make the
explicit connection between the values and goals and the importance of training peers to connect
to transitional youth in college. These actions would be continually linked into training and
communication literature, so peers, educators, and providers could see the important contribution
peer providers make to recruit and support underserved populations in the behavioral health
workforce.
Given the interest in peer support services in a number of healthcare contexts, recent
research has addressed the effectiveness and efficiency of peer support services to inform
healthcare policy makers and decision leaders. A literature review of peers in traditional support
service roles, traditional clinical roles, and delivering curriculum indicate that peers support
services do expand the types of effective treatment healthcare providers are able to offer and
recommends that policy makers consider adding peers to the behavioral health workforce and
state Medicaid reimburse for peer services (Chinman et al., 2014). Additional support for hiring
and promoting peer providers can be found in individual California county and provider policies
that indicate the peer hiring practice and typically indicate directly in policy the way in which
hiring peer providers helps the county address recovery goals for the community (Brasher &
DeiRossi, 2014). The Gardner Center, a federally qualified healthcare center in San Jose, Calif.,
had specific policy describing the roles of peer mentors/partners as essential tools to meeting
their stated values of providing “high quality, comprehensive health care, including prevention
and education, early intervention, treatment and advocacy services which are affordable,
respectful, culturally, linguistically and age appropriate” (Brasher & DeiRossi, 2014, p. 40).
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 133
Process. The BHWC has a mission to promote culturally sensitive and relevant
educational strategies to develop the behavioral health workforce. Individuals in an organization
are often wedded to their individual perspectives that allow them to make sense of the status quo
and potentially resist change (Weick, 1995), and behavioral health organizations are no different
from another program that potentially struggles to move away from the status quo toward
change. The leaders of change initiative need to commit to an innovative change effort in order
to engage the rest of the organization in the change process. Making sure the right people are
occupying roles for a powerful change coalition will help create momentum for change in the
provider and educational programs that make up the collaborative (Sirkin et al., 2005). In order
to create the process necessary to promote the peer training, the collaborative leadership can
organize a kickoff convening to educate collaborative membership about the peer leadership
project and promote the curriculum development. The collaborative can follow up on this initial
education and consciousness-raising efforts to train provider and educational partners in
principles of cultural humility and the culture of the peer community to increase buy-in for
developing and supporting peer specialist training programming.
Research reveals the positive impact of peer provided services in a number of health care
services including among those with mental health challenges, substance use disorders,
integrated primary care, and for special needs group, such as combat veterans (O'Connell,
Flanagan, Delphin-Rittmon, & Davidson, 2017a; Gruel, La Carte, & Calixte, 2016; Mendoza,
Resko, Wohlert, & Baldwin, 2016; O’Connell et al., 2017a; Swarbrick, 2013). A meeting that
involved peers from such diverse organizations present on their work as well as a review of
outcomes can assist in helping to motivate programs and educational organizations, so they can
recognize the necessity of prioritizing peer specialist education. Practicing techniques to
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 134
increase provider understanding of the client experience can also increase compassion and
respect toward those receiving services (Eriksen, Arman, Davidson, Sundfør, & Karlsson, 2013),
and such practice in group meetings can increase sensitivity toward and the need to promote
peer-based educational and practice programming.
Cultural models. The BHWC approaches workforce development from a strength-based
approach that is driven by the needs of the client/consumer (Slade et al., 2017). The strength-
based model is distinct from traditional models of health care provision that promote hierarchical
structures with medicals doctors being the leaders of teams and other clinicians with less
education populating lesser roles in the health care structure. Promoting a preferred model of
peer provided services requires a change in cultural models away from the hierarchy of medical
providers toward a more egalitarian approach that supports the skills and perspective of those
with lived experience (Slade et al., 2017). One important reason for a model change is that client
outcomes are improved when the traditional organizational hierarchical structure is flipped, with
the consumers/client driving behavioral health service provision (Poertner & Rapp, 2007). Such
organizational change efforts are move forward by a team composed of individuals who are
representative of the stakeholders involved in the change process and who have the skills and
knowledge necessary to achieve the desired outcomes (Kotter, 2007; Sirkin et al., 2005). The
collaborative can ensure such change will occur through organizing trainings for provider and
educational partners regarding the outcomes of peer driven services. Peer partners can also
actively contribute to the construction of the peer specialist training curriculum as a method to
ensure that the peer perspective is considered in a new practice model. Culture change will also
occur when peer leaders occupy leadership positions as consultants and designers of the
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 135
curriculum, with the collaborative project manager overseeing project coordination, and industry
and education partners providing coordination.
Engaging peers as change leaders serves to change traditional cultural models in which
healthcare consumers are the recipients of care, not the creators of healthcare environments as
mental health consumers were widely considered unable to recovery from mental health
conditions (Anthony, 2000). Although definitions of what it means for people with behavioral
health challenges to “recover” (Williams et al., 2012), evidence exists for supporting the use of
peer workers to bring support services to those struggling with behavioral health challenges
(Slade et al., 2014). Peer leadership in initiating change and leading practice efforts is advocated
in a number of peer models, with those models supporting trauma-informed care advancing the
concept of actively engaging peers and family members as leaders in consulting about care
(Latham, Dollard, Robst & Armstrong, 2010; Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration, 2014; Vickers & Wells, 2017). As students with histories in foster care,
involvement in providing feedback and leadership regarding the shift in cultural models toward
peer-driven services designed to meet the needs of youth transitioning from care are also part of
the trauma recovery process and consistent with the self-advocacy taught in peer-leadership
institutions such as those taught in advocacy organizations such as California Youth Connection
(CYC, 2018).
