Young people leaving care in Sweden

The transition from a placement in care to an independent life can be a problematic phase for young people. In Sweden, special care‐leaving services are almost non‐existent. What then happens to young people when they leave a placement in out‐of‐home care? This paper draws on the results of a study in which 16 young care leavers between the ages of 18 and 22 years were interviewed. Telephone interviews were also performed with the young care leavers' parents, social workers, foster carers and institutional staff. The aim of the study was to investigate how young care leavers perceive the transition from care to an independent life. The Swedish welfare model, the prolonged transition to adulthood and the family‐oriented welfare discourse have been used as analytical perspectives. The results show that young care leavers have a pronounced need for social, emotional, practical and financial support. Whilst such support is occasionally provided by foster carers and residential staff, it is seldom given by social services or biological parents. This group is at risk of facing severe problems in the transitional phase from care to independent life, a fact that is not acknowledged by the Swedish welfare system.     

Needs and availability of support among care‐leavers: A mixed‐methods study

Data are scarce on the long‐term needs of care‐leavers and on the support resources that are available for them in the years after leaving care. This mixed‐methods study presents data on the needs and availability of support of 222 Israeli care‐leavers, suggesting that the most urgent needs of care‐leavers are a lasting need for a stable and available support figure and assistance with educational issues. For some care‐leavers, these needs are fulfilled by their mentors. Parents and other familial figures were found to be the most common support resource for care‐leavers, which highlights the need for the intervention of social workers to improve relationships within families while the children are still in care. Due to high rate of young people who have no support resources and a low rate of services utilization, social services should provide a platform to support this group, using mentors and other supporters. The longitudinal data of up to 4 years after leaving care indicated that the availability of various types of informal support improved over the years, and the reports on difficulties in relationships of the care‐leavers with their parents were significantly fewer 4 years after leaving care than on the verge of leaving care.     

Exploring the care effects of multiple factors on the educational achievement of children looked after at home and away from home: an investigation of two Scottish local authorities

This paper reports the findings of a research project which explored the care factors that influence the educational achievement of looked‐after children. The project was innovative because it focused on children looked after at home and away from home. A mixed‐methods strategy was adopted to analyse data from two large Scottish local authorities. The project developed, what is to date, the largest dataset which includes variables for one‐fifth of children discharged from care in Scotland over a 5‐year period. The qualitative element of the project collected in‐depth data on the care and education experiences of looked‐after children and care leavers. The overall finding was that looked‐after children perform less well academically than their counterparts in the general school population. The empirical data indicated that factors such as placement type, reason for becoming looked after and age on becoming looked after were significant in determining educational achievement. Empirical results further indicated that looked‐after children suffered from discrimination and social exclusion in many areas of their lives, including school and where they lived.     

Getting behind the closed door of care leavers: understanding the role of emotional support for young people leaving care

There have been significant changes in the legislative frameworks and guidance that surround social work practice with young people leaving the care system over the recent years. However, care leavers continue to face a range of challenges, achieve poor outcomes and research has consistently highlighted the insufficient attention paid to sources of emotional support. This paper provides empirical data from a small number of care leavers reflecting on their experiences of transitioning to independence. The findings provide further evidence of the lack of attention paid to emotional support by professionals and highlight the impact that this had on the young people's experiences. The young people identify their changing perceptions and needs as their experiences post‐care change, the complex reasons for why they may have rejected offers of support and make key recommendations for practice. This paper provides valuable insight into the process of leaving the care system from the perspective of care leavers themselves and raises key questions that challenge the structure of the current support systems, the nature of the professional relationship with young people in care and the priorities of current policy initiatives.     

The social support networks of care leavers from a children's village in Ghana: formal and informal supports

In the past few decades, the number of children requiring out‐of‐home care in the developing world has risen sharply. Many children end up in institutions where they make a transition to adulthood. Little is however known about the social support available to young people during and after they leave care. This study examines the sources and kinds of support as well as the barriers to social support for a group of care leavers from a children's village in Ghana. The participants used a combination of formal and informal sources for their support needs. The formal sources provided mostly financial and practical support, whereas the informal sources offered emotional and informational support. The barriers to access included the attitude of the staff and SOS adults and limited cultural skills of the care leavers. Recommendations for removing the barriers and improving social support for care leavers are offered in the final part of the study.     

