Making sense of leaving care: The contribution of Bridges model of transition to understanding the psycho-social process

This paper is based on research into the transition of young people leaving public care in Romania. Using this specific country example, the paper aims to contribute to present understandings of the psycho-social transition of young people from care to independent living by introducing the use of Bridges (2002) to build on existing theories and literature. The research discussed involved mixed methods design and was implemented in three phases: semi-structured interviews with 34 care leavers, focus groups with 32 professionals, and a professional-service user working group. The overall findings confirmed that young people experience two different, but interconnected transitions - social and psychological - which take place at different paces. A number of theoretical perspectives are explored to make sense of this transition including attachment theory, focal theory and identity. In addition, a new model for understanding the complex process of transitions was adapted from Bridges (2002) to capture the clear complexity of transition which the findings demonstrated in terms of their psycho-social transition. The paper concludes with messages for leaving and after care services with an emphasis on managing the psycho-social transition from care to independent living.     

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.     

Continuities and discontinuities: Issues concerning the establishment of a persistent sense of self amongst care leavers

Research in a number of countries has demonstrated the importance of developing a sense of belonging and connectedness as key factors that facilitate the move towards independence for young people leaving care (see Stein, 2008). This paper utilises findings from a longitudinal study of looked after children (including interviews with care leavers) to explore how the evidence from Canadian research into the significance of perceptions of self continuity for identity formation can improve our understanding of care leavers' experiences and the factors that may act as barriers to their making a smooth transition.The findings demonstrate the extent of disruption and instability that care leavers may experience both before, during and after the care episode. This lack of continuity is exemplified for many young people by the loss of treasured possessions such as mementoes of parents and photographs of previous homes and carers. Constant experience of transience may act as a barrier to the establishment of a sense of self continuity. This may increase the likelihood of leaving care becoming a transitional flashpoint during which difficulties in moving on to adulthood increase the propensity for young people to lose sight of the thread that connects their past to their future, and engage in self-destructive behaviours. Premature, compressed and accelerated transitions may increase the chances of this happening. The paper argues that greater attention to the preservation of possessions that have a symbolic value might be a simple means of helping care leavers develop a stronger sense of connectedness.     

The experience of Jordanian care leavers making the transition from residential care to adulthood: The influence of a patriarchal and collectivist culture

The problems faced by young people leaving care to join the adult world are well-known. The present study adds to the current body of research on the subject by exploring the post-care experiences of young Jordanian care leavers. Forty two care leavers were interviewed, thirteen of whom also took part in a focus group. The interview data were analysed qualitatively. Jordanian care leavers described many experiences similar to those reported by young people leaving care in other countries including struggles to continue education, find accommodation, secure employment, and cope financially. Of particular interest was the more specific finding that the cultural values of patriarchy, family life, and collectivism characteristic of all Arab countries had a deeply pervasive impact on many of the care leavers' post-care experiences. The reasons that brought the young people into care, and the lack of family that most experienced upon leaving care, increased the risk of them being stigmatised. For many, managing their post-care identity in a patriarchal, family-based culture proved difficult and stressful. Although some care-leavers did receive exceptional, albeit informal support from friends and employers, the challenges faced by the care leavers were often exacerbated by the cultural values explicit in a society that is patriarchal, family-based and honour-bound. The policy and practise implications of these findings are briefly acknowledged.     

A cross-national and comparative classification of in-country awareness and policy responses to ‘young carers’

The reality for many families where there is chronic illness, mental health problems, disability, alcohol or substance misuse is that children under the age of 18 are involved in caring. Many of these children – known as ‘young carers’ – will be providing regular and significant care, either episodically or over many years, often ‘hidden’ to health, social care and other welfare professionals and services. These children have most often been invisible in social policy and professional practice. What are the reasons why some countries recognize young carers as a priority for social policy while others (most) do not? What are the key factors that influence a country’s awareness and responses to these children? This article provides an original classification and analysis of country-level responses to young carers, drawing on published research, grey literature, policy documents and the authors’ extensive engagement in policy and practice networks for young carers and their families in a wide range of countries. The analysis identifies two of the key factors that influence the extent and nature of these policy responses, focusing on the importance of a reliable in-country research base and the contribution of influential national NGOs and their networks.     

Gender Matters: Rethinking the Childcare Model in Hong Kong

This study aims to reveal the gendered practices in childcare under the family care model and the effects of these practices on carers in Hong Kong. Familial ideology remains a dominant welfare principle in childcare policy in Hong Kong, which assumes that family care is the best form of care provision. However, this policy assumption fails to respond to the needs in childcare arising from the social changes and development. The suggested possible solution for this issue is the shifting of the family care model to the social care model, in which childcare responsibilities are shared between the family and the state.     

