To estimate the impacts of Sweden’s Contact Family/Person Program (CFPP) for older children on participants’ long-term outcomes related to mental health problems, illicit drug use, public welfare receipt, placement in out-of-home care, educational achievement, and offending.
Method:
We analyzed longitudinal register data on more than 1,000,000 individuals born between 1973 and 1984, including 6,386 individuals who entered CFPP at 10–13 years of age, with a follow-up until 2008. The program impact was estimated by means of propensity score matching.
Results:
Outcomes for those who had received the intervention were not better than that for matched peers who did not receive the intervention.
Conclusions:
The results did not find support for CFPP effectiveness in reducing risks of compromised long-term development in older children.
AasR. W.AlexandersonK. (2012). Challenging evidence-based decision-making: A hypothetical case study about return to work. Occupational Therapy International, 19, 28–44.
2.
AllenT. D.EbyL. T. (Eds.) (2007). The blackwell handbook of youth mentoring: A multiple perspectives approach. London, England: Blackwell.
3.
AnderssonG. (1992). Stöd och avlastning. Om insatsen kontaktperson/-familj[Support and respite care. About contact person/-family] (Vol. 2). Lund, Sweden: Lunds Universitet, Meddelanden från Socialhögskolan.
4.
AnderssonG. (1993). Support and relief: The Swedish contact person and contact family program. Scandinavian Journal of Social Welfare, 2, 54–62.
5.
AnderssonG.Bangura ArvidssonM. (2001). Vad vet vi om insatsen kontaktperson/-familj? En kunskapsöversikt[What do we know about the intervention Contact person/-family? A review.]. Lund, Sweden: Lunds universitet, Institutionen för socialt arbete.
6.
BarthR. (1991). Sweden’s contact family program. Informal help bolsters vulnerable families. Public Welfare, 49, 36–46.
7.
BarthR.GuoS.McCraeJ. S. (2008). Propensity score matching strategies for evaluating the success of child and family service programs. Research on Social Work Practice, 18, 212–222.
8.
BeckerS. O.IchinoA. (2002). Estimation of average treatment effects based on propensity scores. The Stata Journal, 2, 358–377.
9.
BergmanL. R.TrostK. (2006). The person-oriented versus the variable-oriented approach: Are they complementary, opposites, or exploring different worlds?Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 52, 601–632.
10.
BerlinM.VinnerljungB.HjernA. (2011). School performance in primary school and psychosocial problems in young adulthood among care leavers from long term foster care. Children and Youth Services Review, 33, 2489–2494.
11.
BogatG. A.LevendoskyA. A.von EyeA. (2005). The future of research on intimate partner violence (IPV): Person-oriented and variable-oriented perspectives. American Journal of Community Psychology, 36, 49–70.
12.
BrännströmL.VinnerljungB.HjernA. (2013). Long-term outcomes of Sweden's contact family program for children. Child Abuse & Neglect, 37, 404–414.
13.
CaliendoM.KopeinigS. (2008). Some practical guidance for the implementation of propensity score matching. Journal of Economic Surveys, 22, 31–72.
14.
ChristoffersenM. N.SoothillK. (2003). The long-term consequences of parental alcohol abuse: A cohort study of children in Denmark. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 25, 107–115.
15.
CloningerC. R.SigvardssonS.BohmanM.von KnorringA.-L. (1982). Inheritance of criminality among Swedish adoptees. II. Cross-fostering analysis of gene-environment interaction. Archives of General Psychiatry, 39, 1242–1247.
16.
DeheijaR.WahbaS. (2002). Propensity score matching methods for nonexperimental causal studies. Review of Economic Studies, 84, 151–161.
17.
DuBoisD. L.CarterM. J. (Eds.) (2005). Handbook of youth mentoring. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
18.
EbyL. T.AllenT. D.EvansS. C.NgT. W. H.DuBoisD. L. (2008). Does mentoring matter? A multidisciplinary meta-analysis comparing mentored and non-mentored individuals. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 72, 254–267.
