Building Blocks
Young people build social capital in the context of four communities: Family, school, neighborhood and peers.
This brief discusses the meaning of social capital and how it affects the growth and development of kids in foster care. It shows how school, neighborhoods, peers and family all play a critical part. The brief is part of the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative issue brief series for foster youth engagement.
Social capital is fundamentally about how people interact with each other, meaning the value created by investing in relationships through trust and reciprocity. The three keys for foster kids include: (1) the quantity of an individual’s social relationships, (2) the quality of those relationships, and (3) the resources those social relationships can bring to the table.