Voices of 65 Young People Leaving Care in Sweden: “There Is So Much I Need to Know!”

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine young care leavers’ experiences of supportive and nonsupportive factors after leaving care. Telephone interviews were conducted with 65 young people, between 18 and 26 years old, who had left care in Sweden within the previous 3 months to 3 years. The care-leaving process was in many cases described by the young people as badly planned and compressed. Some interviewees received support from the formal network (social services, foster carers, residential homes, contact persons) for housing (37) and financial matters (36), but few received support from the formal network concerning employment (14) and education (11). Emotional support was mainly provided by partners and friends. Altogether, the results suggest that access to support is a helpful factor for young people leaving care, but also that many of our interviewees had no such access, from neither formal nor informal networks.     

Young people leaving care in England,Northern Ireland,and Ireland

This paper explores the transitions of young people, aged 16-18, leaving state care in England, Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland. It is based substantially upon the findings from collaborative research which developed in stages between 1991 and 1999 - and is still ongoing. Four substantive areas are discussed. First, the legal framework of the three jurisdictions: the Children Act 1989, the Children (Northern Ireland) Order 1995 and the Child Care Act 1991; second, the research context within the three child care systems; third, the findings from the three related projects; and, finally, the key themes and issues arising from the research studies.     

Young People Transitioning from Out-of-home Care in Victoria: Strengthening Support Services for Dual Clients of Child Protection and Youth Justice

Abstract

A significant proportion of young people leaving out-of-home care make their transition to independence via the youth justice system, exposing them to further risks and reducing their likelihood of full social and economic engagement in mainstream society. This article presents the initial findings of a research project based on a partnership between Monash University and seven nongovernment child and youth welfare agencies in Victoria, Australia. Seventy-seven key stakeholders participated in interviews and focus groups with a view to identifying practices and policies that could reduce the over-representation of young people leaving out-of-home care in the youth justice system. Factors that contributed to offending included varied responses by the child protection and youth justice systems, limited utility of leaving care plans, and the availability of a range of preventative and diversionary programs. The findings point to a need for more formalised interagency collaboration, and intensification of the interventions and supports offered both in custodial settings and post discharge from custody or care.     

Procedures when young people leave care — Views of 111 Swedish social services managers

In western societies, there is a general tendency towards a protracted transition to adulthood for young people, who thereby may become increasingly dependent on support from family. Young people leaving a placement in out-of-home care often lack such support, and will thus have a disadvantageous position compared to their peers. With the purpose of looking into the procedures when young people leave a placement in out-of-home care, telephone interviews were performed with 111 managers of social service units in two Swedish regions (West Sweden, and Stockholm Region), using a structured interview schedule. Answering rate was 99.1%.Only 6% of the managers had information of the young people's whereabouts once they had left care. 86-88% had general support programmes for all young people concerning housing, employment etc. but only 2-4% had specific programmes for young people leaving care. A majority of the managers were attentive of the difficulties the young people leaving care may encounter, but displayed little awareness of the consequences of a prolonged transition to adulthood, and the need for continued support after leaving care. Several managers referred to the general support of the Swedish welfare state, meaning that young people leaving care had the same access to support as all other young people in Sweden. Consequently, young people leaving care are at risk of being invisible in the welfare system and facing a compressed transition to adulthood.     

Independent living programs for young people leaving the care system: The state of the evidence

A substantial body of evidence suggests that young people leaving public care systems are at increased risk for low educational attainment, unemployment, homelessness, physical and mental health difficulties, dependency on public assistance, and involvement with the criminal justice system. Independent living programs (ILPs), which incorporate life skills and personal development, are one strategy frequently used to improve outcomes for young people leaving care. However, the effectiveness of ILPs remains unknown. This paper systematically reviews the current evidence for ILPs, summarizing all controlled comparisons designed to evaluate their effectiveness. Reviewers were unable to find any randomized controlled trial evaluating ILPs, but the results of eight non-randomized controlled studies suggest that some ILPs may have protective effects for youth leaving the public care system. These trends were observed for outcomes related to educational attainment, employment, housing, health, and other life skills; nevertheless, the weak methodological quality of the evidence tempers the validity and generalizability of these conclusions. Further research utilizing random assignment of participants is imperative in order to draw reliable conclusions for policy and practice.     

Young people leaving care: implementing the children (Leaving Care) Act 2000?

