Young%20people

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Young peoples experience of long-term foster
care Nordisk barnevernskongress August 28 31
2003, Reykjavík.

• An interview study 2001 2003
• Guðrún Kristinsdóttir Iceland University of
  Education
• This project is initiated and funded by
• The Government Agency for Child Protection,
  Iceland
• Barnaverndarstofa Íslands

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Young peoples experience of long-term foster
care

• Outline
• On the study - young people were interviewed
• Participants, the foster homes, biological
  parents.
• Stories in the stories themes of the narratives
• Life today - examples and overall outcome
• Conclusions

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Theoretical inspiration

• Nordic foster care and child-centred research
• Guldborg et al.,1991, Denmark Koch och Koch
  1995, Norway Törrönen, 1994, Finland
  Jónsdóttir, 1993, Iceland Andersson 1995, 1998,
  Börjeson Håkansson, 1990, Sweden
• UK foster care research and methodology
  development Berridge, 1998, Hill (1997), Thomas
  OKane,(1998), Thomas (2000). Butler
  Williamson, 1994, Thomas, et al. (1999).
• Childhood of sociology studies methodology-
  James Prout, (1990) Qvortrup (1991).
• Methodological Silverman (1993, 2001), Pole et
  al. (1999).

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Perspectives

• Being a foster child is often a fraught
  experience,
• however, some children are resilient.
• Foster care is difficult to carry out
  successfully.
• Participatory research among children and young
  people has concluded that
• Children and young people are active subjects
  capable of forming judgements and making
  decisions at an early age suitable methods
  applied, they are no less trustworthy in their
  accounts than adults.

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Findings relevant to this study suggest that
children in care

• wish to have an influence in own lives
• wish to have a warm and stable relationship with
  at least one other person and
• to experience honesty and trustworthiness from
  practitioners and carers,
• According to voices of children and young people
  in the Nordic studies (and even some other), this
  is often absent in practice.

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Main objectives

• To study the participants experience from their
  own perceptions.
• Look for implications for practice.
• Try out methods of participatory research
• A qualitative study of 16 cases, no comparison
  with general population.
• This is a first presentation on selected items
  from the study - focused on analysis of
  empirical findings, account on methodological
  issues will be limited.

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Guidelines not only for child welfare practice

• The quality demands mentioned above -
• such as openness, trustworthiness and
  acknowledging influence of the intervieweed
• should also be considered in research on
  sensitive topics.
• (Oakley, 1981, Hollway and Jefferson, 2000)
• (picture from Roberts, ed. 1981)

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• What is success in long-termfoster care?

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In study of lived experience of a foster child
following criteria apply

• The foster child who fares well
• describes good conditions of up-bringing,
• has experienced to be cared for,
• has established mutual trust and relationship/s
  to significant other/s,
• has kept contact with family of origin and
• established peer relationships.
• This child experiences a feeling of autonomy and
• copes with daily life to the extent most people
  do.
• ( Berridge 1998).

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Sample

• Drawn from register of the Agency for Child
  pretection
• Aimed at maximum variation regarding the intended
  age span, gender, area of residence and types of
  long-term foster care (with consent or not, i.e.
  kinship or not).
• Randomly drawn given these conditions

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Participants

• 20 persons age 17 29 years consented to
  participate.
• At the time of interviews 4 could not been
  reached were hampered by ongoing problems or did
  not show.
• 16 young persons were interviewed
• 11 women and 5 men.

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Guiding concepts in semi-structured interviews

• Care
• Conditions
• Relationships
• Autonomy

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Themes for the interviews

• the period prior to foster care,
• the period in care, reasons for care, daily
  conditions, health, relationships with siblings
  and friends, schooling,
• contact with original family,
• your life of today,
• your evaluation of being put into care,
• your recommendations to practitioners and the
  child welfare system.

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• To the findings

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Time prior to care

• Most of the children had been in a residential
  home for children (vistheimili).
• Prior to that most of them had stayed with their
  parents.
• Five children were placed in kinship care, two of
  them had parents who died and they were both
  placed in own homes of siblings, both who were
  around 20 years of age.

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Age and duration of foster care

• Age at time of placement
• Range 1 -13 years
• 4 years 11 children
• 5 years 5 children
• Mean for Iceland (2002) 4 years.----------------
  ------------------------------------------
• Time in foster care
• Range 3 16 years
• Mean (approx.) 12.3 years

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Biological family

• Most biological parents belonged to the working
  class.
• Several families of origin were big.
• Common reasons of interventions were psychiatric
  disorders or alcohol and drug-related problems of
  parents.
• Mothers to 7 participants and 1 biological father
  were deceased at the time of the interviews.
• The young people did not know anything about 4
  biological fathers and 3 biological mothers.