Another needed cultural model change would include having the BHWC strategize
methods to engage educational partners in behavioral health curriculum development and
dissemination as such partners might not prioritize such programming. Inertia supporting the
status quo can occur when the education and provider partners do not recognize the importance
of the change (Kotter, 2007). This inertia is promoted by the fact that organizations need to feel a
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 136
sense of urgency to compel them to participate in change efforts (Kotter, 2007). Collaborative
members who are not engaged in the peer provider change efforts can potential benefit from
second and third level schemata change. Schemata is the frame one uses to think about the work,
and schemata change is the ability to recognize options besides the status quo (second level) and
ability to reflect on thoughts and actively change behavior (third level), per Bartunek & Moch,
1987. Therefore, the change process can be promoted through shifting schemata (Bartunek &
Moch, 1987). The Collaborative can help promote cultural change by organizing a public
convening sharing new behavioral healthcare research indicating the need to train more
behavioral health providers (Coffman et al., 2018) while engaging in discussions regarding how
peer providers might successfully help fill service gaps.
Collaborative educational providers have various levels of understanding and acceptance
regarding the legitimacy and effectiveness of peer support. Evidence exists to demonstrate
successful training and implementation of peer models in various states where peer specialists
are certified and further integrated into the behavioral healthcare systems (Chapman et al., 2015).
However, having the knowledge of the need for peer providers might not be sufficient to engage
university leaders to develop programming to train emerging adult peer providers.
In addition to teaching about peer models and challenging current conceptualizations
regarding peers as effective care providers, the conversation about training peers needs to be
managed in such a way that university personnel feel engaged in the discussion. Learning on
how to work with higher education regarding implementation topics comes from organizational
research addressing how to sustain “green” college campuses (Hoover & Harder, 2015; Krizek,
Newport, White, & Townsend, 2012; Kurland, 2011). Colleges and universities are complex
environments in which change can be seen as threatening and individuals are often in defensive
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 137
positions defending turf and many are overwhelmed regarding the ideas of taking on new change
initiatives that potentially add to their significant workload (Krizek et al., 2012; Kurland, 2011).
The ability to have conversations about change and air open conflict allows for reflective process
that supports the creation of solutions to potential implementation challenges emerging from
initiating a peer specialist training program (Hoover & Harder, 2015). Specific solutions to help
promote the concept of instituting a peer specialist program on campus could include developing
leadership vision statements specific to providing the peer specialist training program and
forming on-campus collaborative networks to support the training (Hoover & Harder, 2015;
Kurland, 2011).
Integrated Implementation and Evaluation Plan
Implementation and Evaluation Framework
The implementation of the Emerging Adult Peer Specialist curriculum will be evaluated
using Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick’s (2016) four-level model of training evaluation. The
Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick (2016) model promotes evaluation as a central function of any
successful program implementation along with needs analysis, design, development and
implementation. Unlike most training models that place evaluation at the end of the training
delivery and implementation process, the Kirkpatrick model starts first with determining the
intended and desired outcomes of training (Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2016). Once the outcomes
are determined along with indicators for determining outcomes, the next level of training is to
identify of the trainee behaviors actually reflect not only the learning obtained by the training,
but also are the behaviors contributing to the desired training outcomes (Kirkpatrick &
Kirkpatrick, 2016). Trainee learning is assessed as well, and specifically what the trainee has
learned in the training and if he or she understands how to apply the knowledge to perform his or
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 138
her job. Finally, trainee reactions to training are assessed, with formative assessment measures
being applied to determine the trainee’s ability to engage with the material given the content
presentation, the learning process, and/or the environmental conditions. It is assumed that the
formative evaluation information will allow the trainer to make the adjustments necessary to
change the training delivery and increase trainee involvement with the content to be learned
(Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2016).
Organizational Purpose, Need and Expectations
The BHWC’s mission to increase the behavioral health of California's unserved and
underserved populations through diversifying and training the workforce in evidence-based
practices. One goal is to create educational opportunities they increase the wellness of the
underservice communities, one of which are youth who have been placed in foster care. The
need addressed in this study is to create training opportunities for peer providers to support the
emerging adults with foster care histories engage and remain in college. In order to address this
need by fall 2018, adults who were formerly involved in the foster care system will provide the
knowledge, motivation and organizational factors necessary for the BHWC to create a 36-unit
curriculum to train individuals as emerging adult peer specialists.
The stakeholders in this study are individuals with foster care histories who will work in
various community and academic locations as emerging adult peer specialists. Their goal will be
to complete the 36-unit curriculum when implemented at local colleges. This goal was selected
to provide formal training for peers with foster care history, giving them opportunities to
promote their own wellness as leaders and healers while also improving the educational and
wellness outcomes for their clients (emerging adults from foster care seeking to complete their
academic goals). The participants in this study were adults with histories as youth in foster care
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 139
who served to provide information on the knowledge, motivation, and organizational gaps
preventing youth formerly in care from achieving their academic goals. These consultants also
provided information on promoting safety and a strengths perspective for emerging adults in the
college environment that could be used to inform the curriculum.
Once the curriculum components are in place, it is anticipated that a consistent training
model can be applied among various cohorts of peer trainees. The graduates of the Emerging
Adult Peer Specialist program can then work in the community in foster-specific programming at
high schools and colleges, established EOP programs, behavioral health centers, independent
learning programs, and human health and services agencies. As an individual with the distinct
knowledge and skill sets necessary to address the specific needs of emerging adults transitioning
from grade school or returning to college after a break, the Emerging Adult Peer Specialists can
be flexibly placed where they are needed in various community locations typically overseen by
the collaborative’s provider stakeholders. The curriculum design has specific student learning
outcomes that can be measured and changed if needed, which also provides responsiveness for
the educational and behavioral stakeholders.
Level 4: Results and Leading Indicators.
Indicators for successful implementation of the Emerging Adult Peer Specialist
curriculum will be determined by assessing both external and internal outcomes. The global
external measure of success would involve tracking students who have worked with peer
specialists to assess their academic outcomes. Specifically, were students paired with peer
specialists graduated from college or other training program at higher rates than the current
baseline at the academic institution. Internal indicators would assess if and how peer specialists
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 140
are meeting their training goals and if their behaviors are actually obtaining the desired the
engagement, retention, and academic outcomes for the students they serve.
Table 10.
Outcomes, Metrics, and Methods for External and Internal Outcomes
Outcome Metric(s) Method(s)
External Outcomes
Emerging adults needing
support engaged by peer
specialists
Raw number of students and
percentage of students with foster
history attached to each peer
specialist.
