Care Pathways and Outcomes Study
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Care Pathways and Outcomes: The teens and early adulthood
IRAS ID
205990
Contact name
Dominic McSherry
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Ulster University
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 11 months, 26 days
Research summary
Across the UK, when children enter care, they live in a range of different placements, such as foster care, kinship care (with relatives or friends), adoption or with their birth parents. However, adoptive placements are much less likely than foster or kinship placements to break down in the mid to late teenage years (Rock et al., 2013).
The proposed study is a fourth phase of a longitudinal study that has been following a population of children who entered care at a young age. This group represents all 374 children who were under five years old and in care in Northern Ireland on the 31st March 2000. The study has been tracking where these children end up living, and how they are getting on. At this stage, many are in their late teenage years, when the risk of placement breakdown increases. The proposed study aims to compare how these young people are progressing in their different placement types. It also seeks to explore the levels of stability and placement breakdown that has occurred, and to identify the reasons for this. These factors will then be discussed in reports and workshops for social care and legal practitioners in Northern Ireland and Great Britain, where the systems are very similar, so as to directly impact upon policy and practice.
This is a unique study and is very well placed to further our understanding of the benefits, costs, and wider impact of a range of placements provided to children who enter care at a young age, especially during the often challenging late teenage years and early adulthood.
REC name
HSC REC B
REC reference
16/NI/0130
Date of REC Opinion
25 Jul 2016
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion