Prevalence and associated factors of placement breakdown of unaccompanied children in Flemish family foster care. A follow-up study

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Highlights

  • In a period of 2.5 years, 30% of family foster care placements of unaccompanied children break down.

  • Asylum applicants are 19 times more at risk for placement breakdown.

  • Contact with birth parents is a protective factor for placement disruption.

  • Lying and cheating of unaccompanied children increases the risk op placement breakdown.

Abstract

This study examines the prevalence of placement breakdown in family foster care for unaccompanied refugee minors (URM). Furthermore, it investigates which foster child, foster family and case characteristics are associated with breakdown. Case files of 107 URM who were placed in 2016 in Flemish family foster care (Dutch speaking part of Belgium) were analyzed. In a research window of 2.5 years, 62 placements (57.9%) had terminated: 32 placements broke down (29.9%) and 30 placements ended positively (28.0%). An ongoing asylum procedure and lying or cheating were associated with an increased likelihood of breakdown. Contacts with birth parents, on the other hand, was a protective factor for placement disruption. Therefore, legal authorities should limit the term of asylum procedures, foster care services and guardians must facilitate contacts between the URM and their parents, and the building of trust between youngsters and foster carers should be a central theme in the support process.

Introduction

Recent years have seen a stark increase in the numbers of unaccompanied refugee minors (URM) arriving in high-income countries. Precise data are lacking. Numbers of asylum applications can provide some indication: 1,220 of 17,675 asylum applications in European countries in 2019 were URM (Eurostat 2020). As not all URM apply for asylum, these numbers are an underestimation. The majority of URM (90.9%) applying for asylum were between the ages of 14 and 18 and most of them (85.9%) were male (Eurostat, 2020).

One of the major decisions at reception of these youngsters, regards the provision of a suitable living environment and appropriate care. Research shows that URM living alone or in large-scale detention centers have worse mental health outcomes (such as depression symptoms, trauma symptoms, behavioral problems) than URM living in foster care, with family or in other placements with dedicated support (O’Higgins, Ott, & Shea, 2018). Moreover, URM living with people from the same ethnic background had better mental health outcomes than those placed with families who didn’t share the same ethnicity (O’Higgins et al., 2018). Both researchers and practitioners tend to assume that family foster care is a better placement option compared to living alone or in large scale centers because it offers a context with protective factors such as: support figures, friends, follow-up and guidance in education, feelings of security through personalized care, stability, reduced isolation, and the ability to form new attachments (Bates et al., 2005, Bronstein et al., 2012, Wade et al., 2012, Zijlstra et al., 2012).

In many countries foster care is the preferred placement option, especially for younger URM (e.g., Chase et al., 2008, De Ruijter de Wildt et al., 2015, Wade et al., 2012). In Flanders (Dutch speaking part of Belgium), a placement in family foster care only recently became an important option of choice for URM. In 2015, only 2.5% of all registered URM were placed in family foster care. This number increased up to 17.5% in 2019 (Pleegzorg, 2020). Most of these youngsters (86%) were placed in kinship foster care (Pleegzorg, 2020).

However, little research has been conducted into the outcomes for URM in different placement types, including family foster care (Barrie and Mendes, 2011, Hek, 2007, Luster et al., 2009, Ní Raghallaigh and Sirriyeh, 2015, O’Higgins et al., 2018, Sirriyeh, 2013). In this paper findings from a quantitative study focusing on placement breakdown (premature terminations of placements for negative reasons; Oosterman, Schuengel, Slot, Bullens, & Doreleijers, 2007) of family foster care placements of URM are presented. It describes the prevalence of placement breakdown in a research window of 2.5 years, a vulnerable period for placement breakdown in family foster care (Vanderfaeillie, Goemans, Damen, Van Holen, & Pijnenburg, 2018). Furthermore, it examines factors associated with breakdown. This study is a follow-up study of a study examining breakdown during the first year of the placement (Van Holen, Blijkers, Trogh, West, & Vanderfaeillie, 2020).

First, we consider the concept of breakdown. Then, literature regarding foster care placement breakdown of URM is described. Next, the method and the results of our study are reported, followed by a discussion and a conclusion.

Section snippets

The concept of breakdown

Placement breakdown is defined in various ways in literature. Vinnerljung, Sallnäs, and Berlin (2017) distinguish between an ‘obvious breakdown’ and a ‘breakdown broadly defined’. An obvious breakdown is a premature and unintentional ending of the placement on the initiative of foster parents (e.g., because they refuse to provide further care), child welfare authorities (e.g., because the foster home provides inferior care), or the foster child (e.g., because the foster child runs away and/or

Prevalence of breakdown

Data on the prevalence of breakdown in family foster care for URM are scarce. To the best of our knowledge, only five quantitative studies examined breakdown. Two old studies report breakdown percentages from 40% to 50% within a period of three to five years of URM from Vietnam and Cambodia who were placed in family foster care in the US (Linowitz & Boothby, 1988). A foster care program for URM (Rudnik & Molstall, 1982 in Linowitz & Boothby, 1988) found a breakdown percentage of 24% during a

Procedure

Case file analysis was done, using a research window of 2.5 years. All five Flemish foster care services participated in this study. In 2016 a total of 166 URM were placed in Flemish family foster care. Because the inclusion of siblings can lead to dependent observations (Akin, 2011, Webster et al., 2005) and to an overestimation of the significance of the results (Van Santen, 2010), only the sibling whose first name appeared first in the alphabet was included, regardless of a placement in the

Sample

Table 1 shows that most of the URM were boys (81.3%) with a mean age of 13.7 years (SD = 2.87). They originated from 21 different countries, of which 15.9% from the African continent and 72% from the Asian continent, mainly from Afghanistan (38.3%) and Syria (24.3%). At start of placement, only a minority was recognized as refugee (13.1%), had a right to temporary residence (10.1%) or was undocumented (4.0%). Most of them were applying for asylum (72.7%). At the end of the placement or after

Discussion

This study explored the prevalence of breakdown in family foster care for URM and factors that were associated with placement disruption using a research window of 2.5 years.

During the first year of placement, a breakdown percentage of 12% corresponded to the breakdown percentage in the general foster care population of a recent Flemish-Dutch study (Vanderfaeillie, Goemans, & et al., 2018). This was surprising as the mean age at start of placement of our sample (M = 13.7; SD = 2.87) was higher

Conclusion

During a period of 2.5 years, 30% of the placements of URM in Flemish family foster care broke down. Lying or cheating and the uncertainty of legal status (asylum applicants) were associated with increased likelihood of breakdown, while contact with the birth parents decreased the likelihood of breakdown.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Frank Van Holen: Conceptualization, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing, Methodology, Resources, Visualization, Project administration. Isabel Dewilde: Writing - original draft, Formal analysis, Investigation. Lenny Trogh: Validation. Camille Verheyden: Validation, Formal analysis. Johan Vanderfaeillie: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodology, Validation, Supervision, Writing - review & editing.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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