Developing a College Readiness Skills Program Aimed at Improving Self-Efficacy for Foster Youth in Academic Settings

The proposed work focused on the development and feasibility of a project aiming to introduce college readiness skills to youth who were in the foster care system in order to increase their perception of self-efficacy in an educational setting. With this increase in self-efficacy, foster youth who are generally disadvantaged when attaining and completing a college degree can have the skills necessary to combat this barrier. The project involved the development of contents of the program and the procedures performed at Bamboo Sunrise Foster Care Agency, where this Capstone project was carried out. Participants in the program consisted of three adolescent females who lived with a foster family represented by Bamboo Sunrise. The outcome of this project focused on the quality and feasibility of the program at Bamboo Sunrise, which was determined through utilization of a quality improvement feedback questionnaire that foster youth participants and staff at Bamboo Sunrise provided input on. Results from participant and staff feedback suggested that although parts of the program, mainly the arts and crafts activities, novel coping strategies, and skills targeted were enjoyable and beneficial for participants, much of the content could be simplified and made more generalizable for those with more difficulty with understanding the more complex concepts.