Journal of Student Research 2023

Exploring Family Dynamics, Mental Health, and Well-Being Among College Students... 27 Finally, we collected open-ended responses to The Positive Home Integration scale (PHI; Waid et al., 2016) and found a range of both favorable and less favorable responses in terms of the extent that participants felt included in their foster families, felt about their relationships with family members, and the extent to which former foster youth felt that their foster parent listened to them. Examples include the following: “[…] just like every family we are dysfunctional in some way and considering all of us come from the foster system (foster parents included) we all have things that will set us off and it is constantly changing.” Another, less favorable example includes the following: “I get excluded even as a college student because my foster parents treat their biological children and grandchild better and do more things with them. Plus, my foster parents verbally berate me.” Discussion Although we did not conduct comparative tests or analyses on our results, we did expect to find these from reports based on what we know in the literature about at-risk outcomes for former foster youth and the transition to post-secondary education pertaining to foster family environment and mental health. Specifically, studies have shown that family support/dynamics, and mental health symptoms can impact the academic and personal experiences (Chateauneuf et al., 2017; Miller et al., 2020; Waid et al., 2016). It was unexpected to find that although the overall sample reported more mild symptoms and less severe symptoms on the GAD-7 scale, many participants responded with more disagreement and less favorability to items regarding their family environment. Open-ended responses provided a plethora of information regarding how supported one felt by their foster family, which is a critical element to feeling supported in post-secondary schooling (Chateauneuf et al., 2017). In contrast, youth who do not feel supported are at higher risk of not performing well in college (Hines et al., 2005). Additional support is vital for foster youth to perform at college standards (Okpych & Courtney, 2019; Okpych & Gray, 2021). Biological family support is important for success in higher education but sometimes can evoke more stress and conflict which may hinder their success (Okpych & Gray, 2021). Additionally, we found that foster youth experience some level of anxiety no matter their level of support. limitations. First, the data were collected from a mostly heterosexual (80.4%), gender binary (98.2%), and urban-residing population (62.5%). Thus, it is possible that data from a more LGBTQ and geographically diverse sample would illustrate more divergent or variant themes, as well as yield different mean scores. Further, we did not ask for the socioeconomic status of foster youth or their foster families. Future research should consider how social class and frequency (if any) of changes in foster family placement impact the experiences of foster families and foster youth. Limitations and Future Directions While attempts were made to recruit a diverse sample, there were some