Social Support Network Disruption: Narratives of Youth in Foster Care

Background and Purpose: Many foster youth experience frequent and repeated disruptions in relationships and social support networks. Research routinely demonstrates poor outcomes for these youth across multiple domains reflecting lack of permanency and weakened networks. While research lauds youth voice as paramount in recounting their lived experiences, researchers rarely explore how young people make meaning out of experiences of network disruption or account for youth-initiated growth and transformation of networks while in care. This paper centers youth voice in an effort to understand how youth ascribe meaning and tell stories about experiences of network disruption and transformation.

Methods: Participants were foster youth aged 16-20 (N=22, mean age=17.8 years, 55% female). Youth participated in one-on-one, semi-structured interviews about support networks, including how networks had changed during time in care and what youth anticipated networks would look like upon exiting care. This study uses a categorical-form approach to narrative analysis, centering youth as protagonists and contextualizing how youth understand and explain multiple transformations of social support networks while in care (Earthy & Cronin, 2008; Lieblich, 1998).

Findings: Participants’ narratives included aspects of three broad storylines: stories of service disruption, stories of grieving and hopelessness, and stories of choice and change. Participants whose stories detailed service disruption often talked about new caseworkers, staff turnover, placement changes, and dissolution of therapeutic relationships, recounting these as beyond their control (“They cut me off…I can’t get the help or support I need;” “I was not part of this decision;” “No one wants a 16-year-old with my history”). Many participants told stories about grieving and hopelessness, reflecting on the deaths of primary caregivers, which precipitated entries into foster care and led to feelings of despondency (“… my mom overdosed…then [my uncle] put me in a rehab facility…when I got out, I was in foster care;” “I was institutionalized for 16 months…when my mom passed away, they sent me to programs…I got suicidal…”). Many participants who told stories about placement changes centered themselves protagonists using self-advocacy (“After two years, I finally said something, spoke up, and it got us moved.”), engaging in services (“I decided to work with the system…I’m alive because of it; ”I had to be willing to receive help…I was suicidal…I didn’t want anything to do with anyone.”), and having the opportunity to nurture mutually-supportive relationships (“…I was in…a carefree environment…I could focus on relationship building.”). Several youth saw placement change as a welcome opportunity to distance themselves from their pasts (“…my life was stagnant…when I moved…I was able to reinvent that portion of me”).  

Conclusions/Implications: Narratives help locate youth in space and time, contextualizing support network disruption as a formative experience of foster care. Situating youth as active participants in these narratives provides insight into how formal and informal network members contribute to or help moderate network disruption in ways that ultimately allow for developmental transformation and relational growth. Storytelling provides young people the opportunity to clarify histories, identify past and future social supports, and demonstrate collaborative potential within systems like child welfare.