Mike Stein

Emeritus Professor

Presentation Outline

Two questions

• Why do some young people from care ‘do well’ in adulthood?

• What are the challenges facing corporate parents in helping more young people to do well?

……presentation informed by UK, international research studies and theoretical perspectives

Care leavers and corporate parenting

Recurring evidence from international research studies -‘doing well’ in adulthood from care is associated with:

• Stability in care

• Success at school

• Leaving care later

• Being supported into adulthood

Context for resilience and agency of young people...the converse are risk factors

Why stability matters?

‘She was always there for me, I could talk about my problems…she listens to you…I was loved’

• Compensatory attachments - continuity

• Foundation of healthy psychological development

• Good mental health and well-being

• ‘Emerging adulthood’ and individual agency

Stability: the challenges

‘I didn’t know what was going on in my head…because I was moving around so much’

• Placement instability – care career patterns, three groups

o 10 -15% young people have 10+ placements;

o 30% - young people have 5-9 placements;

o 45% - up to 4 placements

• Disruption – personal relationships; education, locality ‘fragmented identity’

• Detachment patterns - leaving care early

Stability: policy and practice

• Having systematic data on placement patterns – entry to care, movements in and out of care, leaving care

• Having placement choices to meet the variety of needs and wishes of care population – kinship care, foster and residential care, specialist care

• Providing permanency for young people remaining in care and leaving care

• Placing the greatest emphasis on quality of placements –- well-being - in commissioning and quality assurance

‘Meeting individual needs’

Mental health: the challenges

‘I hate being like I am, I don’t care about myself’

• Studies: 40-50% ‘psychiatric disorders’;

• Half a SDQ score – ‘a cause for concern’ or ‘borderline’; ‘risky behaviours’

• Care variables – residential care; instability; later entry; leaving care

• Care leavers 16 plus twice as likely to have mental health problems than 13-15 year olds, doubles on leaving

• Two thirds (65%) not receiving any statutory service

Mental health: policy and practice

• Stability and quality of care associated with positive well-being (Oxford M H Review)

• Mental health assessments – pre, entry, post care?

• Access to mental health treatment – CAMHS, co-location of workers, training workers?

• Access to adult services during transition – addressing the ‘clinical gap’ between ‘well-being’ and ‘mental health’

Why school matters?

‘I am angry at folk for not pushing me at school’

• Associated with further and higher education, employment and career choice – future well-being

• Also, new opportunities, friends, leisure activities

• Social identity theory - ‘a normative leap’ from a ‘care identity’ to a ‘common identity’

• De-stigmatising negative care experiences?

School: the challenges

‘I think I am special because I tried and finished college’

• Attainment gap at all key stages– high % of SEN

• Evidence of progress but gaps with general population –46% in ‘leaver attainment’; 20% - ‘leaver destinations’

• CfE levels – low, ‘looked after at home’, residential

• Far less likely to go on to higher education – 4%

• More likely to NEET – none who were NEET had achieved 5 A*-C – earlier patterns of truancy, exclusion

School: policy and practice

• Oxford Education Review showed that education attainment has to contextualised in relation to pre-care experiences:

• Pre-care: structural disadvantages, locality, class, gender, ethnicity, disability

• Government and local policies towards above factors

• Pre-care interventions: maltreatment and neglect

• Cast a long shadow – poor starting points

School: policy and practice

• Stability, continuity and leaving care later – foster care, fewer placements in year, whole year

• Catch-up learning programmes – cognitive deficits, reading, numeracy

• Preventing truancy and exclusions

• Increasing expectations, motivation and aspirations

School: policy and practice

• Quality of education – school and social work links

• Reframe educational attainment as ‘delay’ at 16 not failure?

• Continuing education, return to learning –attainment increases with age - never too late!

• A rebalancing of normative and progress narratives?

Why leaving care later matters?

‘I’m only 16 and still a bairn and get a bit weepy at times’

• Associated with gradual transitions from care, being prepared and receiving continued support

• Focal and transitions theory - most young people cope with major life changes over time - extended, non-linear, supported journey

• Contrasts with ‘instant adulthood’ – accelerated and compressed transitions

• Leaving care at 16-18 years, at odds with normative, cultural and neurobiological development

Leaving care later: the challenges

• Most young people leave care between 16 and 18 years of age – a third leave at 16 and 17; more living with former foster carers at 21 (positive trends)

• Half of 20-24 year olds and 20% of 25-29 year olds in general population live with a parent (ONS)

• A third of young people – no choice about leaving care

• Leaving care early (16 and 17) - cluster of problems, poor and unstable accommodation, periods of homelessness, ‘trouble’

Leaving care later: policy and practice

Evaluations of ‘Staying put’ in foster care show:

• Young people twice as likely to be in full time education, more likely to be in training and employment and less likely to be NEET

• More likely to have gradual and supported transitions building on attachments, less likely to experience housing instability

• Don’t include more vulnerable young people –late entrants to care; residential care; instability; NEET; problems

• Scotland – entitlement to ‘continuing care’ to 21 in foster, kinship and residential care

• Implementation – cultural shift on age, information, training. managerial support and funding?

Being supported into adulthood: policy and practice

‘When we leave care why should they stop caring?’

• Access to pathway services – preparation, housing, finance, education and careers, health, personal support

• Access to services for specific groups of care leavers – disability, mental health, young parents, BME, Refugee, LGBT young people

• Support by family, friendship, mentoring networks can help -differences between positive and negative social capital?

• Family group conferences to identify support

• Having a ‘key person’ – to provide ongoing support

‘Having a key person to provide support’

Making corporate parenting happen?

• Strong legal and policy framework - enabling

• Implementation – funding of central and local services in responding to the continuum of challenges

• Clear policies for improving stability; education; leaving care later; and, providing support

• Entitlements and care proofing

• Addressing structural inequalities, maltreatment and neglect

• Providing high quality placements – positive well-being

• Personal support from care to adulthood

Making corporate parenting happen: agency

• Responding to these challenges provides the context for promoting the agency of young people and resilience

• Opportunities for agency, means involving young people individually and collectively in decisions which shape their lives

• Derived from law policy and practice – and creating a culture that nurtures involvement and participation

• For most young people maximising agency is associated with intersectionality between four ‘success factors’ and opportunities for participation

‘Involving young people in decisions’

Making corporate parenting happen: agency

Reflecting on ‘outcome groups’ suggests some support for hypothesis

• Moving On group – ‘success factors’, welcome and respond to challenge of gaining more control over lives, improve confidence and self-esteem, make use of help, exercise of agency associated with an ‘ordinary identity’

• Survivors group – ‘risk and success factors’; access to services and being supported regularly and longer, enhances exercise of agency, ‘move on’ later

• Strugglers group – mainly ‘risk factors’; greatly reduced opportunities for agency: experience mental health problems, unemployment, homelessness and isolation – trapped within a negative ‘care identity’?

• Limitations - this is a static picture, young people move between groups; turning points, return to education, being helped, meeting partners, ‘settling down’

Making corporate parenting happen: resilience

‘Care it’s given me great opportunities…at home my parents didn’t care’….resilience is ‘ordinary magic’

• Corporate parenting – reframed as promoting resilience

• An ecological perspective – individual and social context

• Responding to contextual and ‘doing well’ factors

• Recognising the agency and individual qualities of young people – their responses to adversity

• Relationships and finding ‘ordinary magic’

Selected research sources

On stability

Jones, R., Everson-Hock, E.S., Papaioannou, D. et al (2011) ‘Factors associated with outcomes for looked after children and young people; a correlates review of the literature.’ Child: care, health and development, 37, 5, 613-622.

On education

O’Higgins, A, Sebba,J and Luke, N (2015) What is the relationship between being in care and the educational outcomes of children? Oxford; The Rees Centre

Jackson, S and Cameron, C (2014) Improving Access to Further and Higher Education For Young People In Public Care. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers

Liabo K, Gray K, Mulcahy D (2012) A systematic review of interventions to support looked after children in school, Child and Family Social Work, 1-13, doi 10.111

Berlin, M, Vinnerljung B, and Hjern A. (2011) ‘School performance in primary school and psychosocial problems in young adulthood among care leavers from long term foster care.’ Children and Youth Services Review, 33.12, 2489-2497

On mental health

Luke N et al (2014) What works in preventing and treating poor mental health in looked after children, Rees Centre, Oxford University and NSPCC

Ford, T., Vostanis, P., Meltzer, H. and Goodman, R. (2007) ‘Psychiatric disorder among British children looked after by local authorities: comparison with children living in private households.’ British Journal of Psychiatry, 19, 319-325

Selected research sources

On mental health (continued)

Dixon, J. (2008) ‘Young people leaving care: health, well-being and outcomes.’ Child & Family Social Work, 13, 2, 207–217.

On leaving care later

McGhee K (2017) Staying Put & Continuing Care: The Implementation Challenge, Scottish Journal of Residential Care

Munro R,E, Lushey C, National Care Advisory Service, Debi Maskell-Graham and Ward H with Holmes L (2012), Evaluation of the Staying Put: 18+ Family Placement Programme Pilot: Final Report, DFE

Courtney, M.E., Lee, J.A. and Perez, A. (2011) ‘Receipt of help acquiring life skills and predictors of help receipt among current and former foster youth.’ Children and Youth Services Review, 33, 12, 2242-2451.

On pathways to adulthood

Stein, M (2012) Young people leaving care: supporting pathways to adulthood’. London Jessica Kingsley

On corporate parenting

Dixon, J, and Lee J, with Stein M, Guhirwa H, Bowley S, and Catch22 NCAS peer researchers (2015) Corporate Parenting for young people in care – Making the difference? London. Catch22

McGhee ,K, Lerpiniere, J, Welch, V, Graham, P, Harkin, B (2014) Throughcare and Aftercare Services in Scotland’s Local Authorities, A National Study, Glasgow: CELCIS