Predictors and patterns of foster children's early care and education

Background: Children's early care and education (ECE) plays a significant role across a wide variety of health outcomes, including cognitive and academic achievement, stress, and mental and behavioral health. There is some, though inconsistent, evidence that ECE predicts developmental outcomes most powerfully for children from at-risk families. The current study examines ECE for a specific, understudied high-risk group: foster children. Foster children are an important group not only due to their high vulnerability and receipt of public resources, but also because their dramatic variability in health risks and behaviors enhance understanding of the entire human spectrum in ways that are not possible with typical samples. Methods: Participants included 192 pre-Kindergarten age foster children (62% non-relative care; 53% European American). Foster parents reported demographics and use of ECE. Case files provided foster care history data. Results: Foster children attended ECE at high rates, but with substantial variability. Latent class analysis of ECE quantity, quality, type, and duration revealed three typologies: half-time Head Start, part-time other ECE, and full-time mixed ECE. Child and family characteristics predicted these typologies, illustrating distinct risk groups. For example, full-time mixed care group exhibited lower family risks (higher income and education) but higher child risks (later entry into foster care, placement instability, multiple ECE arrangements, and long hours of ECE, which prior research shows elevates stress responses, which are already high among foster children). Conclusions: Caseworkers and researchers should attend to intersections among child and family characteristics and ECE to understand ECE as a developmental context.