Foster and Residential Care Reassessed: A Research Perspective

SUMMARY. Professionals in Britain and many other countries have long been concerned about whether children in need, who have to live away from their parents, are best placed in foster or residential settings. The issue has become particularly significant in recent years in view of the adverse publicity surrounding residential childcare. This paper summarises recent British research findings on the role and impact of foster and residential care for children and young people in need. It demonstrates that research conclusions often do not support commonly held public and professional views, particularly regarding the contribution of residential care.     

Dialogue and Challenge: Involving Service Users and Carers in Small Group Learning with Social Work and Nursing Students

This paper examines the rationale for service user and carer involvement in professional education and reflects on an initiative in which social work and nursing students undertook a sequence of joint learning in relation to mental health theory and practice. Central to this initiative was the promotion of opportunities for dialogue, both between students from different professional disciplines and between students, service users and carers. To enable this, much of the learning took place in small groups facilitated by either a service user or a carer.

Evaluation of this initiative indicated that, for the majority of social work and nursing students, learning from this shared experience had a major impact on their professional development. However, a small but significant minority found it hard to enter into a dialogue with others on a basis of equality and a sharing of their human as well as their professional experience. Some students indicated that they would have preferred a focus on acquiring more specialist professional knowledge and skills. This raises important issues in relation to the changing expectations of professionalism and professional education—and what really makes someone ‘fit for practice’.     

Leaving the Parental Home: Chinese Culture in an Urban Context

Leaving the parental home is increasingly treated as an essential stepping‐stone toward adulthood in the modern world. The authors argue that this is a cultural process regulated by social norms and institutional settings that vary from place to place. Hong Kong provides an excellent scenario in which Chinese traditions coexist with rapid economic development. Rather than looking at leaving the parental home as a developmental process, Chinese tradition tends to link it with filial obligations and gender status. On the basis of life history data collected in Hong Kong, the authors establish that leaving home has neither gained substantial popularity nor become a unique life stage among Chinese; it continues to be closely associated with the marriage transition and practical considerations such as housing, childcare needs, and the availability of elderly care.     

Child Protection Workers’ Perspectives on the School-to-Work Transition for Young People in Care

Abstract

Young people in the care of the state are reported as having generally poor education and employment outcomes due to such factors as high rates of school exclusions and non-attendance, frequent placement moves with consequent school disruptions, deprived precare backgrounds, lack of coordination between education and child protection personnel, lack of attention to educational needs by professionals, and low expectations held by carers and caseworkers. The present article examines child protection worker perspectives on young people's transition from school to work. Caseworkers believe that, for young people in care, factors such as unstable placements, psychological and behavioural problems, inadequate vocational options, poor caseworker knowledge of available training and education, and negative perceptions of young people in care may impede them from making a successful transition from school. Research suggests that child protection caseworkers need to integrate education and work with leaving care planning, given it is vital to the future wellbeing of young people in care.     

To work or to care? Working women's decision-making

Recent changes in older people's public care services in Nordic countries in particular in Finland and Sweden are based on implicit expectations that family members will increase their involvement in care. In Nordic countries, the care of small children has been acknowledged to be a social matter that concerns gender equality and the work life participation of both men and women, while the situation of working carers of older people is much less acknowledged. This study addressed the question of how Finnish working women who give care to their older parents argue for and against their decisions of working and caring and the meaning of work and care in these decisions. Majority of the interviewees emphasised the importance of work and refuted the idea of leaving work for care. The decision not to leave work for care was justified with worker identity, commitment to work, having no innate skills to be a carer, availability of support services and other carers and financial necessity. On the other hand, a few interviewees brought forward their willingness to leave work which was justified by constructing care as meaningful and valuable activity as opposed to meaningless paid employment, and with the intensification of work, and with ageing. Lengthy argumentation and several discursive tools indicate that women anticipated moral blame for the decision of giving work primacy over care, but also for leaving work. Thus, working carers balance between contrasting expectations to care and to work.     

Personal resilience and identity capital among young people leaving care: enhancing identity formation and life chances through involvement in volunteering and social action

This study explored identity capital and personal resilience among care leavers and young people in care engaging in social activities through volunteering. Care leavers and young people in care are disadvantaged developmentally by lack of identity resources and an accelerated transition to independence. This study analysed material from semi-structured interviews to explore the Identity Capital Model and theories of individualisation, agentic identity development and resilience in explaining the identity resources of young people transitioning out of care. The analysis identified links between the exploration opportunities of volunteering with the development of agentic individualisation and enhanced identity capital. The findings indicate that developmental processes may be enhanced through supported and personalised volunteering opportunities to aid vulnerable young people transitioning out of care. Young people leaving care can make substantial gains particularly in social capital, personal resilience and identity capital. This study indicates that volunteering opportunities for this group of vulnerable young people may assist in compensating for the lack of resources often experienced by care leavers when transitioning to adulthood.     

