Bullying victimisation and perpetration of foster and kinship youth in the USA

Background: Childhood bullying can result in serious injury. Our objective was to compare bullying victimisation and perpetration of school-aged youth from 2018 to 2022 in different households: foster care, kinship care and birth families. A second objective examined correlations between bullying and adverse childhood experiences, child gender, age and race while stratifying by household type.

Methods: The 2018-2022 samples of the National Surveys of Children's Health were used. Bullying victimisation and perpetration were reported by caregivers and ranged from none, yearly, monthly to weekly or daily. Adversities include parental separation, death or incarceration; witnessing or experiencing violence; living with an adult with a substance problem or severe mental illness; or racial discrimination. Pearson χ² and ordinal logistic regression models were used.

Results: Pre-COVID-19, 69% of foster youth were victimised compared with 44% of kinship and 48% of birth-family youth, and 57% of foster youth perpetrated compared with 21% of kinship and 20% of birth-family youth. During COVID-19, the relative risk of both victimisation and perpetration flipped between groups: 25% of fosters were victimised compared with 34% of both kinship and birth youth, and 24% of fosters perpetrated compared with 35% of kinship and 33% of birth youth. In 2022, younger foster youth were at a higher risk of victimisation and perpetration, while males were at risk of perpetration.

Discussion and conclusions: Foster youth are at high risk for victimisation and perpetration compared with youth living with kinship or birth families. Results indicate that prevention efforts in school settings may be the most effective.