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 In all four communities, the importance of the people closest to the young person was emphasized.  The youths’ parents or other close people are brought to the meetings. Especially in the case of youth transitioning from out-of-home care, particularly touching are the stories where the young person does not seem to have any reliable adults around them. Because of this it seems important that the entire closest community receives treatment in out-of-home care and in substance abuse treatment for youth. The young person’s problems are rarely the only problems in their closest community.

Discussions with the people closest to the youth signal that challenges are perceived from the community perspective, not just individually. People need support from each other to feel well and to have the stamina to manage daily life. Discussions can broaden everyone’s perspectives and help to verbalize bad feelings.

How could we further improve our ability to provide support to families when the problems are only starting to develop? To back up the workers, we need fair welfare policy that gives people the chance to have a life worth living.

The responsibility does not lie with social work or professionals in the field of social work alone. How could we bring even more understanding of social and emotional aspects into health care, in addition to economic factors?

I feel that this is not only a matter of making all people clients of social work, but rather about how people engage with each other in the world. This concerns all workers, in various organisations.

People can sense others’ attitudes towards them, even when they are in poor shape. No system or model can support anyone unless it treats people with fairness and equality. People maintain organisations. Those organisations do not function without approval and cooperation from people.

In my research data, several young people are portrayed who feel that they are left with nothing, or are left on their own, when they move to their own flat. Also, youth over 18 who are recovering from substance abuse consider it important for youth transitioning from out-of-home care, as well as for themselves, to have social networks and meaningful occupation when they move to live on their own. When I asked the youhs at the residential community what tips they would give me to develop transitioning from out-of-home care, they gave the following answers:

’Probably that you’ve built that ability to do things and that you have some hobbies, so it’s not possible to get stuck at home. And then that you have friends and support network, somehow have managed to build your life before leaving. If you leave treatment just like that, it will hit a wall when you don’t have the courage to look for those hobbies or to go anywhere alone. So it’s quite important.’

’When I’ve been using there have been many who have been in out-of-home care and then done a so-called runner or taken off, however … I know one who got a transition flat and so on, but I don’t know how it like works there but it sounds really rough, that you’re just thrown like that, having some support person, and it’s up to you whether you use it or not. So the transition flat could be some K-tie type kind of community thing.’

 The youths’ comments signal that those undergoing transition should not be just left on their own, but someone should show an interest in what they are doing. They could do with a community to support them.

’Like from my own perspective, that there’s some kind of social network, that there are people around you. That’s like the most important thing from this and also from the perspective of my own life. That you’re not suddenly there just on you own. You may have those mechanical skills, you can cook and clean and so on. I’ve learned as child or adolescent. But then if you’re just thrown out and you don’t have people around you, then I don’t know how you can there …”

Voluntary aftercare is not appealing to young people who have waited for a long time to get to leave out-of-home care. They may have bitter experiences, and they may want nothing to do with substitute families, institutional workers or social workers.  Experiences and thoughts on this vary, as some of the young people feel that it is their privilege and are satisfied with aftercare and the services they have received, as well as the people involved. In the emotional landscapes of the youths I interviewed as they were recovering from substance abuse, those whose situations were at the more difficult end of the spectrum were probably most visible. This kind of information is important, despite being indirect, as we usually get less information about the situations of youth in the most difficult positions.

Youth: All my close friends have been in placement. It just comes to mind that I’ve seen it with all of them, when they have that transition phase it fails exactly because of that, when there’s no one any more to take care and there’s no longer that same relationship with your own parents or there isn’t necessarily any relationship at all, or if there is, it’s not the same when you’ve been in some institution. There’s no one you can ask for help. And then they are always left all alone. When it’s still not or the workers, professionals, are not their own parents. They feel like they’re alone. They’re still really young at that point. Like they know nothing at all about life. And if they have any problems, like everybody that I know, they’ve had some problems with drugs or alcohol, then they’re too embarrassed to say anything about it to anyone. Or they especially don’t know who to ask for help with that. They can ask for help with all the things to do with the flat, but not ask help for a real problem.

Maritta: When you’ve looked at your friends, what do you think would have supported them?

Youth: If I think about one friend of mine for example, he had a situation where he was alone and he had a serious alcohol problem and a drug problem also. They tried to call him a few times and then he cancelled those appointments when he should have gone to talk about those issues. That was at the stage when he didn’t have a flat yet but he had been released from the institution, because he had turned 18. Then on that third time, when he didn’t turn up, then he was just forgotten and no one contacted him anymore. Like if someone really put some effort into starting it off. Of course that person who has a substance abuse problem tries to skive from everything. It’s not quite right either that you’d have to keep chasing them, but you should keep chasing. Somebody should take care that they don’t just disappear when they turn 18.

