Learning About Healthy Relationships

Project Overview

The Learning About Healthy Relationships study, led by researchers at the Texas Institute for Child & Family Wellbeing, sought to explore how youth living in foster care navigate sexuality, dating, and relationships.

Although foster youth tend to interact with many people, research shows these youth tend to have few genuine connections. Older youth are most likely to experience placement instability that impacts their ability to develop and maintain close relationships with family, caregivers, peers, and dating partners. Rules in foster care often prohibit romantic relationships, yet foster youth have higher rates of pregnancy than their peers. They are also more likely to become victims of dating violence and human trafficking. Taken together, this evidence points to an urgent need to examine how and what youth in foster care learn about sexuality and relationships.

This exploratory study investigated:

1. How youth living in foster care explore dating relationships,
2. How relationships with caregivers and other adults impact what they learn about healthy sexuality and dating, and
3. How their emerging understanding of themselves and others shapes the formation of relationships as young adults.

This project was completed in 2021. Please contact the Principal Investigator with any questions.