19.
FarringtonD.WelshB. (2007). Saving children from a life of crime. Early risk factors and effective interventions. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
20.
Ferrer-WrederL.StattinH.Cass LorenteC.TubmanJ.AdamsonL. (2004). Successful prevention and youth development programs. Across borders. New York, NY: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publ.
21.
ForsmanH.VinnerljungB. (2012). Interventions aiming to improve school achievements of children in out-of-home care: A scoping review. Children and Youth Services Review, 34, 1084–1091.
22.
FranzénE.VinnerljungB.HjernA. (2008). The epidemiology of out-of-home care for children and youth. A national cohort study. British Journal of Social Work, 38, 1043–1059.
23.
GouldA. (1988). Conflict and control in welfare policy. The Swedish example. London, England: Longman House.
24.
HenzU. (2001). Family formation and participation in higher education: crosscutting life events? In JonssonJ. O.MillsC. (Eds.), Cradle to grave. Life-course change in modern Sweden. (pp. 45–69). Durham, NC: Sociology press.
25.
HjernA.VinnerljungB.LindbladF. (2004). Avoidable mortality among child welfare recipients and intercountry adoptees: A national cohort study. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 58, 412–417.
26.
IchinoA.MealliF.NanniciniT. (2006). From temporary help jobs to permanent employment: What can we learn from matching estimators and their sensitivity?(IZA Discussion Paper Series No. 2149). Bonn, Germany: Institute for the Study of Labor.
27.
IchinoA.MealliF.NanniciniT. (2008). From temporary help jobs to permanent employment: What can we learn from matching estimators and their sensitivity?Journal of Applied Econometrics, 23, 305–327.
28.
KendlerK.SundquistK.OhlssonH.PalmérK.MaesH.WinklebyM.SundquistJ, (2012). Genetic and familial environmental influcences on the risk for drug abuse. Archives of General Psychiatry, 69, 690–697.
29.
KhandkerS. R.KoolwalG. B.SamadH. A. (2010). Handbook on impact evaluation. Quantitative methods and practices. Washington, DC: The World Bank.
30.
LeuvenE.SianesiB. (2003). PSMATCH2: Stata module to perform full Mahalanobis and propensity score matching, common support graphing, and covariate imbalance testing. Retrieved fromhttp://ideas.repec.org/c/boc/bocode/s432001.html
31.
MagidsonJ.VermuntJ. K. (2001). Latent class factors and cluster models, bi-plots, and related graphical displays. Sociological Methodology, 31, 223–264.
32.
MagidsonJ.VermuntJ. K. (2004). Latent class models. In KaplanD. (Ed.), The Sage handbook of quantitative methodology for the social sciences (pp. 175–198). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
33.
McLachlanG.PeelD. (2000). Finite mixture models. New York, NY: Wiley.
34.
MuthénB.MuthénL. (2000). Integrating person-centered and variable-centered analysis: Growth mixture modeling with latent trajectory classes. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 24, 882–891.
35.
NanniciniT. (2007). Simulation-based sensitivity analysis for matching estimators. The Stata Journal, 7, 334–350.
36.
NylundK.AsparouhovT.MuthénB. O. (2007). Deciding on the number of classes in latent class analysis and growth mixture modeling. A Monte Carlo simulation study. Structural Equation Modeling, 14, 535–569.
37.
PriceJ.ChamberlainP.LandsverkJ.ReidJ. (2009). KEEP foster-parent training intervention: Model description and effectiveness. Child and Family Social Work, 14, 233–242.
38.
RafteryA. E. (1995). Bayesian model selection in social research. Sociological Methodology, 25, 111–163.
39.
RhodesJ. E. (2004). Stand by me: The risks and rewards of mentoring today’s youth. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.
40.
