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Children placed in out-of-home care face special challenges in the transition to adulthood. International research has shown that these children are often driven to high-risk behaviour and report more difficulties coping than their age peers in young adulthood. In Finland, the number and proportion of children and young people placed in out-of-home care have increased steadily since the early 1990s, with the exception of a minor downturn in 2009. Despite these rising trends, there has been a scarcity of registerbased follow-up research into the living conditions and coping of children placed in care. Children and young people in out-of-home care are exposed to various vulnerabilities related to their early living conditions, parents and care. Indeed difficulties in coping in young adulthood are associated, on the one hand, with the accumulation of risks before placement in care; and on the other hand, with placement itself and the conditions and risks prevailing at the time of placement. The child's or young person's early experiences often have longterm effects on their abilities, cognitive skills and other characteristics. Children may also be brought under protection at too late a stage, with too many and too serious problems. The purpose of this research is to investigate how children and young people placed in out-of-home care cope in young adulthood, on different aspects of their well-being (education, financial situation, health, family formation and crime). Our aim is to determine 1) to what extent children and young people in out-of- home care are exposed to increased risks of wellbeing in young adulthood when compared to children not in care; 2) does the child's age at the time of first placement impact the size of the risk; and 3) do childhood living conditions explain the differences in the risks of well-being observed in young adulthood between children and young people who have been placed in care and those who have not been placed in care. The study is based on a cohort dataset comprising all children born in Finland in 1987 (N=60,069). They have been followed up until 2009 using different register sources. The data also include background information on parents. The results suggest that children and young people placed in out-of-home care suffer from a variety of deficits in well-being in early adulthood across all the dimensions studied. Coping risks are highest for those who were first placed into care in their teens. In this study poor living conditions in childhood clearly explain part of the differences in well-being seen between young adults placed in out-of-home care and those not placed in care, but even after controlling for childhood living conditions the risks of well-being deficits are significantly elevated for those who had been placed in care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of children placed in out-of-home care in Finland has risen consistently since the early 1990s. Nonetheless there remains a scarcity of register-based research into population-level risk factors. Children in out-of-home care are particularly vulnerable with respect to their childhood living conditions and parental characteristics. Several unfavourable social, individual and environmental conditions are known to contribute to the decision to place children in care. Earlier research has shown that the parents of children placed in out-of-home care are more often single parents, less educated, poorer and have poorer health than parents of their same-aged peers. In addition, children placed in out-of-home care, especially as teenagers, often suffer from various mental and behavioural problems themselves. The main objective of this study was to examine risk factors for out-of-home care in a cohort of children born in Finland in 1987 (N=60,069). More specifically, the aims were a) to study how different demographic, economic, social and health-related factors are associated with out-of-home care at the population level and to assess the strength of these risks and b) to study whether these associations vary according to sex and the age of first placement. The data are drawn from the Finnish Medical Birth Registry, with supplementary information on the child and his/her parents obtained from various other Finnish registers. Cox regression analysis was used as the main statistical tool. Clear differences were seen in several living conditions and familial factors from early childhood to youth between those who had been placed in out-of-home care and their same-aged peers. Several peri- and neonatal factors as well as factors related to parents and the living environment were associated with out-of-home care. The strongest risk factors include low parental education, mother's psychiatric inpatient care, mother's single parenthood and parental long-term social assistance. The strength of the risks varies by the age of first placement, being strongest in the younger age groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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