This article presents findings from a large empirical research study which examines the ways in which the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000 is being implemented. The evidence presented points to a complex picture of ‘slower running’ and ‘faster running’ leaving care services, modest achievements, ongoing problems, and mixed outcomes. The author argues that compared with previous studies, the increased number of young people leaving care entering post‐16 education, employment and training is a significant development. It is suggested that the overall progress in implementing the Act is slower than might be expected three years after the Act was passed in 2000.     

Using photography to understand change and continuity in the history of residential care for older people

The Last Refuge by Peter Townsend is a seminal study of residential care for older people. The fieldwork was carried out in the late 1950s and the data are now deposited in the National Social Policy and Social Change Archive at the University of Essex. We have undertaken research, funded by the ESRC, which has revisited Townsend's work and some of the homes he studied in order to conduct an overtime comparison. In this paper we focus on Townsend's use of photography and our subsequent use of photography in our revisiting study. We argue that although Townsend did not analyse his photographs, they were significant data for use in his arguments critiquing residential care. They were, however, the product of a different socio‐historical context to our own and as such posed considerable practical and ethical challenges for us when attempting to use this aspect of his methodology for an overtime comparison. We argue that despite the resulting constraints, photography was an important part of our methodology, enabling comparisons and illuminating historical patterns in residential care for older people.     

The Kids Say Project: Supporting Children to Talk about their Experiences and to Engage in Decision-making

Research and policy calls for hearing the voices of children and youth in out-of-home care and involving them in decisions about their own lives. The “Kids Say” cards were designed to facilitate this engagement, particularly with Indigenous children and youth. A feasibility study explored the extent to which the Kids Say cards were acceptable to young people, and prompted discussion about their lives and what is important to them. The study involved 47 participants, aged 7 to 18 years, from three cultural groups: Aboriginal n?=?20; culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) n?=?10; non-Indigenous English-speaking n?=?17. The cards were found to be appealing to all three groups, and to facilitate child and youth voice. Findings also did not differ significantly according to gender or age. These preliminary findings indicate the potential value of appropriate practice tools to support children and youth to share their experiences and participate in decision-making.

IMPLICATIONS

• Engaging resources, such as the Kids Say resource, are potentially valuable in supporting practitioners to encourage children and young people to share their experiences and participate in decision-making about their own care and service needs.

• Training in creating safe sharing contexts for children and young people is essential. While emphasis is often given to gathering child voices, there is a need for at least equal emphasis on respectful adult listening.

     

Constructing a global understanding of the social ecology of leaving out of home care

Engagement with globalisation is growing in the field of youth transitions from out of home care. This includes cross national exchange of research, policy and practise, regional advocacy networking and global policy development. Furthering this emerging international child welfare perspective requires extending it to countries in the developing world and building conceptual frameworks which encompass a social ecology of care leaving, including its global dimension, the latter needs to address not only the needs, expectations and rights of care leavers but also the theories of change underpinning service design and delivery. Such a model is presented combining resilience and social capital as personal assets situated within a social ecology of support. To illustrate how this provides a means to help engage with the experience of countries where there appears to be very little information available on care leaving, a small scale South African initiative is considered. SA-YES is a youth mentoring project for young people leaving a variety of out of home placements. Planned as a three-year pilot, initial results are encouraging but require more rigorous evaluation focusing on program process and outcomes, quality of interpersonal relationships and synchronisation with cultural expectations and policy environment.     

Introducing a Research Project into Social Work Practice—A Model for the Future?

In this article the author, a social work practitioner, suggests that the knowledge and experience of practitioners and researchers need to be harnessed so that innovative practice can be developed within local authority Social Services. The views of children and young people were sought as a way of enhancing service delivery. Young people were consulted through a Focus Group about the policy and practice of Child Protection Conferences. Interviews were also undertaken with 11 young people who had been the subject of a Child Protection Conference to find out what they thought about the preparation stage, the conference itself and the follow up they received after the conference.

The author concludes that young people can make a valuable contribution to the development of universal services and managers and social work practitioners need to find ways to routinely incorporate consultation with children and young people into social work practice. This has implications for social work education, not only in ensuring that consultation skills with service users are built into the curriculum, but in encouraging innovative practice in the workplace.     