RhodesJ. E. (2008). Improving youth mentoring interventions through research-based practice. American Journal of Community Psychology, 41, 35–42.
41.
RothmanK. J.GreenlandS.LashT. L. (2008). Modern epidemiology (3rd ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Wolters Kluwer.
42.
RosatoN. S.BaerJ. C. (2012). Latent class analysis: A method for capturing heterogeneity. Social Work Research, 36, 61–69.
43.
SigvardssonS.BohmanM.CloningerR. (1996). Replication of the Stockholm adoption study of alcoholism: Confirmatory cross-fostering analysis. Archives of General Psychiatry, 53, 681–687.
44.
StattinH.MagnussonD. (1996). Antisocial development: A holistic approach. Development and Psychopathology, 8, 617–645.
45.
SundellK.HumlesjöE.CarlssonM. (1994). Att hjälpa sin nästa. En undersökning av kontaktfamiljer i Stockholm [To help your neighbor. A study of contact families in Stockholm]. Stockholm, Sweden: Socialtjänsten, FoU-byrån.
46.
SwartoutK. M.SwartoutA. G. (2012). Shifting perspectives: Applying person-centered analyses to violence research. Psychology of Violence, 2, 309–312.
47.
TeinJ.-YCoxeS.ChamH. (2013). Statistical power to detect the correct number of classes in latent profile analysis. Structural Equation Modeling, 20, 640–657.
48.
TolanP.HenryD.SchoenyM.BassA. (2008). Mentoring interventions to affect juvenile delinquency and associated problems. Campbell Collaboration Systematic Reviews, 16.
49.
VinnerljungB.BerlinM.HjernA. (2010). Skolbetyg, utbildning och risker för ogynnsam utveckling hos barn. [School performance, education and risk for unfavorable development among children]. In Social rapport 2010 (pp. 227–266). Stockholm, Sweden: Socialstyrelsen.
50.
VinnerljungB.BrännströmL.HjernA. (2011). Kontaktfamilj/-person för barn. Uppföljning och utvärdering med registerdata [Contact family/person for children. Follow-up and evaluation by means of registry data]. Stockholm, Sweden: Institutionen för socialt arbete, Stockholms universitet.
51.
VinnerljungB.FranzénE. (2005). Kontaktfamilj/kontaktperson—omfattning och samband med placering i dygnsvård [Contact family/person—prevalence and associations with out-of-home care]. Socialvetenskaplig Tidskrift, 12, 345–365.
52.
VinnerljungB.FranzénE.DanielssonM. (2007). Teenage parenthood among child welfare clients—A Swedish national cohort study. Journal of Adolescence, 30, 97–116.
53.
VinnerljungB.FranzénE.HjernA.LindbladF. (2010). Long term outcome of foster care: Lessons from Swedish national cohort studies. In FernandezE.BarthR. (Eds.), How does foster care work? International evidence of outcomes (pp. 206–220). London, England: Jessica Kingsley.
54.
VinnerljungB.HjernA. (2011). Cognitive, educational and self-support outcomes of long-term foster care versus adoption. A Swedish national cohort study, Children and Youth Services Review, 33, 1902–1910.
55.
VinnerljungB.HjernA.LindbladF. (2006). Suicide attempts and severe psychiatric morbidity among former child welfare clients—a national cohort study. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 47, 723–733.
56.
VinnerljungB.ÖmanM.GunnarsonT. (2005). Educational attainments of former child welfare clients—A Swedish national cohort study. International Journal of Social Welfare, 14, 265–276.
VermuntJ. K.MagidsonJ. (2005b). Technical guide for latent GOLD 4.0: Basic and advanced. Belmont, CA: Statistical Innovations.
59.
WilkesL.BealeB.ColeR. (2006). Aunties & Uncles Co-operative Family Project Ltd: Volunteers making a difference in the lives of children and parents. Contemporary Nurse: A Journal for the Australian Nursing Profession, 23, 291–302.
