Foster Care Research

Séverine Euillet, Researcher, Université Paris Nanterre, France  Within a developmental approach, this longitudinal research draws from attachment theory and contemporary work to analyse the evolution of the quality of attachment in children placed in foster homes. Initially, 36 French children aged an average of 52 months were presented with the Attachment Story Completion Task (Bretherton, Ridgeway and Cassidy, 1990). Six […]

Maria Mögel, Researcher, Marie Meierhofer Institut für das Kind, Zürich, Switzerland  Earlier identification of high-risk situations in early baby-parent relationships leads to more frequent placements for very young children. But out-of-home placements in early childhood represent a deep interference in children’s personality development. That is why there are considerable uncertainties regarding the criteria for out-of-home placements that are in […]

Geneviève Pagé, Researcher, Université du Québec en Outaouais, Canada  Béatrice Decaluwe, Canada  Doris Châteauneuf, Researcher CIUSSS-Capitale Nationale, Canada  In Quebec, around 300 children are domestically adopted each year, most of the time through a foster-to-adopt program called “Banque-mixte”. These children, considered to be at high-risk of abandonment, are placed with foster-to-adopt parents who are willing to adopt them if they are legally freed for […]

Marika Handfield, PhD student, Université de Montréal, Canada  Isabelle Daigneault, Researcher, Université de Montréal, Canada  Tonino Esposito, Researcher, Université de Montréal, Canada    Placement instability has been frequently associated with distrust and powerlessness, which have been linked to increased internalized and externalized problems in child sexual abuse victims (Hébert et al., 2016; Monette et al., 2008). Therefore, placement instability could predict internalised and externalised problems in […]

Nuria Fuentes-Peláez, Researcher, University of Barcelona, Spain  Crescencia Pastor, Researcher, University of Barcelona, Spain  MªAngels Balsells, Researcher, University of Lleida, Spain   Support in reunification: a way to give continuity during foster care « It has been observed that the relationship between the Biological Family and the Foster Family has a direct influence on the wellbeing of the foster child (Baker, McHale, Strozier, & Cecil, 2010; Cantos et al., 1997; […]

Ellie Ott, Researcher, University of Oxford, Rees Centre for Research in Fostering and Education, UK  Aoife O’higgins, Phd student, University of Oxford, Rees Centre for Research in Fostering and Education, UK     European countries have seen a dramatic increase in the number of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC). In the most recent figures, the number of UASC in England have risen 54% (to […]

Ellie Ott, Researcher, University of Oxford, Rees Centre for Research in Fostering and Education, UK/USA  This presentation will focus on matching as the connecting of children in care and foster families. The definition used here includes the decision-making process to pair together children and foster families as well as the process of placing children into that household. Matching thus […]

Nikki Luke, Researcher, Rees Centre, University of Oxford, England  A recent study by Sebba et al. (2015) used English national databases on children’s care and educational experiences to identify the factors that facilitate or limit educational progress for young people in care at age 16. An extensive period of data preparation on this project included the creation and selection […]

Mariela Neagu, PhD student, REES Centre, Dept. of Education, University of Oxford, United Kingdom This doctoral research is a qualitative study which looks at the life trajectories of 39 Romanian care leavers and adoptees in their 20s and it seeks to explore their experiences in different types of placement (foster care, residential and adoption) as they perceived them.   During […]

Anna-Marie Herdtle, PhD student, University of Luxemburg, Luxemburg  The aim of this presentation is to reconstruct how young people in foster care experience continuities and/or disruptions during their transitions to adulthood. Combining an understanding of identity as an ongoing process aiming at the reconciliation between inner and outer exigencies which can be quite contradictory (cf. Keupp et al. 1999) […]