Peer specialist reports in central
database the number of students
served in addition to the frequency
and length of each service. Total
numbers served are compared to
total number of students who could
be served at a location. Totals
numbers are determined by school
intake service (through financial
aid form or County Office of
Education data).
Emerging adults maintaining
academic goals as
determined by progressing
through each semester.
Passing semester grades from each
student receiving peer specialist
services.
Academic records obtained for
each emerging adult assigned peer
specialist to obtain grade and
coursework outcomes.
Emerging adults receive the
specific services they need
to achieve academic goals.
Emerging adults complete
collegiate needs assessment, which
is the basis of peer specialist
support plan.
Peer specialist has emerging adult
complete needs assessment at the
beginning of support relationship.
The assessment is reviewed once a
month if and needs assessment is
updated to reflect needs/goals that
have been met and add new
needs/goals.
Emerging youth feel
supported and safe with peer
specialists and are able to be
honest with peer specialist
and engage in services.
Emerging adults are provided a
services assessment, which
indicates the level at which they
feel they can collaborate with peer
and feel their strengths are
supported
Brief survey (about 10 questions
maximum) to be sent to emerging
adult and answered anonymously.
Questions will address:
collaboration with peer, feelings of
emotional and physical safety with
peer, extent to which strengths are
supported, and peer’s ability to
connect with emerging adult with
compassion and empathy.
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 141
Outcome Metric(s) Method(s)
Emerging adults will be able
to regulate their behaviors in
order to successfully
complete academic goals.
Emerging adults self-report on how
they identify and manage
distracting or unhelpful behaviors.
Peer specialists to collect self-
reports on how college students
become aware of behavior and
make adjustments as necessary.
Internal Outcomes
Peer specialists effectively
engage emerging adults in
support services
Number of students assigned to
each peer specialists.
Peer specialists will keep track of
numbers of emerging adults
engaged in care and will practice
skills of engagement taught in
training.
Peer specialists will
collaborate with emerging
adults seeking their support
services and support their
self-efficacy and strengths.
Feedback from trainers and peers
regarding progress in collaboration
and strengths-building skills.
Peer specialists will practice
techniques for collaborating with
emerging adults and supporting
their strengths.
Peer specialists will ensure
that emerging adults receive
the specific supports they
need and that they are able
to effectively determine
these needs.
Feedback from peers and trainers
regarding accuracy of factual
knowledge presented.
Peer specialists will practice skills
of providing factual and procedural
knowledge regarding accessing and
using community support services.
Level 3: Behavior
Critical behaviors. The literature and the participant interviews provided consistent data
regarding the necessary knowledge and motivational components emerging adults from foster
care backgrounds need to perform successfully in the college environment. The behaviors listed
in the below table identify the specific behaviors that would be included in an emerging adult
peer specialist curriculum that would enable peer supporters to effectively reduce the knowledge
and motivational gaps that might exist for these students. In addition to the specific behaviors
that are based on evidence-based educational and motivational principles, the metrics for what to
measure to ensure the behavioral is being achieved as well as the methods for measuring the
progress of these behaviors is indicated. The 18 months timing is included as the 36-unit
curriculum could be reasonably delivered within this time frame.
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 142
Table 11.
Critical Behaviors, Metrics, Methods, and Timing for Evaluation
Critical Behavior Metric(s)
Method(s)
Timing
1. Peer specialists trained
in the model will be taught
factual information
regarding the community
and academic resources
youth in the foster care
system need to learn in
order to succeed.
Peer specialists will
document their
interactions with students
indicated how and when
they shared needed factual
information regarding
financial aid, housing,
health, and academic
resources.
Training followed by
job aids to determine
progress.
18 months
2. Peer providers to be
trained on relevant
resources and systems
knowledge and make links
between the factual
information and peer
learners’ own experiences
and prior knowledge so
they can better understand
and remember the facts in
a variety of contexts.
Peer specialists will
document their ability to
explain to college students
how to access financial
aid, housing, health, and
academic resources.
Training followed by
coaching and
feedback to improve
skills.
18 months
3. Peers will be trained in
the techniques for
effective delivery of
information and advice
and new information will
be connected to prior
knowledge and/or
organized by type in order
to be effectively used in
practice.
Peer specialists will
demonstrate their ability
to apply the motivational
interviewing method
(Miller & Rollnick, 2013)
and the philosophy of
trauma informed care
(Fallot & Harris, 2009).
Training in
motivational
interviewing
followed by coaching
and feedback.
Competency in the
motivational
interviewing model
will be assessed
through the use of the
Motivational
Interviewing
Treatment Integrity
Tool (Moyers,
Manuel, & Ernst,
2014) and assess for
ability to meet the
five objectives for
providing trauma
informed care (Fallot
& Harris, 2009).
18 months
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 143
Critical Behavior Metric(s)
Method(s)
Timing
4. Peers will have
opportunities to practice
skills and receive
feedback on their
performance (Mayer,
2011; McCrudden et al.,
2006).
Peer specialists will
participate in weekly skills
practice groups and
receive coaching and
feedback to improve
performance.
Coaches will use the
treatment integrity
tool to determine
progress in skills and
identify skill areas for
improvement.
(Moyers, Manuel, &
Ernst, 2014)
18 months
5. Provide practice
sessions (training) in
which peers identify
which college resources
are needed in different
situations
.
Weekly role-play practice
sample vignettes that give
students opportunities to
apply knowledge
regarding resources.
Trainers can rate the
accuracy of applied
knowledge and
resources and provide
feedback on areas of
improvement.
18 months
6. Practice via role-play
the skills of providing
information, support, and
linkage to service in a
variety of contexts in
order to meet the
individual needs of
diverse students.
Identifying resources and
practicing these skills are
the defined tasks.
Weekly role-play of
providing resources and
options using the Strength
Based model of case
management (Rapp &
Goscha, 2012).
Peers will coach each
other and provide
feedback based on
the skills practice,
and each peer will
have opportunities to
incorporate feedback
in subsequent
practice.
18 months
7. Train peers to identify
their own knowledge base
and leadership skills to
identify what is already
known and what the need
to learn.
Peers to provide weekly
feedback regarding their
progress in learning and
identifying their own
skills and areas of
improvement.
Peers to submit a
weekly journal to be
reviewed by each
other and the trainers
for feedback and
discussion.
18 months
8. Train peers how to
monitor and correct their
behavior, skills and
thoughts, through self-
observation, discussion,
and development of
alternative strategies.
Peers to identify weekly
progress of their skills and
reflect on the next steps in
their learning in journals
and group practice.
Peers will observe
each other and listen
to recorded exercises
in order to practice
providing feedback
on their own skills
and practice new
skills learned.
Coaches will also
provide feedback and
insight.
18 months
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 144
Critical Behavior Metric(s)
Method(s)
Timing
9.Train peers in how to
model effective resource
acquisition, self-
regulation, and coping
behaviors, and provide
feedback on performance.
Peers will be able to
demonstrate their ability
to identify opportunities
for discussion of coping
feedback and show how
they would give feedback
to each other and potential
clients.
Peers will learn these
methods through a
parallel process of
being coached (with
feedback) on how to
coach and give
feedback.
18 months
10. Peers will be trained in
an evidence-based
communication skills
model that promotes
empathic listening,
compassion, and
collaboration between
helpers and students
receiving support. Such
behaviors on behalf of the
peers help build safe and
predictable learning
environments.
Peer specialists will
demonstrate their ability
to apply the motivational
interviewing method
(Miller & Rollnick, 2013).
Training in
motivational
interviewing
followed by coaching
and feedback.
Competency in the
motivational
interviewing model
will be assessed
through the use of the
Motivational
Interviewing
Treatment Integrity
Tool (Moyers,
Manuel, & Ernst,
2014).
18 months
Required drivers. Each of the knowledge and skills components in the prior tables needs
to be practiced and reinforce in a number of contexts over time. As peer specialist behaviors and
identities are shaped through practice and feedback, several strategic drivers will be applied to
deepen the learning, build confidence, and make more automatic the desired behaviors that
promote their learning.
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 145
Table 12.
Required Drivers to Support Critical Behaviors
Method Timing Critical behaviors supported
Reinforcing
Job aids Ongoing 1, 10
Prompts – checklist Ongoing 1
Written feedback Weekly 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10
Role play
Ongoing 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10
Encouraging
Coaching Weekly 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10
Modeling Weekly 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10
Affirmation of desired behavior
Ongoing 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10
Rewarding
Receipt of certificate Program completion 1-10
Recommendation for jobs
Program completion 1-10
Monitoring
Completion of fidelity tools Monthly 4,10
Observation and feedback Weekly 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10
Journaling and self-reflection Ongoing 7, 8
Individual and group meetings
to discuss progress
Weekly 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10
Written exams to test knowledge Every six weeks 1, 7, 10
Organizational support. The implementation plan will be presented to BHWC members
with the intention that one of the organizational members will take on the providing the
necessary training and implementation supports to establish and support the Emerging Adult
Peer Specialist Curriculum. The organization(s) that take on the training will need to free up staff
and/or recruit trained behavioral health staff to provide the training. The organization will also
need to create some form of assessing the trainees’ program and ensure that accurate and
adequate training and learning outcomes are consistently provided. Ultimately, the program will
be best supported when the training partner (stakeholder) is working in partnership with other
collaborative partners who would be willing to hire or otherwise support the peer specialists in
jobs.
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 146
Strategies to ensure the initiation and support of such a program would include creating
opportunities to expose potential organizational stakeholders to the Mental Health Services Act
values and mission, which explicitly support opportunities for individuals receiving mental
health or other support services to use their lived experiences to support others. Peers themselves
would be the most important individuals to lead the effort to establish such programming and
further create and develop the curriculum. Linking the peer provider training to larger systems
goals of changing the behavioral health and human services systems of care to be more client-
driven, strength-based, and trauma informed, offers an opportunity for provider and educator
collaborative stakeholders to shift their thinking toward seeking out opportunities to offer peer-
focused training. Such steps will be critical in promoting the cognitive shift among providers that
needs to occur for the Emerging Adult Peer Specialists innovation to be adopted.
Level 2: Learning
Learning goals. Individuals, mostly likely young adults with lived experience in foster
care, would enroll in a training program consisting of 36 units of coursework distributed over
three semesters. The curriculum that makes up the course of study was developed based on the
study participants’ (college grads who were former foster youth) feedback on what knowledge,
motivation, and organizational supports were the most essential in helping them achieve their
college goals and which of these supports were missing. As a result of completing this
curriculum, Emerging Adult Peer Specialists will be able to:
1. identify the educational and support resources college students need when entering
college from foster care (D);
2. list the location of at least six accessible housing programs for young adults and six
sources of financial support for youth entering college from foster care (D);
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 147
3. explain to college students how to access educational support resources, housing, and
financial aid services (P);
4. demonstrate ability to reflectively listen to other individuals and demonstrate
compassion and empathy when providing support (P);
5. use the skills of motivational interviewing during support sessions to increase college
students’ engagement and movement toward change or self-efficacy (P);
6. create opportunities for college students to reflect on their own motivations to
complete college based on their own values and interests (P and MC);
7. critique their ability to deliver strengths-oriented and trauma informed care (MC);
8. generate new counseling responses in light of feedback from self and others regarding
skills and/or knowledge deficit (MC);
9. integrate a philosophy of acceptance, collaboration, and support of autonomy after
experiencing opportunities to reflect on their own values and attitudes toward college
students seeking support (MC); and
10. carry out trauma-informed and strength-based interventions to college students
seeking support (P).
Program. The college graduates all spoke to the specific knowledge, motivation, and
organizational components that were critical in helping them achieve their academic goals. They
were also able to articulate the factors they believed would have helped them more easily or fully
progress through their higher education experience. Based on their own narrative and the
literature, a program of study is recommended to train individuals with their own lived
experiences with a curriculum that is informed by the stakeholder data as well as the literature
review.
