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Abstract
Residential treatment centers often serve the most troubled foster children. During treatment, visits by caring adults may enhance foster children's emotional and behavioral functioning through social support and role modeling. However, there has not been enough research on the impact of consistency of visits and possible gender differences. This study analyzed data from a residential treatment center to examine the interaction effect of visit consistency and gender on foster children's improvement in functioning from intake to discharge. The sample included 77 foster children aged 6 to 13 years old. Results showed that visit consistency is associated with improvement in functioning for girls but not for boys. Girls who had consistent visitors only showed the greatest amount of improvement in functioning, followed by girls who had inconsistent visitors only and then by girls who had a mixture of consistent and inconsistent visitors. Difference in consistency between family and non-family visitors was observed, leading to practice and research implications.