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The foster homes

• Most foster carers belonged to the middle class.
  Most of the cares seem to have lived in stable
  conditions, we will turn back to exceptions from
  this.
• Some siblings were placed together, some of them
  had brothers and sisters who were placed in other
  homes.
• Six children were adopted, commonly at the age of
  12-13.

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Was it right to place you in foster care?Luck or
dissatisfaction

• The majority of the interviewed was satisfied
  with being placed in foster care.
• Luck was the word many of them used. One said
• I had been in far worse situation without the
  care, security and healthy conditions I got
  there.
• Consistent with other findings..
• Five were dissatisfied for different reasons
  suffering from feelings of rejection and
  jealousy, missing mother, being abused, behaviour
  problems in adolescence feeling badly treated by
  the authorities.

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Some things they could have done differently

• Be together with my sisters and brothers
• Being consulted
• Matching child and foster home better
• Evaluated my case when things went wrong
• Arranged for me to see my Dad
• Arranged so we siblings could meet
• Generally provided psychological support and in
  crisis to meet a psychologist who was a real
  help
• Intervene earlier in a childs life.
• Not limit parental contact to early years.

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Several themes to consider

• Experiences of parental contact and visiting
• Kinship care - differences
• When it went wrong, what went wrong?
• Development and changes during adolescence
• Feelings towards original parents
• Loyalty towards the foster parents
• Revealing emotions No, I didnt feel like
  telling them

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stories different in several ways

• My life is quite normal. That life as a foster
  child is normal is an important message in some
  of the narratives.
• Others do not feel so good emotionally.
• Yet others are more or less in trouble.

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Re-shaping of a sort of original family

• A shift in the narratives between stressing
  normality and telling about unresolved questions
  or various aspects of being in a special
  situation.
• Re-connecting with family of origin which leads
  to
• Travels into new spheres of private life which
  often relate to yet one more themeMy sisters
  and brothers
• An ongoing re-positioning in adult life.

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the story in the story floating arenas...
The family of today
The biological family
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How is life today?

• Half of the interviewed lives with their foster
  carers and the other half has formed their own
  family however, 1 is homeless.

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Conditions of today

• The interviewed were divided into three groups
  based on the criteria mentioned earlier.
• The resilient (7) The insecure (4) The rootless
  (5)

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Returning to the key concepts

• Care
• Conditions
• Relationships
• Autonomy

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resilient, insecure, rootless

• 1.The resilient secure conditions in childhood
  and stable relationships with their foster
  parents. Several experienced difficulties in
  school due to their background, but had also
  supporters and friends. They are working or
  studying and of good health. Some describe
  themselves as being troubled by conflicts or
  negative emotions due to their background.
• 2 The insecure Good care och positive
  upbringing, have jobs or study. Have had and
  still struggle with emotional problems, three of
  them received treatment for this when
  interviewed, in periods difficulties to control
  use of alcohol and drugs.
• 3. The rootless None of them seems to have been
  rooted in the foster home. Two are working at the
  time of the interviews. Heterogeneous group.
  Disrupted placements, emotional and
  psychic/psychiatric problems, violent behaviour.
  Four have abused drugs.

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Overall outcome Considerable variety in the
individual foster care stories.

• Care provided for most of the interviewed
  security and healthy conditions. Reasons for
  placement all reflect disempowered biological
  parents.
• The majority did well or fairly well and is
  satisfied with the placement and lives now stable
  lives.
• Some struggle with insecurity and instability
  which hampers them in daily life, even here most
  of them mention good support from their carers.
• The interviewed underline importance of family of
  origin not the least siblings relationships.

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Overall outcome contd.

• Individuals with negative experiences point out
  failings by the authorities. They ask for
  psychological support and to be consulted.
• Services seems to have been distant for them in
  childhood except for a few persons, where the
  interviewed did not feel real help. An exception
  involving 2 children is found from this.
• Inconsistent with increased emphasis on
  participator practices and UN Child Convention.
• Considered should be that the study is in
  retrospect.

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THEY DID A GOOD JOB

• Those who selected the good foster carers should
  be commended.
• Together most of the children and foster carers
  did a good job considering background, life in
  childhood and their life today.