Children in need of protection are often placed into unrelated foster care and uprooted from all that is familiar and important to their sense of well-being and social identity. The placement experience leaves the child with a sense of denial concerning how difficult life and divided loyalties between their current care giver and their birth parents, causing the foster child to struggle with who they are and with which family they belong. According to research, children in alternative care struggle with social relationships and often have delays in emotional and neurological development. The problems of social relatedness further stress the development of the identity of the foster child. The foster child wonders why they are in care, and what they have done wrong to be in care. The problems of social relationships and feelings of loss and abandonment undermine the child’s sense of self necessary for identity.

Placement into foster care is further exacerbated by the disproportionate number of children of color and children of ethnic minorities being placed into care, all too often resulting in transracial/transcultural care.  When this happens the foster child is in not only in unfamiliar setting; but also in a placement where no one looks like them and they can experience a profound sense of loss of culture and identity.  Under these circumstances children need to be supported as they not only experience living in multiple social worlds that is typical for children of color, but also learning to live within divided family and cultural loyalties.

Goals of Session:

·       Help participants understand the importance of social identity in development of the child.

·       Define psychological resilience as it relates to social identy.

 ·       Help participants examine the use of inclusive care in the development of social identity with a focus on kinship networks.