A small‐scale qualitative scoping study into the experiences of looked after children and care leavers who are parents in Wales

This paper presents the findings of a scoping study into looked after children and care leavers who are parents in Wales. Eight parents engaged in a qualitative interview. Thirty‐one pregnancies were discussed during the interviews: 16 live births, two ongoing pregnancies, one stillbirth, one termination and 11 miscarriages. At the point of interview, two parents continued to care for their children, but six had experienced the permanent removal of their child/ren as a result of social services intervention. Twelve of the 16 children discussed in the interviews were ‘looked after’ or adopted. Despite its small‐scale nature, the study highlights important considerations before, during and after participants became parents. Broadly categorized, these relate to the influence of parents' childhood experiences on their capacity to be parents, the availability and adequacy of support during parenting and the ensuing impact of parenting ‘success’ or ‘failure’. For parents who had experienced the loss of a child, some were resigned to having no further children, some continued to hope for a family in the future, while others had experienced cycles of repeated pregnancies and compulsory removals. The findings are considered in the context of related literature and suggest that increased attention is required in this under‐researched but highly emotive area.     

Care leaver needs and accessibility: Findings from the first large‐scale project in Switzerland

Leaving out‐of‐home care is a challenging situation not only for young people leaving care but also for the child welfare system. However, systematic and multiorganizational transitional programmes are often lacking. This study investigated Switzerland's first large‐scale care leaver programme and analysed associations between care leavers' needs and contactability in a sample of 459 care leavers. A first track compared the characteristics of successfully contacted care leavers and of not contactable care leavers (‘dropouts’). The second track analysed the association between need for support and self‐rated or proxy‐rated quality of life in the subsample of 235 successfully contacted care leavers. Odds for indicators of lower educational attainment were substantially increased for dropouts. Additionally, self‐reported need for support was significantly associated with lower self‐ratings of quality of life in seven areas. Care leavers who accepted the programme's offer of coaching rated their quality of life lower than participants who reported no need for support and participants who reported a need for support but turned down coaching. For successfully contacted care leavers, the programme gave access to coaching sessions to the young people the most in need. However, dropouts appeared more vulnerable and might therefore benefit even more from aftercare support.     

Mental health and wellbeing of care leavers: Making sense of their perspectives

Despite considerable quantifiable data about the circumstances of care leavers in the United Kingdom, there is less qualitative data about how these circumstances are experienced. This article is underpinned by positioning theory, with a particular focus on the unfolding personal narratives of young care leavers in relation to their mental health and wellbeing and the role of a life‐skills programme in supporting them in this respect. The research illustrates that leaving care projects, such as the one in the current study, are more focused on employment and housing issues than on addressing the mental health and wellbeing needs of young people. Our analysis of interviews with young people illustrates the ambiguity of understandings of concepts such as “mental health” and “wellbeing,” and the complexity of responses to questioning around this area. This illustrates one of the major problems in evaluating the outputs and outcomes of such projects in terms of simplistic targets, where mental health and wellbeing are not clearly defined or understood by young people themselves. The current research provides a more complex picture. More research is needed that involves in‐depth and longitudinal assessment of specific mental health needs of care leavers and how they can be addressed successfully.     

A comparison of state support for young people leaving care in Norway and Sweden: Differences within comparable welfare systems

The aim of this article is to account for and discuss support to young care leavers within the comparable welfare regimes of Norway and Sweden and to explore key differences between these 2 countries. This model implies that children and young people are included and entitled to support through being family members, not as independent actors in their own right. This makes young care leaver's transition from care to adulthood problematic—as they often do not have access to family support, they may be positioned in a vacuum where they are clients neither entitled to support from the child welfare system nor supported by their families of origin. In Norway, legislators and policymakers have agreed that care leavers need particular attention and targeted support, whereas in Sweden, there has been no such agreement. However, the Norwegian system of giving leaving care services is not strong enough to provide transition support to all care leavers, even if the legislation gives stronger protection than in Sweden. The article discusses the need for targeted measures of support for a successful care‐leaving process.     

The role of carers in supporting the progress of care leavers in the world of work

The aim of this component of a preliminary cross‐national study (Ireland and Catalonia) of care leavers' experience in the world of work is to explore how carers may influence the entry of young people in care into the world of work and how they may also influence the young people's progress in that world. A total of 22 care leavers, aged 23–33 years, were recruited on the basis of their having substantial employment experience since leaving care. Evidence from the interviews reveals the importance of the role of carers in the work‐related progression of the young care leavers, especially in relation to gaining work experience while they were still in care. The qualitative analysis shows that carers were influential in promoting (and sometimes hindering) progress in work and education. Carers were often reported to play an important role in opening up opportunities, giving support (modelling skill development, giving practical help, etc.), being role models and cultivating the young person's agency. On the basis of these findings, we propose an initial conceptualization of carer roles in positive work support.     