 

We will continue our thoughts on transitioning to independence from out-of-home care in a project research report, due for publication in October 2018, Törrönen, Maritta, Carol Munn-Giddings, Chrissie Gavriel, Niamh O’Brien, Pennie Byrne and Young Peer Researchers (2018) ‘Reciprocal emotional relationships – Experiences of stability of young adults leaving care.’  Publications of the Faculty of Social Sciences 75. Helsinki: University of Helsinki and Anglia Ruskin University in collaboration with the Essex Children in Care Council. ISSN 2343-2748 (e-print). See Reciprocal Emotional Relationships – 260918

Thank you for your interest!

I journey with my backpack and meet people whose stories touch me to the core of my heart. As a researcher, I cannot remain cold and distant. I sense a connection. I feel inexplicable gratitude for the positive acceptance I receive.

How can people who have gone through such hard experiences from an early age show such compassion and acceptance towards others? People are naked before each other. And I, as a researcher, get to be part of their circle of compassion.

For the seventh year running, I conduct research on young people transitioning from out-of-home care. I have come to know youth in the process of transitioning, and their support workers, in Finland and in the UK. I study the way young people experience leaving a foster family or a child welfare institution.  I ask them how their transition to independence could have been supported even better.

This is my journey of exploration into the world of young people. While I am deeply grateful for having met such fine youth, workers and researchers along the way, I also feel sadness because I have seen how some of these young people have lived lives of struggle since an early age. Life does not treat everyone fairly, or give everyone equal opportunities. The most profoundly touching are the situations of youth who feel that they do not have a single adult close to them that they could trust and rely on. How does it feel to wander the streets when you don’t know what to do with your life? Wondering if you’re just another job assignment for the carers, and part of their daily routine, or wondering why your relationship with your parents failed?

Maritta Törrönen
Professor
Marie Curie Individual European Fellow
Anglia Ruskin University
UK

 Translated from Finnish to English by Heta Pukki

 

30^th January 2018 | BLOG

 Part 1

Background

 I have studied the process of young people transitioning from out-of-home care to independence in Finland and in the United Kingdom. In the course of this pursuit, I familiarized myself with Finnish substance abuse services for youth, applying tools from ethnographic research and participatory observation, for three months in fall 2017.   

 These blog articles are thoughts sparked by field work. Their purpose is to introduce ideas on how the service system could better respond to the needs of young people in difficult life situations.

 Engaging in participatory observation, I spent the majority of my time in the Kuvernööritie residential community for youth recovering from substance addiction, known in vernacular as ‘K-tie’ (‘K-road’). It is a treatment model developed and registered by Kalliola Settlement, operating on the basis of the Daytop treatment model. In addition, I familiarized myself with two youth homes, Mäkirinne and Saunalahti, run by Kalliolan Nuoret and specializing in substance abuse treatment, as well as Myllyhoito at Kalliola clinic, providing treatment for substance addiction. I wished to know more about how Kalliola operates, because its principles emphasize communality.  

 My discourse centres on different types of institutional treatment developed for substance abuse services, where the clients’ age and degree of consent vary. In this text, I use the terms out-of-home care and community treatment. Out-of-home care refers to child welfare services and to situations where a young person has been placed outside their family home. Community treatment refers to a treatment method applied in a home-like environment, based on the idea of the client learning from peers and workers in a community setting.

 In the first of my blog articles, I discuss out-of-home care, which means that the young person has lived either in a foster family or in a child welfare institution. The thoughts expressed here have been sparked by interviews with young people who had transitioned from out-of-home care, conducted as part of a research project. The following texts describe voluntary community treatment for youth over 18 years of age at the K-tie centre. I include thoughts from six young people who lived at the residential community. Then, I describe interviews with employees at Myllyhoito and the youth homes. Myllyhoito is, in principle, based on voluntary participation and clients being legally of age. The youth homes provide community treatment, as well, but the participants are under 18, and they have either been taken into care or needed an urgent placement, which means that voluntary participation is rarely seen. Finally, I conclude by summarizing my thoughts from the period of field work, and I let the youths from the communities tell what they think about gaining independence, and about ways to support this process.

 These blog articles are part of the EU-funded research project ‘Reciprocal Encounters – Young People Leaving Care (Vastavuoroiset kohtaamiset – Nuorten sijaishuollosta itsenäistyminen), which I have conducted in the United Kingdom.  

 I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to the young people and workers who have shared their experiences with me. It has been a great pleasure to get to meet you.

 

These blog articles are part of the EU-funded research project ‘Reciprocal Encounters – Young People Leaving Care (Vastavuoroiset kohtaamiset – Nuorten sijaishuollosta itsenäistyminen), which I have conducted in the United Kingdom.