| This dissertation explored the problem of why certain children are repeatedly rejected from foster care placements. These difficult to place children tend to manifest disruptive behaviors that affect the stability of their placement. Such instability precipitates problem behaviors and poor mental health, impeded permanency, and prevented strong attachments. The issue of hard to place children is reviewed from a self psychological point of view, to assess whether the goal for foster care should aim at core maturation for the vulnerable self structure of injured children or whether it should aim at achieving compensatory self structures. This dissertation will look at the child who is experiencing multiple placement moves and examine a gap that exists between clinical social work and clinical psychology literature in relation to the problem. Further, this dissertation will reveal the lack of attention given to this problem and how these children have been marginalized within child welfare. A critical review of historical and more recent literature regarding the problem of children who are difficult to place in the foster care system in America was reviewed, specifically, a subset of children between the ages of 10 to 17 who were in foster care. |