‘My life's been a total disaster but I feel privileged’: care‐leavers’ access to personal records and their implications for social work practice

In Australia, there is no binding protocol that proscribes the processes by which the release of personal records of adults who grew up in care occurs. Individual agencies that hold the records – both government and non‐government organizations – have their own policy and practice guidelines. While not specific to care‐leavers, the existence of freedom of information and privacy legislation means that the subject of the records is entitled to access information about themselves, but this is not unproblematic. Drawing on qualitative in‐depth interviews with a group of Australian care‐leavers, this paper discusses their experiences of accessing personal records. Accessing these records was often highly significant to identity formation, but could produce both positive and negative effects. The negative aspects of the records were that, typically, at least in part, they were incomplete, insulting, incorrect and/or incomprehensible. Currently, the range of support provided to those accessing their records varies significantly across agencies. The findings of this research suggest the need for the greater provision of supported release and the implications for social work practice are discussed.     

Understanding and negotiating identity: Children from cross-community families in public care in Northern Ireland

In Northern Ireland, most research on the impact upon children of living through the ‘troubles’ and in a divided society has assumed that children are from either the Catholic or Protestant community. There has been very little research with children from cross‐community families who have one parent from a Catholic background and one from a Protestant background. It is known, however, that these children are over‐represented in the public care system in Northern Ireland. The study reported in this paper addresses this gap in knowledge by exploring the experiences and views of children from cross‐community families who are in public care in Northern Ireland. The study has key messages for the development of services for looked after children from cross‐community families, if these are to be delivered in accordance with legislative duties in Northern Ireland and in an anti‐sectarian manner.     

Early access and use of housing: care leavers and other young people in difficulty

This paper presents findings from a study of how care leavers access and use housing services, and what they said had helped them to do so. The sample comprised 80 care leavers, and, for comparison, a group of 59 young people (termed ‘in difficulty’) who met certain criteria of disadvantage. Care leavers were found to have fewer crisis transitions and less experience of homelessness, together with a much higher level of autonomy and support in their first accommodation, relative to other young people in difficulty. Several factors are identified that, from the care leavers' point of view, contributed to their better access and use of housing services, including having family and friends to turn to, and leaving care teams that negotiated on their behalf with housing services. The paper concludes that care leavers had more positive housing experiences than other young people in difficulty, helped by the improved preparation for independence and ongoing support available to them from leaving care teams.     

Theory and explanation in child welfare: education and looked-after children

Empirical child welfare research in England takes insufficient account of wider social theory. Intellectual, professional and political reasons for this are discussed. The implications are considered in relation to one important social problem: the low educational achievement of children looked after by local authorities (‘in care’). It is concluded that the absence of a broader sociological perspective has led to insufficient and simplistic explanations from researchers and policy‐makers of low achievement among looked‐after pupils. It is unwise to rely on official statistics on educational outcome indicators for looked‐after pupils. Previous conceptualization of poor educational performance has been inadequate, and we should refer to low achievement, not ‘underachievement’. The socio‐economic risk factors that are linked with family breakdown and admission to care also predict low educational achievement, such as social class and poverty. Social mobility and transition to adulthood are increasingly problematic in England, making it difficult for care leavers to improve their social position. Parental maltreatment is strongly linked with educational failure. Other countries may do no better than England does. Thus, it is by no means obvious that the care system necessarily jeopardizes looked‐after children’s education.     

Making a home, finding a job: investigating early housing and employment outcomes for young people leaving care

This paper presents findings from a new study of outcomes for young people leaving care funded by the Department for Education and Skills. It reports findings for a sample of 106 young people in relation to progress made in housing and employment some 12–15 months after leaving care. The generally poor employment outcomes of care leavers are acknowledged, but ingredients that make for success are also highlighted, including the value of settled care and post‐care careers, sound career planning and, significantly, the value of delaying young people’s transitions from care. Early career paths also interconnect with how young people fare in housing, in developing life skills and with other problems in their lives after leaving care. Housing outcomes were more encouraging and predominantly shaped by events after leaving care, and faring well in housing was the factor most closely associated with positive mental well‐being in young people. Some groups that are at risk of faring badly are identified, including young people with mental‐health problems, young people with persistent offending or substance misuse problems and, in some respects, young disabled people. The implications of these findings for leaving care services are considered.     