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 148
Specifically, this program will train peers providers to impart the important factual
knowledge to college students transitioning from the foster care system. The factual knowledge
will be followed up by critical procedural knowledge that will enable the college students to
better understand how to use the factual knowledge in ways that will successfully enable them to
access required supports and services. The peers will also be able to discuss, demonstrate, and
model how to use metacognitive skills of self-reflection to support behavioral regulation and
make effective academic choice. Peer learners will also be taught how to promote motivational
engagement through creating genuinely caring and supportive relationships and developing
specific, measurable, timely, attainable and realistic goals with their students. Intrinsic
motivational will be promoted through the identification and elaboration of student values, which
along with metacognitive skills can be used to help students remain on course to achieve
academic goals.
The curriculum will consist of coursework presented in distinct topical and practicum
courses that enable the trainees to learn the factual and procedural information necessary to guide
college students, as well provide them opportunities to practice their counseling, advising, and
advocacy skills sets. Depending on the topic of each course, the classes would range from one to
three hours a week. The courses would occur over 18 months in order to give enough time for
students to learn and practice the necessary skills and take advantage of internship opportunities
in which they can apply their learning in the community and obtain feedback.
Collaborative partners taking part in providing this training would address the
organizational gaps that would be addresses in this model. This program could be offered
through one of the BHWC partner agencies or academic providers. The 18-month course can be
blended into an existing peer training program currently in place. It is also flexible enough to be
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 149
included as part of an agency peer training program, of which at least three collaborative partners
are currently hosting. The collaborative community has many potential highly qualified
instructors who would be able to deliver and evaluate the programming.
Components of learning. The student learning goals are summarized in the below table.
The students will be assessed to address how engaged they were in the teaching, the knowledge
they obtained from the teaching, as well as if they carry out the behaviors necessary to meet the
overarching collaborative goals, which are to promote practices to underserved individuals in the
mental health and education community (Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2016).
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 150
Table 13.
Components of Learning for the Program
Method(s) or Activity(ies) Timing
Declarative knowledge (“I know it)”
Learners will complete close-ended question* quizzes to
determine understanding of factual knowledge. (*T/F,
fill in the blank, multiple choice)
Weekly in each class.
Learners will identify the necessary factual knowledge in
open-end questions when asked how and when to
provide specific information in hypothetical cases.
Weekly in each class.
Procedural skills (“I can do it right now”)
Learners will demonstrate ability to disseminate procedural
knowledge through role-play and/or vignette
simulations.
Weekly in class.
Learners will practice giving information and advice
(including providing clients with tools for self-
regulation).
Weekly in class. Will likely start procedural
knowledge training later in the semester.
Learners will adapt their use of skills in response to feedback
from observing coaches/instructors.
Weekly in class.
Attitude (“I believe this is worthwhile”)
Learners will complete attitude rating scale Monthly
Learners will journal weekly about their values and attitudes
and analyze their journals with each other in weekly
supervision meetings.
Weekly
Confidence (“I think I can do it on the job”)
Learners will complete a confidence rating scale assessing
their perceived ability to master the peer specialist skills.
Monthly
Learners will reflect on skill areas in which they are
specifically challenged and complete an action plan to
address what they believe they need to grow this skill.
Monthly
Commitment “I will do it on the job.”
Learners will create one goal each week as part of
supervision/journaling assignment stating one way he or
she will apply a skill learned in the training.
Weekly
Level 1: Reaction
Students completing the peer specialist program will also be expected to provide
feedback on their reactions to the teaching program. Their feedback will allow program
developers and instructors to make adjustments to the curriculum and/or teach process and style
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 151
in order to ensure that learner needs are met. The below table summarizes how and when student
reactions would be assessed.
Table 14.
Components to Measure Reactions to the Program
Method(s) or Tool(s) Timing
Engagement
Learners will identify via Poll Everywhere survey their ability to
understand the material, effectively participate in the activities,
and comfortably learn in the environment.
After each class.
Learners will report any learning challenges or supports as the part
of supervision group closing.
Weekly
Relevance
Learners will complete electronic survey at the end of the course to
determine if, how, and in what ways the course has helped
them learn what they needed to be successful as peer
specialists.
End of course (about three months)
Customer Satisfaction
Learners will complete electronic survey at the end of the course to
determine if they enjoyed the course, what was useful in terms
of learning, did the course meet their professional and learning
needs, as well as if and how the course needs improvement.
The satisfaction survey and relevance survey would be
combined.
End of course (about three months)
Evaluation Tools
The first evaluation tool, as appended in Appendix E, is intended to collect data regarding
the students' satisfaction with their courses as the learning attained during the course.
Immediately following the program implementation. Data tool attached in Appendix F
is intended to capture not only student satisfaction with the program and knowledge of the
content, but also identify the behaviors the students have initiated as the result of the training that
supports providing strength-based and trauma informed support to the college students with
whom they work.
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 152
Delayed for a period after the program implementation. Six months after the training
is complete, students will be given another evaluation that assesses their attitude toward the
training, their knowledge retention, behaviors they have adopted as the result of the training as
well as their perception of how the training will impact the overall goal of providing educational
opportunities and supports to underrepresented individuals in California's behavioral health
system. The evaluation tool to be used after implementation is attached in Appendix G.
Data Analysis and Reporting
As each educational or provider stakeholder signs on to establish training outcomes for
emerging adult peer specialists, the specific outcomes for each program will be determined based
on the training capacity of each stakeholder and the ability to place peers in training into
community programs for internships. Baseline student outcomes as measured by initial
knowledge and skills assessment and implementation of counseling and advocacy behaviors will
be presented in a report card along with student knowledge and behavioral outcomes at monthly
intervals during the training and at the end of 18 months. The monthly reports will create
opportunities for students to receive feedback on their skills, so they can build confidence based
on what they are doing well and identify what behaviors they can improve. The concept of report
card has a loaded history for many students, and to improve engagement, the report card will be
named Skills Development Report (SDR). The intention of the card is to offer feedback on the
skills that need further development as through assessing specific skills on a Likert scale instead
of assigning a grade. The SDR can also be used as a discussion tool during group training and/or
reflective processes as students can share a place of strength and work with each other in
building skills in areas that need further development. A sample of items to be including in the
SDR is listed in Appendix H. The full SDR is to be further developed and the intention is to have
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 153
the peer specialist as well as the provider stakeholders offer input on the final product. The SDR
will be used to collect data on the training outcomes in terms of tracking student behaviors. It
will also serve as an evaluation tool as the instructors will use the feedback to assist with skills
coaching and address knowledge deficits.
Providers who hire student peer specialists in their training programs will also be asked to
provide survey information on if and how peer specialists effectively enabled the program to
meet its target goals of assessing emerging adults through college programming. The reports are
to be collected and presented in a short paper to be published and promoted via the collaborative
website. The results of the implementation would also be presented at quarterly collaborative
meetings, as the quarterly meeting is where the collaborative community comes together to share
ideas and innovations.
If the outcomes are not indicating a clear understanding of the material, for instance test
score show that learners are not understanding the concepts or retaining factual knowledge, the
knowledge is not translating into behavior change, and/or improved academic outcomes for
emerging adults in college are not being attained, then this information will be reported through
the above collaborative mechanisms. Recommendations will be made to address how to resolve
deficits in the teaching and/or implementation of the peer specialist programming in order to
achieve the desired outcomes.
As stated earlier, engaging organizational stakeholders (universities and providers) to
participate as trainers and employers will be necessary to promote the program. For the first
training cohort, university, college, or provider stakeholders will be recruited to host the training,
or the collaborative will host the training itself. The outcomes and recommendations based on
the program’s successes and/or failures will be critical for recruiting the next organizational
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 154
stakeholder to host the training. For this reason and to build confidence and ongoing
engagement among the recently trained peers, the collaborative will host a meeting dedicated
solely to introducing the Emerging Adult Peer Specialist training. This meeting will over not
only the data on what did and did not work as well as proposed improvements, but it will also
feature testimonials from the recent trainees. Reporting outcomes through the stories of those
who participate is more likely to promote interest in the program and inspire organizations to
consider hosting the training. Such a convening thus addresses two important goals. The first
goal is to disseminate the outcome information and the second is to build interest in sponsoring
the training in order to develop and sustain the work.
Summary
The college graduates identified several compelling and consistent needs in motivation,
knowledge and organizational factors that are important for young adults entering college need
to success. The Kirkpatrick model (Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2016) informed the
implementation plan, which consists of four levels of evaluation that determine trainee reaction,
acquired knowledge, change in behavior, and organizational outcome resulting from training.
Tools to measure progress or lack of progress will be applied at each level that will indicate
progress toward goals. Level one evaluation tools will be used after the trainings for formative
assessment and will measure trainee engagement and confidence in their skills as well as if they
experience the training as relevant. Levels 2 through 4 evaluations will be used post training at
intervals to determine the specific knowledge and skill sets each training, if the trainees have or
intend to apply their learned behaviors, and their assessment of whether their new skills will
create improved outcomes for the students they serve.
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 155
This plan allows for ongoing feedback regarding each stage of the student training and
the evaluation feedback will assist instructors and program leads with adjusting the training plan
as students learn, practice, and apply their skills sets. As the four levels are determined before
the training begins, the outcome goals (Level 4) serves as the compass with the learning and
behavioral component designed to fulfill the Level 4 outcome expectations (Kirkpatrick &
Kirkpatrick, 2016). The levels are created beginning with Level 4 and ending with Level 1, but
the actual implementation will necessitate training and formative Level 1 evaluation first, with
the Levels 2 through 4 evaluations at intervals after the training to assess knowledge transfer and
organizational goal attainment (Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2016).
It is anticipated that the Kirkpatrick New World Model will provide both sufficient
structure to deliver consistent training in a number of learning environments as well as enough
flexibility to alter the course of training and/or implementation if the data indicates that the
organizational goals are not met, behaviors are not practiced, and/or trainees are not connecting
with the training material. Such structure with flexibility is important, as the peer model will be
offered to a diverse group of learners in a number of learning environments. Each training and
learning environment will have its own unique culture and needs and having a flexible practice
model will ensure both responsiveness to needs with a general consistency in application.
Conclusion
This study sought to contribute to the research and programs designed to assist emerging
adults aging out of foster care achieve their academic goals. The intention was to discover what
knowledge, motivation, and organizational factors contributed to the ability of these youth to
achieve their goals and consider ways in which such values and behaviors could be organized so
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 156
future students aging out of care and attending college could benefit from their collective
experiences.
The Emerging Adult Peer Specialist curriculum was informed by the college graduates'
experiences and provides a framework that enables such wisdom to be distributed among various
collaborative treatment and educational partners as a viable training model. The model also
engages other youth adults with similar histories in an organized manner that best uses their
skills and values to mentor and educate their peers entering college. This model for this project
has been well informed by the data, but it is also seen as a project that is continuing to be in
development. It is hoped that this study and recommendations are just the beginning of many
discussions about and adjustments to the model that enables it to be adapted to a diverse range of
emerging adult communities.
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 157
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EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 180
APPENDIX A. Survey Items
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 181
APPENDIX B: General Self-Efficacy Scale
1. I can always manage to solve difficult problems if I try hard enough.
2. If someone opposes me, I can find the means and ways to get what I want.
3. It is easy for me to stick to my aims and accomplish my goals.
4. I am confident that I could deal efficiently with unexpected events.
5. Thanks to my resourcefulness, I know how to handle unforeseen situations.
6. I can solve most problems if I invest the necessary effort.
7. I can remain calm when facing difficulties because I can rely on my coping abilities.
8. When I am confronted with a problem, I can usually find several solutions.
9. If I am in trouble, I can usually think of a solution.
10. I can usually handle whatever comes my way.
Response Format
1 = Not at all true 2 = Hardly true 3 = Moderately true 4 = Exactly true
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 182
APPENDIX C. Interview Protocol
Hello __________. Thank you for agreeing to speak with me today about your college
experiences. As we discussed earlier, I am a doctoral student at University of Southern
California and I am interviewing you for my doctoral dissertation in education. I am looking
forward to learning from you about what beliefs, behaviors, values or services helped you
complete your college degree. Your story will let us what factors help individuals with foster
care histories such as yourself succeed in college, and today I will be asking you a series of
questions that will help me better understand your experiences. What we learn from you and
other college graduate with foster care experience, will help us create a curriculum to train foster
youth peer specialists. This curriculum will teach peer specialists with foster care histories the
skills/knowledge and attitude attributes designed to support the specific educational needs of
emerging adults in college.
It is important that I let you know that this is a voluntary process and you can choose to
end this interview at any time. The questions have been designed to address your specific
experiences in college, but I understand that speaking about past history can be painful and might
bring up raw feelings. If this does come up, please let me know. We have options around
stopping the interview or taking a break. I am also able and willing to make referrals to support
services after an interview if you would like to speak with anyone about what came up for you
during this process. Do you have any questions so far? [Researcher answers questions]
I will record this interview, so I can review it after our session and identify the themes
you discuss with me. The digital recording I make will be held in complete confidence. I will
also take notes during the procedure to help organize my data. When I complete the analysis of
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 183
the recordings and write the research, I will destroy the recordings and notes, usually within six
to 12 months after our meeting. Do you have any questions regarding data recording or any other
aspects of this research process? [After any questions have been reviewed with subject]: The last
step before we begin is I have you sign a form than indicates I have reviewed these items with
you and you understand everything we discussed. I will also provide you a copy of this form, so
you have it for your records.
Introductory question:
I would like to start with a couple of questions to help us to learn a bit about you and your
willingness to participate in this study.
1. What is your current occupation or career aspirations?
2. What interested you in participating in this interview? (M)
Core Questions:
Thank you for sharing about yourself and your interest in this study. I will now shift into
some specific questions regarding your college experiences.
3. Tell me what skills were the most critical to completing your college degree? (K)
4. How did you develop the skills that helped you obtain your college degree(s)? (K)
5. What were the biggest challenges you faced in completing your college degree? (K,
M,O)
6. How did you overcome any personal or academic challenges that you encountered
during your time in college? (K)
7. What three factors were the most important in helping you to complete your college
education? (K, M)
8. Tell me about what goals you were hoping to achieve by attending college? (M)
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 184
9. Describe for me how you experience the college campus and the larger campus
culture? (Probe: Assuming interviewee experienced some level of safety, what were the
factors that allowed you to feel safe as you completed your degree?) (TIC)
10. Describe any support you received from organizations or the college/university such
as counselors, student groups, tutorial services or mentorships. (O)
11. Who were the most important people on your journey to college completing and what
they did to facilitate your progress. (O)
12. What additional kinds of supports or services would you have wanted for support to
complete your college degree? (O, SE)
13. In what ways did completing your college education impact your life? (SC, WR)
Final Question:
Thank you for sharing with me your experiences completing your college degrees.
14. What else would you like me to know about you, what you learned or the supports
you received that helped you succeed in graduating from college?
Coding Key (Connection to conceptual framework):
K – Knowledge
M – Motivation
O – Organization
SC – Social Capital
SE – Supported Education
TIC – Trauma Informed Care
WR – Wellness and Recovery
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 185
APPENDIX D. University of Southern California Informed Consent/Information Sheet
CONSENT TO PARTICIPATE IN EDUCATION RESEARCH STUDY
Study Title: Youth in Transition Peer Provider Certification: A Pathway to Successful College
Participation: An Innovation Study
Primary Investigator
(Researcher)
Kristin Dempsey
EdD Candidate, University of Southern California
Rossier School of Education
3470 Trousdale Pkwy, Los Angeles, CA 90089
kdempsey@usc.edu
Study Chair Eugenia Mora-Flores, Associate Professor of Clinical Education,
Rossier School of Education
3470 Trousdale Pkwy, Los Angeles, CA 90089
moraflor@rossier.usc.edu
This is a research study to learn about the motivation and knowledge characteristics of
foster youth who successfully complete college or other academic training. The results of this
study will be used to create a curriculum to train youth formerly involved in the foster system to
support other system-involved youth with graduating from college. This researcher, Kristin
Dempsey, is also completing this research as part of a dissertation requirement for a Doctor of
Education (EdD) degree at the University of Southern California. Kristin Dempsey will explain
the study to you.
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 186
Research studies involve only people who agree to take part. You are encouraged to think
about your participation and talk with your friends and family about your involvement in the
study. Please feel free at any time to ask questions about the research and what to expect.
You are being asked to take part in this study because you were formerly involved in the
foster care system and you have completed academic training in college, professional, or
vocational school after you left high school.
Why is this study being done?
The purpose of this study is to learn how individuals formerly involved in the foster care
system learned how to successfully complete school requirements, how they worked with many
systems that allowed them to stay in school, and how they stayed motivated when completing
their academic goals.
The primary researcher is funding this research and no other outside funding is being provided.
Kristin Dempsey is not receiving any payment for her completion of the research.
How many people will take part in this study?
About eight people will take part in this study.
What will happen if I take part in this research study?
If you agree, the following procedures will occur:
Interview:
• The researcher will interview you for about an hour in a private office. The researcher will
ask you to describe your experiences completing your academic goals after high school.
• Immediately following the interview, you will be invited to complete ten survey items that
measure types of motivation and levels of compassion.
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 187
• The researcher will make a sound (digital) recording of your conversation. After the
interview, someone will type into a computer a transcription of what’s on the recorder and
any mention of names will be removed. The sound recording will then be destroyed.
• You can choose to end your participation at any time and you can choose to not answer
questions in the interview or survey.
IRB CONTACT INFORMATION
University Park Institutional Review Board (UPIRB), 3720 South Flower Street #301, Los
Angeles, CA 90089-0702, (213) 821-5272 or upirb@usc.edu
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 188
APPENDIX E. Recruitment Letter
Hello,
My name is Kristin Dempsey and I am a graduate student completed a Doctor of
Education degree at the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California. I
am doing research for my dissertation exploring how adults involved in the foster care system as
youth were able to successfully complete college or other academic goals after high school
graduation. The information I receive from this research will be used to create a curriculum the
train para professionals as emerging adult peer specialists. The emerging adult peer specialists
will serve as advisors and mentors for youth with foster care histories seeking to complete their
academic goals.