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.     

The Role of Carers and Caseworkers in the School-to-work Transition of Young People in Care

Abstract

How young people in State care decide upon future careers, and the support offered for this process by carers and child protection caseworkers, has received little research attention. This qualitative study sought the views of young people in care, foster and kinship carers, and child protection caseworkers about career development for in-care youth. We found young people were thinking about career options but encountered a safety driven, acute casework approach, which sidelined education and work planning. Career development was not viewed as a caseworker responsibility, and, by default, was primarily developed by carers. The study highlights the need for a greater focus on the transition to adulthood and the inclusion of career development in policy and practice development.     

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.     

Instruments for research on transition: Applied methods and approaches for exploring the transition of young care leavers to adulthood

Young people who have been in care show relatively poor outcomes in comparison to young people who have not been in care, and run a high risk of social exclusion. Therefore, the transition to adulthood of young people leaving care is an important topic for research. However, there is still little knowledge about the different research approaches and research instruments that are being used in studying this topic. The aim of the present study is to review the approaches and instruments that are used in empirical studies that focus on young care leavers' transitions to adulthood. The results show that the studies apply a diversity of topics and instruments, but that there is also considerable overlap. To make better comparisons on the transition from out-of-home care to adulthood between different countries, a common research framework and one or more research instruments should be developed that can assess this transition and the situation of young care leavers in diverse social contexts.     

Leaving Special School: the next step and future aspirations

One of the most important changes within the life-course is the movement from 'childhood' to 'adulthood'. This takes place through many different dimensions of experience, for example, biological, legal, social, cultural, emotional and attitudinal. It is also important to recognise that the concepts, 'childhood' and 'adulthood' are ambiguous and hard to define [Jones, G. &; Wallace, C. (1992) Youth, Family and Citizenship (Buckingham, Open University Press); Coles, B. (1995) Youth and Social Policy: youth, citizenship and young carers (London, UCL Press)]. This is partly due to the fact that they are not static concepts, but are historically and culturally fluid, open to interpretation and change [Ward et al. (1991) The Transition to Adulthood of Young People with Recorded Special Education Needs, final report to The Scottish Office Education Department (Department of Education at the Universities of Edinburgh and Stirling); France, A. (1996) Youth and citizenship in the 1990s, Youth and Policy, 53, pp. 28-43]. Despite this conceptual ambiguity, the transition from 'child' to 'adult' status is viewed as an important achievement within society. However, it is a complex, involved process, which evolves over a period of time. Of course, not all-young people undertake the transition in a similar manner or at the same pace. Social ideas and prejudices, whether these are class, gender, race or disability based, can and do effect the transition experiences of different groups of young people. This paper focuses upon the transition experiences of disabled young people, a group frequently forgotten or hidden within discussions of 'youth'. In particular, it explores and evaluates traditional models of transition with the aid of data drawn from a study of disabled young people leaving special schools [Mitchell, W. (1998) Leaving School - transition experiences and routes taken by disabled young people, D.Phil. thesis, University of York]. The paper initially focuses upon young people's next educational/vocational step after school leaving in relation to the traditional ideal of a school to work transition. Taking a broader approach the paper then explores and begin to unpack the complex concept of a more independent 'adult' status from the perspective of the study's young people and their parents/carers. Have the young people taken steps towards a more 'adult' independent life and, if so, in 'what' areas and 'how'?     

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.     

In between formal and informal: Staff and youth relationships in care and after leaving care

This paper deals with the contact and relationship youth have with staff while in care and after emancipation and examines the young adults' needs in contacting staff after leaving care. The study was conducted through 60 interviews with young adults ages 21–26 who emancipated from residential settings in Israel. Results showed that most youth report having had a meaningful staff member in care and that 62% were in contact with staff after their transition to independent living for both emotional and practical needs that could not always be answered by staff. One of the study's conclusions is that despite their departure staff's relationship with these young adults continues informally years after. However, without formal recognition of the place staff have in the lives of aged-out youth, no resources are invested in training them to properly meet the young adults' needs. The discussion highlights the need for an integrative approach that sees residential settings and staff as a meaningful part in the continuity from care to independent living by supporting aged-out youth's gradual transition to adult life.