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.

Dental healthcare utilisation among young adults who were in societal out‐of‐home care as children: A Swedish National Cohort Study

“…They have been described by the English scholar Mike Stein (Stein, ) as the most excluded group of youths in European societies. They tend to enter adulthood without adequate adult or financial support (Höjer & Sjöblom, ). Many have weakened family networks, partly because many parents are no longer living (Franzen & Vinnerljung, ) and partly because a childhood spent in OHC has failed to provide them with a family that is willing and able to support them after they leave their substitute homes.…”

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

“…Young people without experience of social care may “try their wings” by moving to their own apartment and maybe move back to their parents again (“yo‐yo transitions”) to take a new direction for their future (Höjer & Sjöblom, ; Kåks, ; Spånberger Weitz, ; Storö, ). For young people in social care, this transition becomes more definite and also has administrative and legal aspects that distinguish their process from the transitions of young people generally (Höjer & Sjöblom, , , ). In their case, the legally assigned care ends at a certain age or when the treatment goals have been met, after which they are supposed to leave on a set date—a point of no return (cf.…”

“…Previous research has shown that young people growing up in public care have an increased vulnerability to social problems over time (Courtney & Dworsky, ; Crawford & Tilbury, ). Compared with adolescents generally, their transition to adulthood occurs at a younger chronological age and in a shorter time period (Höjer & Sjöblom, ; Stein, ), and during this process, they have less support from their families of origin (Andersson, ; Biehal & Wade, ; Höjer, ; Lundström & Sallnäs, ; Mendes, Baidawi, & Snow, ). Moreover, they show an increased risk for committing suicide (Hjern, Vinnerljung, & Lindblad, ), involvement in crime, mental health problems, and teenage parenthood (Vinnerljung & Sallnäs, ) as well as poor school performance (Berlin, Vinnerljung, & Hjern, ).…”

Relationship to parents in adulthood with a background of out‐of‐home care in childhood

“…Young people ageing out from foster care have to deal with more issues and take on more responsibility than other young people of the same age. Leaving care research focuses on the transition from leaving care at 18 to independent living; this is usually studied up to 20 to 22 years of age (Biehal & Wade, ; Hiles, Moss, Wright, & Dallos, ; Höjer & Sjöblom, , ; Katz & Courtney, ; McMahon & Fields, ; Singer & Cosner Berzin, ; Singer, Cosner Berzin, & Hokanson, ; Stein & Dumaret, ; Wade, ). Follow‐up studies of children with experiences of out‐of‐home care are very rare beyond the age of 25, especially concerning the adult children's relationship to their parents.…”