2.1. Participants
In 2011, the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS) tool was adopted in Singapore to facilitate the linkage between the assessment process, the design of individualized service plans, and the monitoring of outcomes of services. In order to aid the implementation of the CANS tool in Singapore, a research project involving children in out-of-home care in Singapore was embarked upon in order to provide policymakers and stakeholders with comprehensive information about the sector.
Specifically, the sample consisted of 451 children (69% of the total
sample) agedfive to 17, residing in 11 Voluntary Children's Homes
(VCHs). The 11 VCHs (out of a total of 23 VCHs in Singapore) were
selected as they expressed interest in participating in the research project. All children in foster care between the ages offive and 17 during
the data collection period were included in the study, accounting for
the remaining 205 children (31% of the total sample). For children
who had a placement change or more than one CANS assessment conducted during the study period, only the first assessment during the
study time period was included. In addition, CANS assessments with
more than 16 missing items (approximately 20% of all the 82 items)
were excluded from the analyses. In total, six cases were omitted from
the analyses, resulting in a total of 445 children in the VCH sample
and 205 children in the foster care sample