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.