Child psychology research has helped to identify how symptoms and deficits, or psychiatric needs impact the human experience, immediately and across development. Recent investigations indicate that strengths, both those possessed by the individual, and those present in her environment, exert short- and long-term protective influence that buffers the impact of needs. These findings help legitimate the emerging popularity, among providers and consumers, of strengths-based interventions for youth. Strengths-based interventions are derived from the system of care philosophy, a treatment model that aims to utilize individual and environmental resources in therapeutic processes. Preliminary research suggests that utilizing strengths in treatment promotes positive outcomes and that strengths-based interventions may be more effective than traditional, deficit-based services. Nonetheless, questions remain regarding the clinical utility of strengths. This paper suggests that answers to these questions can be approached by delineating the pattern of relationships between strengths and needs across time in an at-risk youth population. The excess of one half-million youth in foster care across the United States represents a group at high risk for undesirable outcomes. Thus, this study examines the longitudinal pattern of correlations obtained between strengths and needs in a sample of 868 foster care youth receiving System of Care services. Strengths and needs each were measured at specific and aggregate levels with the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS) Assessment. Correlations obtained indicate that: strengths at Time 1 (T1) are correlated with strengths at Time 2 (T2), strengths and needs are inversely correlated at T1 and T2, and strengths at T1 are inversely correlated with needs at T2. T-tests for differences between correlations indicate that, at certain levels of strengths and needs: the correlation between strengths at T1 and T2 exceeds the correlation between needs at T1 and T2, the correlation between strengths and needs at T2 exceeds that at T1, and the correlation between strengths at T1 and needs at T2 exceeds the correlation between needs at T1 and strengths at T2. Results are translated into implications for policy development and service delivery.

Last modified

• 08/02/2018

Creator

• Joseph B Dilley

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/N2P71H

Subject

• Clinical Psychology

Keyword

• strengths
• child psychology
• positive psychology
• needs
• assessment
• foster care

Date created

• 2007-04-20

Resource type

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright