New research from University College London, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, paints a complicated picture of the vulnerability and resilience of care leavers.
The pioneering research ‘Long-term outcomes for care-experienced parents and children‘ paints a complicated picture of the vulnerability, disadvantage and resilience of care leavers. It highlights the persistence and inter-generational nature of the adversity that care leavers experience, and demonstrates how disadvantage can be moderated through the provision of long-term care and support.
The research involved parents and their children taking part in the Millennium Cohort Study, which follows people born across the UK between 2000 and 2002. Of the more than 18,000 mothers included in the analysis, around 300 (1.7%) reported that they had lived in a children’s home or in foster care during childhood.
Key findings:
- care leavers and their children were at greater risk of mental health difficulties than mothers who hadn’t lived in care
- care leavers were more likely to experience multiple disadvantages in health, education and employment
- more than a quarter of mothers who grew up in care went on to gain educational qualifications and have stable employment
- children of resilient mothers (the above 27%) were more likely to get good grades at school than the children of other care leavers, doing just as well as their peers whose parents had not experienced care
- however, children of these resilient mothers were still more likely to report poor mental health than children whose parents hadn’t been in care.
