Session Information
05 SES 04 A, Supporting and Integrating Marginalised Young People
Paper Session
Contribution
According to previous evidence, both children and adolescents from alternative care show more accused disadvantages than general population ones, even those from lower-income backgrounds (Gypen et al., 2017; Vinnerljung and Hjern, 2011). There is a bigger possibility to experience deprivation, unemployment, housing problems, illegal activities engagement, early pregnancies, healthy-related problems, and low educational levels (Broad, 2005; Simon and Owen, 2006). Former youth in alternative care are at significant risk of social isolation not just while they are in the protective care system but also after they are adults, despite the substantial fiscal costs of alternative care for the government (O’Sullivan and Westerman, 2007; Gypen et al., 2017).
There are differences among these children too. The ones who are adopted experience fewer shortcomings than those who continue to be in foster care (Vinnerljung and Hjern, 2011). Furthermore, it is commonly accepted along literature that the children and adolescents in foster care who have a family perform better than those in residential care without family support in different dimensions: physical and cognitive abilities, academic outcomes, and social integration (Steels and Simpson, 2017). Developmental gaps in physical growth, brain development, cognition, and attention, as well as atypical attachment patterns, are all linked to residential care (Guyon-Harris et al., 2019; van IJzendoorn et al., 2020). Centred on these findings, it appears that residential care facilities are being phased out in favour of other family and community-based alternatives for children in need of care in most European countries; even so, this sort of resource does exist with a variety of characteristics.
The purpose of the study has been to assess the success trajectories of former residential care young people who have enrolled in universities and to pinpoint the factors that enabled them to overcome challenges and diverge from the expected way. In achieving this objective, the application of communicative methodology throughout the research process has been vital, an issue that we will discuss in the following subsection.
Method
This study has been conducted in Spain, where residential care currently accounts for 55% of child protection measures and has historically largely outweighed foster care (del Valle et al., 2009, Ministerio de Derechos Sociales y Agenda 2030, 2020). Hence, despite efforts to deinstitutionalize, residential care in Spain is not a last option saved for children and youth with extremely complicated needs but rather a relatively regular resource. The Communicative Methodology focused on social transformation was used to conduct the study (Gomez et al., 2011; Puigvert et al., 2012). The research implemented a communicative approach focuses on the factors that contribute to overcoming those inequalities rather than just analysing instances of inequality. Communicative Methodology is based on creating an egalitarian and intersubjective dialogue in where the researcher contributes with current scientific knowledge and the participant provides their experience related to the analysed topic, thereby constructing combined knowledge (Gómez et al., 2006). Through this methodological orientation, the contributions’ validity claims are evaluated based on the strongest argument rather than the person’s position of power (Habermas, 1981/1984). In this study they have taken part twelve participants between the ages of 18 and 28, and who resided in various Spanish cities. Two criteria were considered to sample participants: 1) the situation that they were currently studying or had previously studied at a university (defined by the research team as having achieved success in education) and 2) the fact that they had spent part of their childhood and/ or adolescence living in residential facilities. Two different methods were used to gather communicative daily-life stories. One of the researchers conducted four face-to-face interviews with young people who felt safe to share. The others were gathered using a video conferencing application due to geographic distance constraints. The researcher who used the data collection technique in each case also worked as a social educator in residential care. To let participants complete freedom to decide whether they wanted to participate, all information about the research and its goals was made available from the start. The communicative daily-life stories were recorded, and the data were analysed to separate the participants’ barriers (exclusionary dimension) from the solutions to the inequality (transformative dimension) (Pulido et al. 2014). In each set of categories, the exclusionary and transformative dimensions were examined in terms of the educational system, family bonds, social relations, transition to adulthood and residential setting.
Expected Outcomes
The data collected shows the trajectories and the elements that made possible for the participants to study at the university. Most of the research participants discussed how difficult it was to be separated from their fathers and mothers when reviewing their trajectory in the alternative care system, but they also recognised how necessary it was for this separation to occur given the situation of family neglect. They also described the constant change of the social and academic settings before and after alternative care, harming their interpersonal relationships and their academic accomplishment. Although the participants trajectories before being institutionalized were being extremely difficult for them, they showed how a close-knit environment during a child or adolescent development can be a critical protective factor for a child or adolescent who is experiencing carelessness. The participants explained how their friends, teachers, and family members helped them and, in some cases, protected them from their families’ neglect. All the participants also stressed the value of the educators to them after they move into residential care, underlining how some of the residential carers, especially their mentors who served as role models for them, showed them dedication, effort, high expectations, enthusiasm, and affection. Some age-related challenges in various facets of life were faced by participants who had matured out of care. Many of the research participants discussed the financial challenges they met in enrolling in, continuing in, and providing for their own needs during their time in higher education. Nevertheless, despite their difficult circumstances, the participants' narratives highlight crucial elements that allowed them to enrol in university. These identified educational success facilitators have been the participants’ awareness of the relevance of education; the prioritisation of education in the residential care home, the extended learning time, looking for other complementary help (such as private funding).
References
Broad, B. (2005) Improving the Health and Well-Being of Young People Leaving Care. Russell House Publishing. Del Valle, J. F., López, M., Montserrat, C. and Bravo, A. (2009) ‘Twenty years of foster care in Spain: Profiles, patterns and outcomes’. Children and Youth Services Review, 31(8), 847–53. Gómez, A., Puigvert, L. and Flecha, R. (2011) ‘Critical communicative methodology: Informing real social transformation through research’. Qualitative Inquiry, 17(3), pp. 235-45. Gómez, J., Latorre, A., Sánchez, M. and Flecha, R. (2006). Metodología Comunicativa Crítica. El Roure. Guyon-Harris, K. L., Humphreys, K. L., Fox, N. A., Nelson, C. A. and Zeanah, C. H. (2019). ‘Signs of attachment disorders and social functioning among early adoles- cents with a history of institutional care’. Child Abuse and Neglect, 88, 96–106. Gypen, L., Vanderfaeillie, J., De Maeyer, S., Belenger, L., Van Holen, F. (2017) ‘Outcomes of children who grew up in foster care: Systematic-review’. Children and Youth Services Review, 76, 74–83. Habermas, J. (1981/1984). Theory of Communicative Action: Lifeworld and System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason. Beacon Press. Ministerio de Derechos Sociales y Agenda 2030. (2020). Boletín de Datos Estadísticos de Medidas de Protección a la Infancia, 22, Datos 2019. Available online at: https://observatoriodelainfancia.vpsocial.gob.es/productos/pdf/BOLETIN_22_final.pdf O’Sullivan, A. and Westerman, R. (2007) ‘Closing the gap. Investigating the barriers to educational achievement for looked after children’. Adoption and Fostering, 31(1), 13-20. Puigvert, L., Christou, M. and Holford, J. (2012) ‘Critical communicative methodology: Including vulnerable voices in research through dialogue’. Cambridge Journal of Education, 42(4), 513-26. Pulido, C., Elboj, C., Campdepadro´s, R. and Cabre´, J. (2014). ‘Exclusionary and transformative dimensions communicative analysis enhancing solidarity among women to overcome gender violence’, Qualitative Inquiry, 20(7), 889-94. Simon, A. and Owen, C. (2006) ‘Outcomes for children in care: what do we know?’, in Simon, A., Jackson, S. and Chase, E. (eds), Care and after: A Positive Perspective (pp. 26–43), Routledge. Steels, S. and Simpson, H. (2017) ‘Perceptions of children in residential care homes: A critical review of the literature’. The British Journal of Social Work, 47(6), 1704–22. van IJzendoorn, M. H., et al. (2020) ‘Institutionalisation and deinstitutionalisation of children 1: a systematic and integrative review of evidence regarding effects on development’. The Lancet Psychiatry, 7(8), 703-20. Vinnerljung, B. and Hjern, A. (2011) ‘Cognitive, educational and self-support out- comes of long-term foster care versus adoption. A Swedish national cohort study’, Children and Youth Services Review, 33(10), 1902-10.
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