Evaluating a Program Designed to Improve High School Progress Among Foster Care Youth: Educational Liaisons

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 7:45 am - Gold 3
  In Roundtable Session: Youth and Advancing Family-School Partnerships

Abstract

This study evaluated the Educational Liaison Intervention (EL), a school dropout prevention program designed to promote the on-time high school graduation rate among students in foster care, who are deemed as being moderately at risk of school failure because of a history of poor school attendance, low grades, or behavior concerns. This evaluation used a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to test the impact of EL on school credit attainment. This RCT recruited and served three cohorts of students and had to deliver a new version of EL in Cohort 3, which was necessary because of the widespread pandemic-related closure of school buildings. The study found a significant cohort-by-treatment interaction effect, wherein EL was only beneficial in Cohort 3.

Authors

• John H. Hitchcock, Westat

• Jeffrey A. Anderson, Indiana University

• Nell Krahnke, Indiana University

• Eishi Adachi, Westat