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Young%20people

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Title: Young people s experience of long-term foster care Nordisk barnevernskongress August 28 31 2003, Reykjav k. Author: gkrist Last modified by – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Young%20people


1
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

2
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

3
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).

4
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.

5
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.

6
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.

7
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)

8
  • What is success in long-termfoster care?

9
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).

10
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

11
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.

12
Guiding concepts in semi-structured interviews
  • Care
  • Conditions
  • Relationships
  • Autonomy

13
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.

14
  • To the findings

15
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.

16
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

17
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.

18
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.

19
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.

20
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.

21
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

22
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.

23
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.

24
the story in the story floating arenas...
The family of today
The biological family
25
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.

26
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)

27
Returning to the key concepts
  • Care
  • Conditions
  • Relationships
  • Autonomy

28
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.

29
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.

30
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.

31
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.
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