Children's Hospital & Research Center Oakland, CHORI/Center for the Vulnerable Child, Oakland, CA 94609-1809, USA.
Health Soc Care Community. 2012 Sep;20(5):449-76. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2524.2011.01053.x. Epub 2012 Feb 22.
Many children living in homeless situations in the U.S. have temporary stays in foster care, and both populations suffer disproportionately higher rates of physical, psychological and social difficulties compared with other children. However, very little is known about which specific interventions achieve the best outcomes for children in these overlapping transitional living situations. To address this gap, we review existing literature to identify the most promising practices for children living in transition. A standardised vocabulary specific to each of three electronic databases (i.e. Medline, PsychINFO and CINAHL) was employed to identify studies that described an intervention specifically targeting foster care or homeless children and families. Separate systematic searches were conducted for homeless and foster children, and only studies published in English between January 1993 and February 2009 were selected. The final sample (n = 43) of articles described interventions that fell into two categories: mental health (n = 17) and case management (n = 26). No article included a sample containing both homeless and foster care children, and most studies on homeless children used case management interventions while most studies on foster care children focused on mental health interventions. Few articles employed rigorous study designs. Although repeatedly studies have demonstrated the overlap between populations of homeless and foster care children, studies focused on one population or the other. Virtually all studies on both homeless and foster children devised interventions to reduce trauma and family instability; yet, no evidence-based practice addresses the overlapping needs and potentially relevant evidence-based practice for these two populations. An important and vital next step is to establish an effective evidence-based intervention that reduces the impact of trauma on both U.S. populations of children living in transition.
许多生活在美国无家可归环境中的儿童在寄养中临时停留，与其他儿童相比，这两个群体都遭受着不成比例的更高比例的身体、心理和社会困难。然而，对于在这些重叠过渡生活环境中的儿童，哪些具体干预措施能取得最佳效果，人们知之甚少。为了解决这一差距，我们回顾了现有文献，以确定针对过渡生活中的儿童最有前途的实践。采用了特定于三个电子数据库（即 Medline、PsychINFO 和 CINAHL）的标准化词汇来识别专门针对寄养或无家可归儿童和家庭的干预措施的研究。分别对无家可归儿童和寄养儿童进行了系统搜索，只选择了 1993 年 1 月至 2009 年 2 月期间以英文发表的研究。最终的样本（n = 43）的文章描述了两种类型的干预措施：心理健康（n = 17）和个案管理（n = 26）。没有一篇文章包含无家可归和寄养儿童的样本，大多数关于无家可归儿童的研究采用了个案管理干预措施，而大多数关于寄养儿童的研究则侧重于心理健康干预措施。很少有文章采用严格的研究设计。尽管反复的研究表明无家可归和寄养儿童群体之间存在重叠，但研究集中在一个群体或另一个群体。几乎所有关于无家可归和寄养儿童的研究都设计了干预措施来减少创伤和家庭不稳定；然而，没有一种循证实践可以解决这两个群体的重叠需求和潜在的相关循证实践。下一步是建立一种有效的循证干预措施，减少创伤对美国过渡生活中的儿童的影响，这是一项重要而重要的任务。