Research participants will meet with the interviewer for up to 1.5 hours and will answer
questions regarding what skills, understanding and motivation helped them complete college.
Each responded will also be asked to spend about 7 to 10 minutes to complete a ten-question
survey on motivation and compassion.
Thank you for your willingness to consider being a part of this important study. Please
contact Kristin Dempsey at 650-219-7779 or at kdempsey@usc.edu to volunteer for the study
and/or to ask questions.
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 189
APPENDIX F. Student Satisfaction and Learning Evaluation
(Student Satisfaction and Learning Evaluation for Dissemination During or Immediately Following Coursework)
Question
1
Strongly
Agree
2
Somewhat
Agree
3
Neutral
4
Somewhat
Disagree
5
Strongly
Disagree
1. I found the
course to
be
engaging.
2. I found the
course
material to be
relevant.
3. I was able
to learn in the
classroom
environment.
4. I think it is
important for
me to use the
skills I have
learned to help
others.
5. I feel
confident that
I can use the
skills I learned
in the course
to help others.
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 190
APPENDIX G. Student Satisfaction, Learning, Behavior and Outcomes Evaluation
(For Dissemination During or Immediately Following Coursework)
Question
1
Strongly
Agree
2
Somewhat
Agree
3
Neutral
4
Somewhat
Disagree
5
Strongly
Disagree
1. I found the
course to be
engaging.
2. I found the
course
material to be
relevant.
3. I was able
to learn in the
classroom
environment.
4. I think it is
important for
me to use the
skills I have
learned to help
others.
5. I feel
confident that
I can use the
skills I learned
in the course
to help others.
6. I am starting
to use the
skills I learned
in class at my
job or
internship
7. I anticipate
that college
students who
are/were
involved in the
foster care
system with
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 191
benefit from
the skills I use
at work or in
my internship.
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 192
APPENDIX H. Student Satisfaction, Learning, Behavior and Outcomes Evaluation 2
(For Dissemination Six Months After Coursework Has Been Completed)
Question
1
Strongly
Agree
2
Somewhat
Agree
3
Neutral
4
Somewhat
Disagree
5
Strongly
Disagree
1. Now that I have had time to
practice the skills, I have found
them to be relevant to my work.
2. I believe it is important that I am
using the skills I have learned to
help others.
3. I am confident in my ability to
apply what I have learned since I
took the course.
4. I have been able to use the skills
I learned in the class at my job or
internship.
5. I am confident in my use of the
skills I learned in the course.
6. I have consistently used the skills
I learned in class at my job or
internship
7. The college students who
are/were involved in the foster care
system are benefitting from the
skills I use at work or in my
internship.
EMERGING ADULT PEER SPECIALIST CURRICULUM 193
APPENDIX I. Sample Items on Skill Development Report
1
Skills
Need Support
2
Skills
Improving
3
Satisfactory
Skill Level
4
Advanced
Skill
Development
5
Basic Skills
Mastered
Knowledge
of campus
resources
Score ____
No
Awareness or
understanding
of campus
services to
support
emerging
youth. Is not
using other
supports to
identify
resources or
referrals.
Awareness of
2-3 essential
campus
resources and
how to use
them. Starting
to learn how
to research
and use
additional
resources.
Knows all the
core campus
support
services and
maybe some
additional
services. Is
able to
research and
identify
additional
resources.
Aware of all
the care
services on
campus and
at least
additional
services. Is
able to
research and
identify
additional
resources.
Deep
knowledge of
core services
and extensive
knowledge of
community
support
services. Is
able to
identify
additional
resources.
Ability to
effectively
explain
campus
resources to
student
Score_____
Unable to
consistently
advise
students on
how to access
financial aid,
housing,
food,
behavioral
health and
academic
support
services
Misses some
opportunities
to advise
students on
how to access
financial aid,
housing,
food,
behavioral
health and
academic
support
services.
Able to
consistently
provide basic
instructions
on how to
access
financial aid,
housing,
food,
behavioral
health and
academic
support
services
Offers more
detailed
information
regarding
how to access
financial aid,
housing,
food,
behavioral
health and
academic
support
services
Highly
attuned to the
individual
needs of each
students and
is able to
provide very
specific and
detailed
information
on how to
access
financial aid,
housing,
food,
behavioral
health and
academic
support
services
Abstract (if available)
Abstract
This study addresses the problem of low college completion rates among students formerly involved in foster care systems. This qualitative research study identified the knowledge, motivational, and organizational factors that supported college completion among eight college graduates formerly placed in foster care. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data and six Storyboard online videos were also reviewed for thematic content addressing the factors that contributed to college success among the former foster youth. The resulting data will be used to create an Emerging Adult Peer Specialists curriculum to former foster youth to support other students transitioning from foster care to college. Knowledge factors contributing to successful college completion included specific knowledge on financial aid, housing, health, and academic resources, and how to access these resources, as well as self-awareness to promote self-regulation. Motivational factors that promoted self-efficacious behavior and intrinsic motivation included seeking out and identifying mentors, attitudes supportive of educational goals and behaviors, and finding ways to combat stigma were identified motivational factors supporting college completing. Programs for students with foster care histories, the safety and predictability of college campuses, and the need for increased academic preparation in independent living skills programs were identified and important organizational factors promoting college completion. The data was used to create an implementation and evaluation plan for the Emerging Adult Peer Specialist program, which is summarized at the end of the study.
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Asset Metadata
Creator
Dempsey, Kristin Lynn
(author)
Core Title
Emerging adult peer provider specialists and successful college participation: An innovation study
School
Rossier School of Education
Degree
Doctor of Education
Degree Program
Organizational Change and Leadership (On Line)
Publication Date
07/20/2018
Defense Date
04/18/2018
Publisher
University of Southern California
(original),
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(digital)
Tag
college success factors,emerging adults,foster care,Knowledge,mentorship,Motivation,OAI-PMH Harvest,peer specialists,stigma reduction
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Advisor
Mora-Flores, Eugenia (
committee chair
), Foulk, Susanne M. (
committee member
), Hasan, Angela L. (
committee member
)
Creator Email
dempseykristin@gmail.com,kdempsey@usc.edu
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