Relevance of family in the transition from care to adulthood

Young people today receive support from their families well into adulthood. The situation is different for so-called "care leavers" - young people who grow up outside the family in out-of-home care and begin their journey into adult life from there. The transition to independent life for these people is determined by law. It usually takes place at the age of 18 and is experienced as very abrupt. Stable social relationships and support networks are only weakly developed, so that the transition is often accompanied by feelings of loneliness and social isolation. The relationship with the family is complicated due to negative experiences in the life course such as neglect, violence, poverty, family conflicts or illness. Nevertheless, the family comes into focus again in this phase of life. It is partly associated with the hope that family relations could improve. Partly, there is a definite break and turning away from the family after contact has been established. In all cases, the confrontation with the family is crucial for the development of ideas about the future and for clarifying the question "Who am I? Care leavers often want a stable, successful family life for themselves, which leads them to enter into partnerships and start their own family at an early age. The research project aims to investigate the different connections of care leavers to their family in the transition to adult life. At the same time, it is to be researched how important family members are in comparison to other reference persons such as partners, friends, neighbours or carers and what significance they have for the formation of personality and for the establishment of affiliations. Finally, recommendations will be derived on how to work with family members in child and youth welfare services and what support care leavers need in the transition to independent living. For this purpose, interviews will be conducted with care leavers in which they can look back on their life stories and tell what experiences they have had with their family and relatives and how they fared in the transition to independent living. Likewise, network analyses will be used to investigate which people are important in their lives, who has supported them in their lives so far and what status family members have in their social network. On the basis of the data obtained in this way, it will be clarified in what way family relationships, family experiences and ideas about the family influence the further course of life of young people who grow up outside the family.

Young people who spend part of their upbringing in child and youth welfare services or in foster care and move on from there to adulthood - so-called "care leavers" - mostly have a difficult relationship with their own families. With the transition from care to adulthood, occurring by Austrian law at age 18, the family nevertheless often comes back into focus. The FWF project titled "The Relevance of Family in the Transition from Care to Adulthood" is based on this insight. A qualitative study was conducted to examine care leavers' understanding of family and the significance of their relationships with family members. To this end, biographically oriented interviews and network analyses were conducted with 41 care leavers from all over Austria. The results show that most care-experienced youths also orient themselves toward the socially established image of the nuclear family. Simultaneously, they navigate the tension between prevailing expectations of family and their own life experiences. This gives rise to different positionings towards family: These range from holding on to the biological nuclear family, through ambivalent entanglements in complicated parent-child relationships and the perception of a biological-genetic bond, to the notions of having no sense of family, or of being able to decide for oneself who belongs to the family and to create a family from important persons of reference. The analysis of relationships with various family members revealed that relationships with parents are generally perceived as not very supportive, yet addressing these relationships is essential for one's own identity. Both in society and within the child and youth welfare system, there is significant pressure to maintain mother-child relationships, while father-child relationships are considered less relevant. Sibling relationships proved to be particularly significant for receiving various forms of support and for establishing a sense of social belonging. In some cases, grandparents and other relatives also play an important role. Overall, it becomes clear that family relationships, due to their social and cultural embeddedness, represent a special kind of relationship that remains important despite the conflicts and stresses experienced. A series of conclusions can be drawn from these findings for the child and youth welfare system: During child and youth care, working with the family of origin is necessary to maintain relationships that remain sustainable even after care ends. During the transition out of care, care leavers need support in navigating complex family relationships, particularly with their parents. This requires the development of comprehensive aftercare services, which have been largely absent in Austria to date. In this context, the existing mother-centered approach in family work needs critical reflection in order to broaden the perspective to include those relationships with various family members that are actually helpful.