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Paper

Late outcomes for siblings reared in long-term placement in Children’s Villages

abstract

Introduction

SOS Children's Villages (CV), an non-governmental organisation, asked researchers to study the outcomes of youths placed in one of its agencies. These placements, a cross between foster families and institutional children's living units, were focused on welcoming siblings over long periods in a home (with one or two groups of siblings) with a foster family (the "SOS mother").

 

Aims and methods

This study examines the long-term effects during adulthood of child abuse and neglect after a long and stable placement. It aims to study the transition to adulthood at around 23-25 years of age. In this follow-up research, 130 subjects out of the 150 who had left care after 14 years of age were studied: they had been reared for over three years in CV and had been out of care for three or more years. They were 23-50 years old at the time the survey was conducted. All relevant institutional files were analysed. Two approaches were used: a mail survey of 123 adults (7 are dead, 80% of respondents) and semi-structured interviews of 73 ex-care subjects and their 22 foster "SOS mothers". Complementary data were obtained from staff members. Attrition rate was very low thanks to multiple information sources and to the stability of the staff.

Interviews with the various actors (ex-care staff, SOS mothers, and directors) on topics including schooling during CV placements, behaviour, resources, social integration, and family relationships allowed a comprehensive approach. The long time span elapsed since leaving placement (over 20 years for half of the subjects) allowed both the socio-economic context when leaving placement and the evolution of institutional practices to be taken into account.

 

Some key findings

Although a majority of the children and adolescents were orphans or without parents, two-thirds had been subjected to intra-family violence before admission, and an identical proportion had been neglected and abused (including maltreatment: 36%), while one quarter had been placed multiple times. Median placement duration was nine years.

 

Educational and psychological services have been greatly expanded in the decades between 1965 and 1995. Thanks to care services and the stability of placements, emotional and behavioural problems decreased or disappeared in nearly one third of the youths. However, over four out of ten adolescents still had disorders when leaving placement. Despite the trauma of their early childhood, numerous youths had not received any therapeutic care, especially the oldest ones. The determinative role of certain parental pathologies and especially of the severity of neglect and maltreatment on these disorders was highlighted.

 

Youths generally left care when they turned 18 but one-third continued to be looked after until the age of 19-21. When leaving care, they were able to benefit on an individual basis from multiple sources of support (administrative, financial, housing, and so on). One-fifth of youths left care before the age of 17, and these early departures were correlated with behavioural problems: 1) reuniting the youths with their family, often ending in failure and resulting in new placements elsewhere, or 2) institutionalisation to keep the other siblings safe. Leaving care at 19 and older was a protection factor for youths with physical or mental disabilities. Leaving care and the separation from a stable and familiar environment was often cited in interviews as a difficult passage, or
sometimes as abandonment; it was experienced on a conflictual and vindicatory level by many youths.

 

The duration of placement and support after leaving care was linked to better educational achievement and to positive outcomes. Although the proportion of youths without diplomas was high (40% vs. 15% in the general population), figures were not dissimilar for those with technical and vocational diplomas (28% vs. 31%).

 

At 25 years of age, two thirds of those formally in care had reached financial independence and lived on their own. Family solidarity among siblings and the support of SOS mothers were pivotal during this period. Very few women had their first child before the age of 20, unlike in the other studies in this field. Most of the problems (15%) encountered in the years after leaving care (violence, substance abuse, run-ins with the law...) were generally transitional in the long run, except for mental health problems.

 

The median age at time of survey was 38 years: the majority of these ex-care subjects are well-integrated socially and professionally; one fifth suffer from psychosocial difficulties (correlated to the accumulation of risk factors before admission...).

 

One of the key findings deals with the importance of friendship and relationship networks of those formerly in care. Growing up with their brothers and sisters favours the establishment of stable affective security necessary for socialisation, a security reinforced by the continuous presence of a referee invested in the long run.

 

Recommendations

For young people leaving care, the risk of isolation and lack of support between 18-23 years of age must be addressed in order to compensate for shortcomings in family solidarity. Public policy should support stable placements with developmental and transitional opportunities such as the ones seen here. In addition, independently of types and duration of placements, the fact that emotional and behavioural problems represent a scholastic handicap, burn out foster caretakers, and delay entry into stable professional lives underscores the importance of early therapeutic intervention during placement and targeted social support during the transition period.

 

Contact details

Dr. Annick-Camille Dumaret, Researcher, Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale, INSERM U750 - CERMES, 94801 Villejuif Cedex, France.

Tel: 33 (0)1 49 58 35 91

Email: dumaret@vjf.cnrs.fr

 

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