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This article draws attention to the relevance of young care leavers' exercise of agency as one possible key ingredient in overcoming barriers to engagement in work. Several previous studies show difficulties in entering adult life, both in relation to higher and further education as well as entrance into work life. The article analyses interviews with young adults from six countries, who have spent at least part of their childhood and youth in out-of-home care and the results indicate that the care leavers have the ability to make plans and set up goals for the future that they in many cases are able to achieve or at least are striving for over time. In many instances, they show a strong motivation, for example, to educate themselves pursuing their goals. To support this transition of young care leavers, it is important to listen to ‘successful’ cases such as the ones presented.

The aim of this article is to account for and discuss support to young care leavers within the comparable welfare regimes of Norway and Sweden and to explore key differences between these 2 countries. This model implies that children and young people are included and entitled to support through being family members, not as independent actors in their own right. This makes young care leaver’s transition from care to adulthood problematic—as they often do not have access to family support, they may be positioned in a vacuum where they are clients neither entitled to support from the child welfare system nor supported by their families of origin. In Norway, legislators and policymakers have agreed that care leavers need particular attention and targeted support, whereas in Sweden, there has been no such agreement. However, the Norwegian system of giving leaving care services is not strong enough to provide transition support to all care leavers, even if the legislation gives stronger protection than in Sweden. The article discusses the need for targeted measures of support for a successful care-leaving process.

The purpose of this study is to examine young care leavers’ experiences of supportive and nonsupportive factors after leaving care. Telephone interviews were conducted with 65 young people, between 18 and 26 years old, who had left care in Sweden within the previous 3 months to 3 years. The care-leaving process was in many cases described by the young people as badly planned and compressed. Some interviewees received support from the formal network (social services, foster carers, residential homes, contact persons) for housing (37) and financial matters (36), but few received support from the formal network concerning employment (14) and education (11). Emotional support was mainly provided by partners and friends. Altogether, the results suggest that access to support is a helpful factor for young people leaving care, but also that many of our interviewees had no such access, from neither formal nor informal networks.

The aim of this article is to identify inclusion practices in foster families by studying the everyday life of young people entering various types of foster family. Structure and warmth in the family stand out as important dimensions of everyday life. What is not so evident in previous research is the way emotional 'warmth' is created. In particular, joking, gentle teasing, and laughing, which in this paper stand out as important inclusion practices, seem to be rather unknown aspects in foster care, as is the importance of doing things together in everyday life. The young people’s contributions in creating a good family atmosphere are visible in the study, as is their capacity to adapt to a new family. Daily routines normalise the adolescents´ everyday life. Negotiations make them part of important decisions, and may strengthen them as social agents. Foster parents´ positive attitude towards birth family facilitates birth parents´ support to their children. In this case study, mixed qualitative methods are used: interviews, network maps, ‘beepers’, and video recordings in the foster home.

In western societies, there is a general tendency towards a protracted transition to adulthood for young people, who thereby may become increasingly dependent on support from family. Young people leaving a placement in out-of-home care often lack such support, and will thus have a disadvantageous position compared to their peers. With the purpose of looking into the procedures when young people leave a placement in out-of-home care, telephone interviews were performed with 111 managers of social service units in two Swedish regions (West Sweden, and Stockholm Region), using a structured interview schedule. Answering rate was 99.1%. Only 6% of the managers had information of the young people's whereabouts once they had left care. 86-88% had general support programmes for all young people concerning housing, employment etc. but only 2-4% had specific programmes for young people leaving care. A majority of the managers were attentive of the difficulties the young people leaving care may encounter, but displayed little awareness of the consequences of a prolonged transition to adulthood, and the need for continued support after leaving care. Several managers referred to the general support of the Swedish welfare state, meaning that young people leaving care had the same access to support as all other young people in Sweden. Consequently, young people leaving care are at risk of being invisible in the welfare system and facing a compressed transition to adulthood.

In this interpretative childhood study of 17 boys and girls aged 13–16 years placed in foster families, the experiences and attitudes towards school are explored. The importance of school as an arena for both earning and socialization is emphasized. Data were collected through interviews, network maps and text answers via mobile phone (‘beepers’). Their educational improvement was based on their understanding of scholastic achievement as meaningful for their future, stability in daily routines and the involvement and support of family, peers and teachers. Access to peers at school is important, and group activities facilitate this. Because of their background, foster youth can also be exposed to bullying from peers. Both learning and socialization at school affect their self-esteem ., Flickors och pojkars upplevelse av tillhörighet vid placering i släktingfamiljer respektive icke-släktingfamiljer – ett interaktivt perspektiv

This paper provides a glimpse into young people's experiences and understandings of everyday life during their initial stages of placement in various types of foster families. The way family interactions strengthen or weaken the social bond between foster youth and foster family is focused upon. In this study the young people in kinship foster familiesreported the strongest social bonds to their foster families and the adolescents intraditional foster familiesthe weakest. This is in line with previous research. However, youth innetwork foster familieswith whom they were not so close prior to placement also reported rather strong social bonds to the foster family, which is not well known. Including network foster families in the study sheds light on the importance of adolescents' active involvement and agency in choosing their foster family. Examples of family interactions which seem to be crucial in strengthening social bonds, also in traditional foster families, are e.g. fair treatment by other family members, mutual family activities, negotiating to find solutions, and, which is not so well known, humorous joking and laughing together.