In many European countries it’s well-documented, that children in various forms of out-of-home care in general underachieve academic at school compared to the other children and often express lack of well-being and self-confidence in the school environment. International research studies points out, that foster children have lower school performances than peers with similar cognitive capacity and perform below their potential (Tideman, et al 2011); that considerably fewer go on to secondary and post-secondary education, compared to students with similar cognitive capacity, and that there are strong links between foster children's poor school achievements and unfavorable outcomes later in life compared with other risk factors as dysfunctional family background (Vinnerljung, Berlin, & Hjern, 2010).
One percent of all children in Denmark are living in out-of-home care, and statistics shows, that only 13 pct. of children in foster care get a higher education. For other children in Denmark this figure is 36 percent (Rambøll 2012). And foster children leave lower secondary school with grade point average in Danish and Math about half as high as their peers (Ankestyrelsen 2014).
Summarizing there is a profound interest in Denmark as well internationally to improve not only a more inclusive social learning environment but also to improve higher academic school achievements for foster children. But internationally there are only few examples of evaluated intervention studies focusing on this subject (Forsman, Vinnerljung 2012).
In 2013 The Egmont Foundation (a commercial company with charity foundation) launched the intervention project ‘Learn for Life’ (‘Lær for Livet’) with the aim to support foster children as supplement to their school attendance in ordinary or special needs schools with the aim to contribute to improve their academic achievement and well-being in the school environment. The main target group is pupils in foster care aged 11 years and up with normal cognitive abilities including children with diagnosis such as ADHD - a highly exposed group of pupils (also) in Denmark (Langager 2014). ‘Learn for Life’ started up in 2013 with 50 pupils and are planned to expand every year up till 1000 participating foster children in 2023. A long term project with a budget approx. 6 million € and based on three pillows:
- Learning Camps placed in school holiday periods. Two weeks in summertime and one week in autumn with participation of between 50 and 100 children.
- Mentor (on voluntary basis) for each pupil meeting once a week after school time.
- National Knowledge Center collecting and disseminating national and international knowledge about children in foster care and their school performance.
As part of the Learn for Life intervention project an independent university research group was establish in the beginning of 2014 with the task to the be in charge of not only following and evaluating the project from 2014 to 2019, but also to contribute with international research based knowledge concerning foster children and academic achievement, and to recommend ways to develop more inclusive learning strategies in school addressing academic improvement and well-being not only for children living in out-of-home care but also for other pupils in troubled positions in school.
