| This dissertation examines the developmental trajectories of adolescent youth involved with the child welfare system, particularly focusing on their externalizing and internalizing behavioral problems. The study on which this dissertation is based investigated how adolescents' relationships with caregivers and peers change over time and how these relationships affect their behavioral outcomes. The study also explored whether removing youth from their biological families determined distinct trajectories of behavior functioning, in comparison to that of youths who remained at home.;Data are from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-being (NSCAW), a national probability sample of children and adolescents who have contact with child protective services. Two types of structural equation modeling (SEM)---latent growth curve modeling and autoregressive cross-lagged designs---were conducted using M-Plus. All analyses were conducted with sample weights.;Youths reported significantly decreasing internalizing behavior problems over the study period of 36 months. On the other hand, externalizing problems remained considerably stable over time. Their relationships with caregivers did not change, while their peer interactions improved over time. In order to investigate if youth had differing developmental trajectories by placement status, the sample was divided into four placement groups: out-of-home youth, in-home youth, the initial out-of-home youth (those who returned home later), and the initial in-home youth (those who were removed from home later). When group differences were investigated for internalizing and externalizing problems, youths did not show significant differences in either their initial levels or in their over-time rates of change of behavior problems. In addition, relationships with caregivers and peers were found to be comparable across four groups.;Caregiver and peer relationships were significantly related to youths' internalizing and externalizing problems at baseline, as well as over time. When temporal causal relations among caregiver relationships, peer relationships, and behavior problems were investigated, externalizing problems of youth at 18 months after the close of the investigation were found to predict their later caregiver- and peer- relationships at 36 months. |
