Anglia. She has a special research interest in family placement and has published widely on foster-care, attachment and permanence. Bente Moldestad is a clinical social worker and a researcher in 'The Norwegian Longitudinal Study on Out-of-Home Care' in the Child Protection Unit, Uni Research, University of Bergen. She has published a range of articles on parents of children in foster care and kinship care. Dr Ingrid Höjer is Associate Professor in the Department of Social Work, University of Gothenburg. Her main research interest is child welfare, with a focus on foster care, including foster families, sons and daughters of foster carers and parents of children in foster care. She has published widely in these areas. Her recent research is on young people leaving care. Dr Emma Ward is a Senior Research Associate in the Centre for Research on the Child and Family, University of East Anglia. She has worked on a range of projects including studies of prospective adoptive parents, permanence in foster care and parents of children in foster-care. Her current research is on looked after children and offending. Dag Skilbred is a child welfare worker with main interests in interactive competence, parent counselling and inter-agency work, and has published in these areas. He is now working in the project 'Screening of Children within Child Welfare Service-Inter-Agency Work on Assessments and Services' at the Child Protection Unit, Uni Research, University of Bergen. Julie Young is a Senior Research Associate in the Centre for Research on the Child and Family, University of East Anglia. She has been involved in studies of adoption, the influence of post-adoption contact on all parties, the adjustment of birth relatives to the adoption of their children, fostering and child protection. Dr Toril Havik is a specialist in clinical child psychology and Head of Research at the Child Protection Unit, Uni Research, University of Bergen. She leads the research programme 'The Norwegian Longitudinal Study of Out-of-Home Care' and has published widely on varied aspects of foster care.

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.

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.

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A B S T R AC TIn this interpretative childhood study of 17 boys and girls aged 13-16 years placed in foster families, the experiences and attitudes towards school are explored. The importance of school as an arena for both learning and socialization is emphasized. Data were collected through interviews, network maps and text answers via mobile phone ('beepers'). Their educational improvement was based on their understanding of scholastic achievement as meaningful for their future, stability in daily routines and the involvement and support of family, peers and teachers. Access to peers at school is important, and group activities facilitate this. Because of their background, foster youth can also be exposed to bullying from peers. Both learning and socialization at school affect their self-esteem.

In Sweden, approximately 20 000 children were placed in out-of-home care at some time during 2006. Little is known of how their birth parents perceive their situation. This paper draws upon results from focus groups with 13 parents whose children were placed in care. The parents were invited to a conference centre, where focus group discussions were performed in different constellations over three days. Most parents experienced feelings of inferiority, guilt and shame. The parents' relationship with foster carers was often asymmetrical: parents felt their position to be inferior to that of the foster carers. Parental visits in the foster home were often problematic; it was hard to interact naturally with the children. Most parents asked for more visits in their own home, or at a neutral place. In cases where a positive working relationship between parents and foster carers existed, foster carers respected parents, informed them of the everyday life of children and included them in both minor and major decisions about the child. In cases where parents were well informed about their children's lives, they found it was much easier to have good contact with their children during their time in care.

The paper presents results from a study of sons and daughters of foster carers, and the impact of fostering on their lives. Children and young people participated in focus groups and discussion groups, and 684 answered a questionnaire. Eight were interviewed in‐depth. The results from the study showed that sons and daughters of foster carers were highly involved in the fostering assignment. Most children and young people valued their relationship with foster children, but even though relations to foster children were good, fostering could imply complicated changes of everyday life. Sons and daughters of foster carers may have to cope with conflicts connected to behavioural disorders of foster children, and they gained knowledge about foster children’s problematic lives. Fostering also implied contact with natural parents of foster children. Such contact could challenge children’s and young people’s’ perception of adequate parenthood. For some respondents it was hard to become aware of the dysfunctional parenting, abuse and/or neglect to which foster children might have been exposed. The results of the study provided evidence of the need to acknowledge the contribution to fostering made by sons and daughters of foster carers, and also to recognize the impact fostering may have on their lives.

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