Personality characteristics and foster home placements : a study of the development of personality characteristics in relation to successful and unsuccessful foster home placements

Abstract

This study investigates whether the development of personality characteristics has a direct bearing on adjustment in a foster home. It is an individual research project undertaken at the Maritime School of Social Work in 1966-67. Data for this thesis were collected by means of worker judgments from 110 active cases of the Children’s Aid Society of Halifax, Nova Scotia, as of November 1966. It was found that a significantly high number of wards who had incorporated the five personality characteristics, basic trust, autonomy, initiative, industry and identity, were making successful foster home placements. It was also ascertained that those wards who did not incorporate the personality characteristics were in turn having unsuccessful foster home placements. The findings also indicated that as one characteristic was incorporated it became a base for the following one. It was concluded that the extensive use of the traditional foster home was warranted and the findings also indicated when this setting was inappropriate. An extra chapter on Group Homes was added as a placement of choice for some of the wards who were experiencing unsatisfactory foster home placements due to undeveloped personalities.