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4 Experiencing stability
Research findings showing that frequent moves in care are damaging for children date back a number of years (Jackson and Thomas 2000). Despite this, many young people who are looked after by local authorities experience numerous changes of placement. In 2004, 30% of looked after children in Scotland had three or more moves (Children's Social Work Statistics, Scottish Executive 2004). In this study, participants appeared to have experienced fewer moves, and therefore greater stability, than is generally the case for looked after children. Twenty five per cent of the participants had three or more moves. However, comparing the participants in the study to the Scottish average must be done with caution. The study had small numbers and participants were self-selecting, in the sense that they opted to be part of the study. Whether the number of moves had a direct impact on the outcomes for the participants is difficult to state definitively. What is clear from analysis of the interviews is that participants thought stability was an important factor in their success:
There was a constancy once I got put into care … I've had the same team behind me in social work and I've had the same placement for 10 years. (Fraser)
Stability is universally seen as a desirable goal in relation to looked after children, because staying in the same place allows children to recover from separation and adverse experiences and it provides them with the opportunity to make new attachments. If they are of school age, it will probably allow them to progress at the same school, make friends and join in neighbourhood activities. In short, stability gives children the opportunity to learn, to feel they belong to someone and to be nurtured. When children cannot have stability in the place where they live, it is important for them to have consistency as far as possible (Jackson and Thomas 2000). In these situations, maintaining the same school and social worker, being able to see old friends, taking part in familiar activities, and keeping in touch with family members, are all extremely important.
There are many reasons why children change placements. There can be changes to the child and family's circumstances, or changes to the foster carers' circumstances that precipitate a move for a looked after child. Studies of foster care breakdown have suggested that factors such as children's histories and behaviour, parental contact, other children and events in the foster family and lack of social work support may all contribute to placement breakdown (Sinclair 2005).
Experience of placement breakdown varied considerably in the participants in our study. Ten participants had lived in one care placement and it might be assumed that they had not experienced the disruption in their lives that placement breakdown brings. However, of these ten, six had already moved from home to live with extended family or friends prior to becoming accommodated.
Fourteen participants had lived in two or three different care placements. Eight participants said they had experienced three or more placements. Some found it difficult to be completely accurate. From the interviews it was striking that some people could not remember how many places they had lived in. This was especially so either where participants had been very young when they first became looked after, or where a chaotic home life involved several changes of address, or where extended family and friends had provided care. There were two participants who were certain they had made more than a dozen moves.
The participants who had experienced many changes of placement were united in thinking this was unhelpful to them. They seemed to prize stability as very important. They saw moves and changes of placement as putting them on their guard about committing themselves to trusting relationships. Ian (16) had lived with several different foster carers, which had affected his view of stability:
Until I came here I didn't trust nobody, 'cos I kept thinking I was going to get moved again.
Even where participants thought a move had been good because it took them to a placement where they were happy, there was a feeling that children were moved too readily. Even one move can have devastating effects if the young person does not understand the reasons and is left guilty and confused.
Siobhan was 31 years old when we met her to talk about her experiences of being looked after. After finishing college and working as a secretary, she married and now has two young children. Siobhan first became looked after when she was four years old, following her parents' divorce and ill treatment from her stepmother. Though apparently settled with foster carers, Siobhan found herself suddenly moved to a residential unit after nine years, with no clear explanation. She feels this disruption, and the lack of any satisfactory resolution, has profoundly affected her over the years:
Afterwards, when I saw my foster parents they said they were sorry but they never gave a reason. My social worker just said it was a breakdown in relationships. You know, you have all these questions but nobody's got any answers. (Siobhan)
Frequent moves in and out of care, between home and foster carers, was felt to be equally disruptive:
I was always going back to my mum's then into care, then back to my mum's then into care again. (Claire)
Some of the participants thought that moves affected their school work, and consequently their ability to achieve in school:
I've had to move school quite a lot, make new friends and that. All the schools do the work in a different way so that's been hard, having to catch up all the time. (Claire)
Two participants had experienced periods of respite care, where a foster carer and parent or grandparent had shared their care for a period. For both, this had been experienced as helpful and positive:
For about 3 months I stayed with my gran part-time and my carer the rest of the week. It was quite a good idea 'cos it gave my gran a bit of a break and it gave me a break too. (Natalie)
Familiar routines
Routines that might have been new to begin with became familiar over time and seemed to be critical to developing a sense of security, particularly to those whose home life had been chaotic. Getting up at the same time, having regular meals and being in a consistent environment was invaluable:
You'd come out your bed, you'd go downstairs for your breakfast at half past eight, which was another good thing for me, the routine, something that I'd never ever had before. (Tara)
Many participants compared their earlier experiences with their family to their experience in a care placement:
There was more of a routine. At home there was no routine at all. I mean, you just dragged yourself out of bed and went to school, no breakfast or anything. In care ... you got up and had a wash and you got dressed, your clothes were pressed for you and everything. And it was clean. Everything was perfect almost. You got pocket money. It was only 50p or something but still ... yeah, it was different and it was good. (Colin)
Participants who were now adults, particularly those who had children of their own, placed a high value on routines and the consistency they brought:
There was consistency there and as an adult now with children of my own I can say that consistency is an enormous help in a situation where the rest of your life has been inconsistent. You've had parents, you didn't always know if they were going to be sober or drunk, violent or not violent, there or not there - to have routine and consistency, to be able to depend on things, that was invaluable. (Shona)
Contact with parents, siblings and relatives
However much the stability and routine of a care placement meets the needs of a looked after child, they also need (whenever possible and appropriate) reliable contact with their own family. A major issue for all looked after children is the relationship they have with their own families. The significance to children of their families is reflected in policy and practice guidance which notes that contact between looked after children and their families should be promoted, unless it is considered not to be in the child's interests ( SWSG, Scottish Executive 1997). This view stems from theories about the importance for children of their attachments to their parents, even if they have been maltreated by them (Howe 2001).
Exploration of children's relationships with their parents was not a primary focus of the study but we were interested in whether participants had contact with their parents, siblings and relatives, and what the influence of these people had been in their lives. Often participants spontaneously introduced the subject of their own family to the interview. This was clearly an important issue, whatever the quality of the relationships, to many of the participants.
None of the participants we interviewed were living with their birth parents. Some had contact, others had none. Mike was placed in a children's home with his brother and sister after his parents separated in the early 1960s. His father maintained regular contact with them in the home and lobbied to have the children returned to his care. Mike told us that the knowledge that he was wanted by his father has made a real difference to the man he is today:
I've never doubted that he really wanted and loved us, though he wasn't the kind of man to ever have said so out loud.
Only one other participant specifically mentioned family members as positively contributing to their success. In contrast to these two positive experiences of contact with family, there were accounts of the impact of separation, especially from siblings, which had affected a small number of participants. Some spoke of their distress at the separation and spoke about being separated from siblings and the long-term impact.
Glenn was 17, and when we met him, had just been accepted for the army. He was proud of having done well in his initial training and was looking forward to his career in the army. Glenn also had his own local authority tenancy and was planning to buy this eventually. Glenn described himself as feeling:
Safe, secure and stable. I know what I am going for and I feel I can do it. Everything has calmed down. I'm quite happy. It is nicer than where I used to live. I think I've come quite a long way.
Glenn's current stability and ambitions contrasted with his earlier experiences. After a period in foster care he had been adopted. When his adoptive parents' marriage broke down, he was separated from his siblings and went on to experience a number of different foster care placements.
Being separated from brothers and sisters was a painful and difficult issue for some participants. Claire, Ross and Mike all talked about how being able to stay with siblings made them feel more secure. However Theresa's younger brothers were placed elsewhere, and she had little contact with them as they grew up. This was all the more painful as she had been responsible for much of their care while their parents were drinking, and therefore she lost an important role and sense of being needed. Theresa felt that the loss she experienced was not recognised by her social worker or the staff in her residential unit, and that she was not given appropriate help to come to terms with this:
I grieved for my wee brothers. I still grieve for my wee brothers. I mean my wee brother is 22 but I still haven't got over the loss.
Some reported they were still upset by being apart from their siblings. Their views are similar to those reported by kinship care children in Aldgate and McIntosh's (2006) study of kinship care. The kinship children missed their siblings as much as their parents. This applied as much to step siblings as it did to those siblings with whom they shared a mother or father or both.
These stories tell us about the importance of stability and routine, along with appropriate reliable contact with family. We all need to recognise that children have a capacity for success, whatever context they grow up in. Masten and Coatsworth (1998) write that:
Successful children remind us that children grow up in multiple contexts … and each context is a potential source of protective as well as risk factors. These children demonstrate that children are protected not only by the self-righting nature of development, but also by the actions of adults, by their own actions, by the nurturing of their assets, by opportunities to succeed and by the experience of success (p.216).
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