From dependence to interdependence: towards better outcomes for young people leaving state care

Young people leaving out of home care are arguably one of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged groups in society. Compared to most young people, they face particular difficulties in accessing educational, employment, housing and other developmental and transitional opportunities. Care leavers have been found to experience significant health, social and educational deficits including homelessness, involvement in juvenile crime and prostitution, mental and physical health problems, poor educational and employment outcomes, inadequate social support systems and early parenthood. These poor outcomes reflect a number of factors including ongoing emotional trauma resulting from experiences of abuse and neglect prior to care, inadequate support while in care, accelerated transitions to adulthood and lack of guaranteed ongoing financial and other assistance to help facilitate this transition. Young people leaving care do not currently receive the ongoing support that a good parent would be expected to provide for their children. Using relevant literature from the USA, UK and Australia, this paper examines the factors that contribute to these poor outcomes and potential policy and practice reforms that may lead to better outcomes for care leavers. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the margin? Residential child care in Scotland and Finland

Situated on the margins of Europe, Scotland and Finland are small countries which share similar demographic and economic profiles. In many European countries, residential child care can also be considered to be ‘on the margin’ of child care provision; there is ambivalence about residential care and a view that it should be used as a last resort. This paper examines systems and practices of residential care in Scotland and Finland, locating these in the context of wider child welfare policy in both countries. The underpinning principles of child welfare provision in both countries are similar—based on children's rights and primarily family-focused. In both countries there are also similar concerns about the fragmentation of child care provision and the cost of residential services. However, there are also important differences relating to child welfare provision and the use of residential care. In Finland, overall numbers of children in residential care are much greater than in Scotland; the age profile of these children and young people is very different; and the two countries vary markedly in the use of secure accommodation and custody. This comparative analysis suggests new ways of understanding the similarities and difference in the use of residential care in the two countries. It highlights the continuing challenge to develop residential care as a positive and integral part of a continuum of care services.     

Drinking places: Young people and cultures of alcohol consumption in rural environments

This paper focuses on the contemporary British moral panic about young people and the consumption of alcohol in public space. Most of this public debate has focused on binge drinking in urban areas as a social problem. Here, we consider instead the role of alcohol in rural communities, and in particular alcohol consumption in domestic and informal spaces, as well as the formal drinking landscape of pubs and bars. Drawing on empirical work (including a survey, interviews and participant observation) in rural Cumbria, UK we explore the specific socio-spatial nature of local attitudes to alcohol consumption and its regulation. In doing so, we reflect on the nature of rural lifestyles, community spaces and intergenerational relations. The paper concludes by highlighting some of the implications for health promotion professionals of the generally positive attitude towards young people's drinking in the rural area where the research was conducted. It also draws attention to the need for academics to pay closer attention to the ways that moral panics about binge drinking are implicitly producing a monolithic image of alcohol consumption in urban areas that fails to acknowledge the socio-spatially differentiated nature of practices of alcohol consumption and regulation.     

“Adding Their Flavour to the Mix”: Involving Children and Young People in Care in Research Design

Abstract

Children and young people are often the subjects of research but are not usually thought of as codesigners of research projects contributing to the development of tools and resources so that research about them and their peers is more likely to be appropriate and effective. This paper describes and analyses the involvement of a group of 14 children and young people who have been in out-of-home care. They assisted in the design of a research project that sought their views on what makes a “good” foster carer. The impetus for this study arose from a desire to include children and young people as stakeholders in improving the foster care system and a long-held belief that they could and should be active partners in creating change. The study demonstrated how children and young people could be engaged creatively in individual and group conversations and activities in relation to potential research questions and research methods and tools. The paper concluded that capturing their views will ensure that research will be of benefit to other children and young people and to policy makers and practitioners working in the field.     

Social work in the development of institutional care for older people in Slovenia

Social work in homes for older people in Slovenia has a special role since we have extremely institutionally-oriented care for older people. Characteristic of the development of Slovenian homes for older people is a shift in the dynamics of the orientation of the homes from a medical to a social one. Different factors influenced the shift towards a social orientation, i.e. the policy of establishing homes, the influence of sociogerontological principles, the development of social work and, recently, by their engagement with residents with dementia. In socially-oriented homes a different model of social work is used than in medically-oriented ones. The difference lies in social work methods as well as in the roles of the social worker in different areas of work with the residents, relatives and staff. By defining a model of social work in a socially-oriented home, a special field of social work with older people in the field of institutional care in Slovenia has been developed.     

