Unplanned determination of foster arrangements at adolescence: The experience of foster breakdown from the adolescent's point of view

 Placement in a foster family is one of the out of home care arrangements available for children and adolescence, which, for various reasons cannot live at their home. In the west world this option is preferable, since it resemble living with the nucleolus family, and provide the opportunity for long-term relation with a stable caregiver.

Although in Israel most of the children which need out of home care are placed in residential care, in recent years the trend changes toward placement in foster care, common in the west world.

In contrast to adoption, the foster care considered temporary, while the goal is to rehabilitate the child and his biological family, and finally return him to his biological family. In Israel, in spite of the official policy, most of the children placed in foster care are eventually remain there till adulthood. As a result, considerable number of them are adolescence while staying at foster care. The development complexity accompanying adolescence, place major challenges for both the fostering parents and the agency, in a way that might eventually end the foster arrangement prematurely, and will lead to what is known in the literature as foster breakdown.

Most of the research in this area focuses at the reasons for foster breakdown from the social workers or the foster parents' point of view. The goal of this work is to examine the experience of the foster breakdown, retrospectively, from the adolescence point of view, who experienced it first-hand.

The research was conducted by the phenomenological approach principles, focusing on analysis and understanding of a researched phenomenon from the persons who experienced it point of view.

The research participants were 14 young person's age 16-30 years old, who experienced foster care breakdown during various stages of adolescence. They were interviewed in half structured interview, transcribed and thematical analyzed.

Findings analysis, reveled complex and multi-dimensional picture of breakdown. Although most of the interviewed described it as sudden unexpected event, examination of the finding pointed out on dynamic collapsing process, consist , among other, of   their history , their relations with the foster family and from certain event which was “the straw which broke the camel back”, and eventually led to the premature ending of the foster arrangement. Unlike the accepted conjecture in the literature, which identify the adolescence behavior as the most significant factor contributing to the instability at foster care, the main conclusion of this work, is that the main factor is the interaction between the adolescence behavior and the ecological environment surrounding the adolescence in his foster home.

In the developmental context, I found that the unique environment constitutes the foster family arrangement has significant impact on the adolescence formation of self-identity and separation processes, which are the main goals of the adolescence stage.

Another significant theme emerge from the findings is the gap between ideal parenthood as longed for by the interviewed, and the parenthood they actually experienced, characterized by rigidity, lack of independence, over using conditioning and a constant need of the foster parents of gratitude expressions.   

Examination of the findings in the context of the interviewed point of view, testifies the difficulties of foster families not only to adapt to the changing needs of the adolescences, but also to contain behaviors inherent of adolescence developmental stage, like addressing their peer group and challenging the limits. these environmental conditions led to lack of belonging sense to the foster family, which missed its main purpose as provider of secure and stable base.  

In the system context, some themes rose regarding the social workers foster care escorting and guidance. The interviewed described high rate of social workers turnover, in additional to unsatisfying methods of interventions. Lack of mediation between the adolescence and the foster parents by the social worker led to difficulty in handling conflicts. In addition, the interviewed mentioned experiencing their exclusion from the decisions making process regarding their future. This theme, was found in research as related to lack of sense of agency, which could be a factor in the decision of the adolescence to "vote with their feet" and run away from the foster home, in order regain sense of control in their life. 

Regarding the policy context, a gap arises between the declared objective of the social services to achieve stability in the child's life, and the temporal nature of foster care, and the impact of that gap on the ability to establish sense of belonging.

A pivotal finding referred to the impact of the foster breakdown during adolescence, on the rest of the interviewed life. Beside short-term implications such as emotional crisis, and adaptation difficulties, some of the interviewed mention the breakdown experience as a trauma with long term impacts, especially on the interpersonal aspect. Among other, they mentioned separation anxieties, and difficulty in building trust with others. It seems that these difficulties exist prior their foster care period, as the result of their life circumstances, but the foster breakdown collapse deepened their fracture instead of healing it. Never the less, some of the interviewed were able to see some positive aspects in their foster breakdown experience, such as opportunity for positive changes like relocation to more suitable foster homes, in which they gain better parenthood experience. surprisingly, half of the interviewed mentioned their choice, to move to another foster home despite of their traumatic experience. Also, some of them expressed their wish to become foster parent themselves, when they will be adults. This specific finding indicates the positive image they kept on the foster care idea, in spite of their difficulties, and their longing for correctional parenthood experience.

The importance of this work first and foremost in opening window to the complex experience of foster care breakdown, an experience almost not researched from the fostered adolescence perspective. moreover, this research may contribute to professional foster care practices and policy. First of all, this research brings evidences which support the negative implications of the foster care breakdown, thus provides support to the policy which strive for stability and consistency in foster care and the prevention of unplanned foster care termination. Second, understanding foster breakdown dynamics from the adolescence who experienced it point of view might shed light on the practice used in these situations, and enable comprehensive understanding of the services and support provide by the foster agencies in such cases.