Jim Wade

Looking back, looking forward: Care leavers, families and change

Abstract This paper draws on the findings of a four year study of leaving care services in England carried out at the University of Leeds and funded by the Department of Health. It examines patterns of family contact for care leavers and the quality of their relationships with their families. It considers the continuing informal support that both biological and substitute families can offer to care leavers. The new families that many care leavers create through early parenthood and the continuing support needs of these young parents are also discussed. The discussion situates the needs and experiences of care leavers in a wider youth transitions framework and argues for continuing professional attention to improving family links as one strategy for assisting care leavers to negotiate the major youth transitions.

Leaving care in England: A research perspective

Abstract In England and Wales children and young people are looked after, in substitute care or accommodation, by local authority social services departments. There are a variety of reasons for this — family breakdown, neglect and abuse, pressures arising from severe social deprivation or because young people themselves are experiencing difficulties as they grow up. They may be getting into trouble, running away or be beyond parental control. Most of these children and young people return home. However, significant numbers, estimated to be in the region of 16,000 sixteen to eighteen year olds, (National Childrens Bureau, 1992) will remain estranged from their families and it will be the responsibility of social service departments to prepare and support them for adulthood. The legal duties and powers of social service departments in England and Wales in relation to young people leaving their care or accommodation have recently been strengthened by the Children Act 1989 which was implemented in October 1991. This article begins by describing the background to these changes, including what we have called “the awakening of leaving care in the professional and political consciousness”, and then briefly outlines the duties and powers, contained within the 1989 Act, to prepare young people for leaving care and help them after leaving.

Taking a Chance? The Risks Associated with Going Missing from Substitute Care

This paper reports on a study of over 200 young people going missing from residential and foster care in four local authorities. The proportion of young people missing from residential care was high, ranging from 25 to 71% of all 11 – 16-year-olds in mainstream children’s homes. Two types of absence were identified: the ‘runaways’ profile (those who ran away or stayed out) and the ‘friends’ profile (those missing to be with friends). There were variations in levels of risk for different sub-groups within the sample. Risks included immediate risks of victimization, sexual exploitation (including prostitution), offending and substance misuse. A longer-term risk of detachment was identified among those going missing often, involving high levels of non-school attendance, detachment from carers and involvement in offending and in substance misuse. Difficulties in the assessment of risk are discussed and approaches to managing risk for young people who go missing from substitute care are explored. Copyright 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Developing Leaving Care Services Tapping the Potential of Foster Carers

This paper by Jim Wade draws on the findings of a four-year study of specialist leaving care services, funded by the Department of Health. It situates moving on from substitute care or accommodation in the context of broader youth transitions to adulthood. Three key dimensions of transition for a sample of care leavers are discussed: the timing and nature of their moving on; their early education and employment careers; and their ability to develop networks of social support. Issues arising from the support offered by foster carers and social workers are also explored. Finally, the author makes a case for foster carers to have a more central place in the development of leaving care services.

Mind-mindedness in parents of looked after children

The studies reported here aimed to test the proposal that mind-mindedness is a quality of personal relationships by assessing mind-mindedness in caregiver–child dyads in which the relationship has not spanned the child’s life or in which the relationship has been judged dysfunctional. Studies 1 and 2 investigated differences in mind-mindedness between adoptive parents (ns = 89, 36) and biological parents from the general population (ns = 54, 114). Both studies found lower mind-mindedness in adoptive compared with biological parents. The results of Study 2 showed that this group difference was independent of parental mental health and could not fully be explained in terms of children’s behavioral difficulties. Study 3 investigated differences in mind-mindedness in foster carers (n = 122), parents whose children had been the subject of a child protection plan (n = 172), and a community sample of biological parents (n = 128). The level of mind-mindedness in foster carers and parents who were involved with child protection services was identical and lower than that in the community sample; children’s behavioral difficulties could not account for the difference between the 2 groups of biological parents. In all 3 studies, nonbiological carers’ tendency to describe their children with reference to preadoption or placement experiences was negatively related to mind-mindedness. These findings are in line with mind-mindedness being a relational construct.

The potential of secondary data sources to explore the life chances of looked-after children in the care system in the UK

Several studies have used secondary data sources in order to learn about outcomes for adults who have been in contact with the care system in childhood. This article discusses two of the large‐scale longitudinal datasets in the UK that are available to researchers and which include information on adults who were looked after in childhood: The National Child Developmental Study (NCDS) and The British Cohort Study (BCS70). These databases are considered to be among the best sources available to investigate long‐term outcomes for looked‐after children in the UK. This article describes these databases and the use made of them by researchers exploring the life chances of looked‐after children. It also identifies the advantages as well as the limitations of these datasets and presents implications for this field of research.