Evidence-based practice in real-world services for young people with complex needs: New opportunities suggested by recent implementation science

There is growing agreement that child and youth services have been slow to implement evidence-based practice (EBP). A variety of interrelated barriers and facilitators of EBP implementation have been recognized and investigated. Key categories include the attitudes of providers, the characteristics of client populations, the characteristics of usual practice, organizational factors, and resource availability. Implementation scientists are investigating these factors, seeking to bridge the gap between clinical science and practice. Much of this work has been conducted in the context of behavioral health services for children and young people. This paper provides a purposeful review of this research from the perspective of decision-makers in agencies serving young people with multiple and complex psychosocial needs. It is argued that major barriers to EBP may be mitigated if ways can be found to transcend the oppositional construction that has characterized the discourses of EBP versus practice wisdom. A conceptual approach to such integration is offered. New lines of implementation research are offering opportunities for practical action by decision-makers consistent with this integrative approach.     

Gearing Up for Personalisation: Training Activities Commissioned in the English Pilot Individual Budgets Sites 2006–2008

The transformation of social care in England is taking place though changes affording greater choice and control for people using services. Individual budgets were one key element of these changes and were piloted in 13 local authorities in 2006–2008. This article reports on interviews with training leads in these local authorities that took place in 2008 as part of an independent evaluation of the individual budget pilots. The aims of the interviews were to explore the role of training as part of the processes of transformation, the use of resources and establishment of training strategies within the local authority. Participants revealed that the subject of training was acquiring higher profile within their authorities, although uncertainties remain about the extent of local authority responsibilities for training. Within local authorities, training resources were yet to be determined and models of training were not fully developed. The article concludes that training will remain a central issue when implementing personalised social care services and that models of training for such changes should be shared and evaluated over the long term.     

Skateboarding behind the EU lorry—the experience of Romanian professionals struggling to cope with transition while assisting care leavers

As a result of the fall of communism in 1989, the Romanian system of public care for children experienced massive shifts in its structure and ethos. One vulnerable area in any such system is the care leaving stage when young people can fall between the childcare and the adult protection systems. This article draws on a qualitative study that focused on the preparation and early outcomes for care leaving in Bucharest. This was undertaken between December 2002 and March 2004 by Anghel, a Romanian researcher reading for a PhD in England. The research aimed to explore the care leaving process through the views and experiences of the care leavers and the childcare professionals. The article briefly describes the structure and legislative base of the care leaving system in Romania, and discusses the political context created by the EU accession process. It then explores some of the themes emerging from the interviews with the professionals operating the system and discusses them within the overarching theme of transition within transitions: the transition of the young people within the context of transitions simultaneously being experienced by the professionals, the childcare system, and the entire society.     

Enhancing Critical Reflection amongst Social Work Students: The Contribution of an Experiential Learning Group in Care Homes for Older People

As part of a Practice Learning Centre, representing a partnership between an English University social work department and a non-governmental organisation, 12 students were placed in care homes for older people for their first period of assessed practice. The aims of this initiative were to facilitate: development of critical reflection; deployment of social work skills in a care home setting; and opportunities for social work students to work with care home residents. The learning was captured via four Experiential Groups facilitated by the Practice Educator with responsibility for assessing the students' practice. On-site supervisors also participated. Key learning included understanding of: the importance of critical reflection as a key social work skill; the influence of organisational norms and care home culture on the quality of care practice; the complexity and emotion-rich nature of person-centred care; and the pivotal role of relationships in work with people with dementia. Links made in the Groups—between the experiential and theoretical, the emotional and cognitive, and the structural and personal—demonstrate their value as learning platforms. Placements in care homes have considerable potential to enrich practice education; this is especially important in the context of an ageing population.     

Comparing local and national service systems in social care Europe: framework and findings from the STEPS anti-discrimination learning disability project

This paper outlines the methodology and findings of a cross-national comparison of social care services for people with learning disabilities in Europe, developed from the EU funded STEPS anti-discrimination project. The comparative framework developed for the project is profiled and summary findings are organised into thematic dimensions. Wide variations in service organisation were evident, providing particular challenges for those involved in cross-national research or social work practice. Key variation was evident between local and national systems, the varying impact of generic and specialist community care and the degree of individualisation in services, with various structural, funding and policy barriers to integrated social work and ongoing de-institutionalisation evident. Development priorities for inclusive and anti-discriminatory practice included individual funding and planning, self-advocacy and user involvement in quality management.