Max Rady College of Medicine

Concept: Children in Care (CIC) and Educational Outcomes

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Concept Description

Last Updated: 2015-06-25

Introduction

    This concept provides an overview of the educational outcome measures for children in care in Manitoba. The content for this concept comes from the MCHP Deliverable The Educational Outcomes of Children in Care in Manitoba by Brownell et al. (2015).

    The concept provides a list of data sources and the content of each source for the information provided in this concept; a list of educational outcome measures used in this research with links to a glossary definition for each outcomes and the section in the report describing the outcome measure and the figures provided in the report; a list of factors investigated in the analysis; and a brief discussion of the regression analysis performed with links to the findings and results presented in the report. The concept also includes a list of limitations / cautions related to this type of research.

    For more information on children in care, please see the Children in Care (CIC) - Overview of Terminology and Characteristics concept.

Data Sources

Measures of Education Outcomes for Children in Care

Factors Associated with Educational Outcomes for Children in Care

    In Chapter 5 of The Educational Outcomes of Children in Care in Manitoba deliverable by Brownell et al. (2015), they attempt to identify factors that may be associated with positive educational outcomes for children in care in Manitoba, using characteristics recorded in administrative records held in the MCHP Data Repository.

    The analysis compares children in care who have positive outcomes to children in care who did not have these positive outcomes. The educational outcomes examined are the same as the ones described in the section above, except for grade repetition and the grade 12 standards tests. The analysis was conducted separately for each outcome and allowed us to examine a number of different factors at the same time. For each of the educational outcomes, we looked at the following factors to determine whether they were related to how the children in care performed in school.

    NOTE: Some of the factors listed below include a link to a glossary term/definition and some link to a definition provided in the Children in Care (CIC) - Overview of Terminology and Characteristics concept.

    • average SES of the area (see income quintiles term) the child is from;
    • average SES of the area (see income quintiles term) of the school the child attends;
    • age of the child (in months) at the time of the educational assessment being examined;
    • Indigenous group of the child (see Indigenous peoples term);
    • legal status of the child within the CFS system;
    • whether the most recent placement was "kinship" or not
    • reason for the child being in care (see Reasons for Being Taken Into Care );
    • age that the child first entered into care;
    • whether the child was born small for gestational age (see size for gestational age term);
    • the age of mother at the birth of her first child - (see Mother's Age at First Birth term) - not included for the analyses of number of credits earned in grade 9 or high school completion because data was unavailable far enough back in time;
    • sex of the child;
    • school region (urban or rural);
    • whether the child's family had ever received income assistance;
    • diagnosis of a developmental disability;
    • diagnosis of a mental disorder;
    • maternal substance use during pregnancy - (see substance use by mother during pregnancy ) - (available only for EDI, and grade 7 outcomes);
    • substantiated abuse of the child;
    • currently versus previously in care at time of assessment;
    • total number of in-care episodes experienced by the child (see episode of care);
    • total number of placements experienced by the child;
    • the length of time the child had spent in care; and
    • proportion of days absent from school (examined for EDI only).

The Regression Analysis

    The regression analysis performed is presented in table format and these results are for children in care only. The tables include a list of all the factors, the levels examined, the direction of the association (increase represented by an up arrow and decrease represented by a down arrow) and whether the factor had any statistical significance related to the outcome. For more detailed information on how the analysis was performed and how to interpret the regression table information, please read Chapter 5: Factors Associated With Educational Outcomes for Children in Care of the report.

    The following list provides a link to each section in the report that describes how the factors were analyzed and the tables presenting the results of the regression analysis performed. Links to the glossary terms defining and describing each of these educational outcome measures are provided in the Measures of Education Outcomes for Children in Care section above.

Limitations / Cautions

    The following is a list of limitations / cautions associated with this type of research:

    • There are many factors that affect how well children do in school that could not be measured in this report. For example, whether and how often children are read to and spoken to at home or supported with their school work, and the quality of relationships between children and adults in their lives, can have an impact on school outcomes for children in care and not in care. Data on these kinds of factors are not available in the MCHP Repository.
    • The data in the Repository do not include measures of a number of characteristics of children that may have an impact on educational outcomes, such as child resilience, presence of a mentor in the child’s life, quality of the placement, and important measures of family functioning, for both biological and foster families.
    • Additionally, school-level factors, such as programs in schools supporting children with learning challenges, could not be measured with the data in the Repository.

Related concepts 

Related terms 

References 

  • Brownell M, Chartier M, Au W, MacWilliam L, Schultz J, Guenette W, Valdivia J. The Educational Outcomes of Children in Care in Manitoba. Winnipeg, MB: Manitoba Centre for Health Policy, 2015. [Report] [Summary] [Additional Materials] (View)


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Rady Faculty of Health Sciences,
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