Young care leavers' expectations of their future: A question of time horizon

This paper investigates young care leavers' expectations of their future after discharge from care. The results are based on qualitative longitudinal data where 16‐ to 21‐year‐old care leavers (n = 15) were interviewed twice, first when still in care but planning for their discharge (T1) and the second time 6–9 months later (T2). The analysis using a general inductive approach showed that their expectations were dependent on the time horizon and that there was an obvious difference between the young informants' short‐ and long‐term expectations. Their short‐term expectations consisted of worries connected to their approaching discharge (at T1) and how to cope with challenges of everyday life after discharge from care (at T2). These results seem to echo negative outcomes shown in previous quantitative research. However, the informants' long‐term expectations provide a different picture, being mainly positive in both interviews (T1 and T2). The results are discussed from a life course perspective, where the informants' visions of their future are framed and understood in terms of the different stages of their transition process.     

Investing in the relationship: practitioners’ relationships with looked‐after children and care leavers in Social Work Practices

Providing more consistent and continuous relationships for looked‐after children and care leavers is a current preoccupation in social work in light of many criticisms of the quality of such relationships. Recommendations for more direct work have spurred new models of service delivery in children's services aimed at improving individual outcomes. Independent Social Work Practices (SWPs), a new organizational model piloted in some areas of England between 2009 and 2012, were established to enable social workers and other practitioners to spend more time in direct work and thus to improve the practitioner/child/young person relationship. This paper uses findings from interviews with 169 children and young people across 11 local authorities and 5 SWPs, undertaken as part of a 3‐year national matched control evaluation of pilot SWPs, to identify key elements of good quality practitioner relationships with children or young people. Focusing on children's and young people's perspectives and experiences, the study demonstrates that more direct work and consistent relationships are valued. The paper deploys Recognition Theory to further understanding of effective practice as defined by children and young people.     

The Effects of Early Institutionalization and Foster Care Intervention on Children's Social Behaviors at the Age of Eight

The present study compared the social behaviors of eight‐year‐old previously institutionalized Romanian children from the Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP) in two groups: (1) children randomized to foster care homes (FCG), and (2) children randomized to care as usual (remaining in institutions) (CAUG). Children were observed interacting with an age‐ and gender‐matched unfamiliar, non‐institutionalized peer from the community during six interactive tasks, and their behavior was coded for speech reticence, social engagement, task orientation, social withdrawal, and conversational competence. Group comparisons revealed that FCG children were rated as significantly less reticent during a speech task than CAUG children. For CAUG children, longer time spent in institutional care was related to greater speech reticence and lower social engagement. Using an actor–partner interdependence model, CAUG children's behaviors, but not FCG, were found to influence the behavior of unfamiliar peers. These findings are the first to characterize institutionalized children's observed social behaviors toward new peers during middle childhood and highlight the positive effects of foster care intervention in the social domain.     

Inequalities in child welfare intervention rates: the intersection of deprivation and identity

Child welfare systems internationally exhibit very large inequalities in a variety of dimensions of practice, for example, in rates of child protection plans or registrations and out‐of‐home care. Previous research in the midlands region of England (Bywaters; Bywaters et al.) has detailed key aspects of the relationship between levels of neighbourhood deprivation and intervention rates. This paper reports further evidence from the study examining the intersection of deprivation with aspects of identity: gender, disability, ethnicity and age. Key findings include a decreasing gender gap and a decreasing proportion of children in need reported to be disabled as deprivation increases. The data challenge the perception that black children are more likely than white to be in out‐of‐home care, a finding that only holds if the much higher level of deprivation among black children is not taken into account. Similarly, after controlling for deprivation and age, Asian children were found to be up to six times less likely to be in out‐of‐home care. The study requires replication and extension in order that observed inequalities are tested and explained. Urgent ethical, research, policy and practice issues are raised about child welfare systems.     

Care Leavers in Israel: What Contributes to Better Adjustment to Life After Care?

ABSTRACT

The present study examines the adjustment of youth leaving residential treatment in Israel in three core areas: military service, accommodation, and financial status. A sample of 277 adolescents (aged 17–18 years old) in educational and welfare residential placements were interviewed a few months before leaving care, and 236 of them were interviewed 1 year after. It was hypothesized that optimism, higher perceived sense of readiness to leave care, and higher social support of family, friends, and staff are associated with better outcomes in adjustment to military service, accommodations, and economic status. Findings show that 70% of care leavers were drafted to the (compulsory) military service, a sign of good adjustment in Israel. Yet, they have significant difficulties in the areas of accommodations and financial status. Optimism and perceived readiness for independent living while still in care were positively correlated with adjustment to the military service. Mother's support was positively correlated with care leavers’ economic status and stability in accommodations. These findings highlight the importance of designing programs that include specific attention to needs and challenges while youth are in care and immediately after they leave. Follow-up and longitudinal studies are suggested.