The impact of COVID-19 on campus-based support programs serving students with foster care experience: Focus groups with administrators and students

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2022.106696Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Series of focus groups were conducted with campus administrators and students with foster care histories to increase our understanding of the experiences they faced during the pandemic in college and university settings.

  • Campus administrators quickly adapted service delivery to ensure students’ needs were met and found creative ways to stay connected with students.

  • Students discussed their efforts to access resources, to stay connected with peers, and use of strategies to manage academic, financial, and mental health challenges.

  • Findings highlighted participants’ resilience and ability to manage their own self-care and lean on others for support.

Abstract

The onset of the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic forced higher education institutions to abruptly transition to remote services and online learning. Students with a foster care background are a subgroup of students who have been particularly hard hit by the pandemic, as were the campus-based programs (CSPs) designed to support them. The purpose of this study was to learn about the impact of the pandemic on CSPs and CSP participants. Focus groups were conducted with CSP administrators and separately with CSP students from two- and four-year colleges in California. The first theme that emerged from the data focused on challenges exacerbated by the pandemic, with six subthemes zeroing in on breaks in social connections, academic disruptions, technology woes, gaps in basic needs, employment challenges, and the toll on mental health. The second theme described participants’ responses, including their creative and collaborative actions. Administrators quickly adapted service delivery, formed partnerships with new units and organizations to ensure students’ needs were met, and found creative ways to stay connected with students during a time of pervasive isolation. Students talked about their own efforts to access resources, connect with peers, and use of strategies to manage challenges such as burnout and depression. A second subtheme highlighted the ways participants displayed resilience, such as creating boundaries to manage their own self-care and leaning on each other for support. The findings from this study increase our understanding of the experiences students faced during the pandemic and shed light on implications moving forward to support students with foster care histories in higher education.

Keywords

Foster care
Campus-based support programs
College
Pandemic
COVID-19

Data availability

The data that has been used is confidential.

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This research was supported in part by funding from the University of Connecticut Scholarship Facilitation Fund and a Diversity Research Grant from Fresno Pacific University.

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