The Home Representation Impact on the Adopted Adolescents’ Adaptation to the Foster Families ⁸⁸⁴

Home representations in the adaptation of adopted adolescents to the foster families were investigated. 30 parents (5 fathers and 25 mothers, age from 35 to 45) and 30 adolescents (11 girls and 19 boys, age from 14 to 15) participated in the study. The independent variable was home representation, the dependent one – home attachment and family attachment as markers of adolescents’ adaptation to home. The following tools were used: the Functionality of the Home Environment Questionnaire (Nartova-Bochaver et al., 2015), the Relevance of the Home Environment Questionnaire (Nartova-Bochaver et al., 2016), Home Attachment Scale (Reznichenko et al., 2016), and Family Allоcentrism Scale scores (Lay et al., 1998). There was revealed that Functionality, Relevance, and Family Allоcentrism Scale were higher in parents than in children whereas Home Attachment scores weren’t. It was shown as well that similarity of the home representations in children and parents impacted on the family attachment but not home attachment. The Relevance of the Home Environment was stronger predictor of the children’s family attachment than Functionality. The applications of the study seem to be helpful in the practical work with foster families and children which could intensify home personalization techniques in children.

Keywords: adaptation, adolescent, foster family, home representation, Functionality of the Home Environment, Relevance of the Home Environment, home attachment, family attachment

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17759/cpse.2017060406