Placement breakdown is defined as the placement not lasting as long as planned; placement moves are planned.
Frequent moves can badly affect children.
Breakdowns, or unplanned moves, are much less likely in younger children. In comparison, 'teenage’ placements have a 50 per cent chance of breaking down.
Five factors appear to cause frequent placement moves:
- a change of social worker
- over-optimistic expectations
- placement breakdown, particularly for teenagers
- any policy or practice which generally discourages children from remaining fostered after the age of 17
- the child’s level of emotional disturbance and motivation to remain in the placement also appears to be a key factor.
It is not fully understood whether placement moves themselves produce poor outcomes for children or whether this is due to children’s previous experiences and difficulties.
For individual children, placement stability and having a parent or carer who values education is key to helping them achieve at school.
Although research shows that children crave stability, for an individual child in some circumstances, a move may be best.
Research suggests that if a child is moving it helps if:
- the carer is positive and encourages the child to be positive in practical ways e.g. admiring the child's new bedroom
- the carers tell the new carers about the child’s likes and dislikes
- contact is maintained with the previous carers at first, gradually tapering off.
Placement moves and foster children
- Frequent moves, planned or not, can badly affect children. Although generally it's best to avoid moving them, ask children for their views and analyse the 'costs’ and ’benefit’ of the move.
- Remember that wherever possible you should enable children to be involved in decision making. Even if it is not possible to take account of their views on whether they should be in care, think about all the ways in which you can maximise their participation.
- Ensure that children and young people take favourite personal possessions when they leave home and/or change placements.
- Think about ways in which your team could lessen the effect of social workers leaving. Mental health services have developed an assertive outreach system using a team approach: all team members get to know the service user well, so if one worker is unavailable they are still able to offer an effective service. Could this or similar approaches be adapted to your service?
- Ensure the risks that may be associated with reunification are carefully assessed and work is undertaken to address them. Consider what has changed what still needs to change and ask yourself if the family and child accepts the need for change and can work towards this.
Placement moves and foster carers
- Think about ways to help foster carers feel supported when they are facing difficulties. Research indicates that foster carers often feel like giving up altogether during difficult times.
- Allow carers to exercise choice. If they are 'persuaded’ to take children, this is more likely to lead to breakdown. It is also important to recruit carers who are flexible in the children they can take.
- Consider what you and your team can do to make sure that all social workers working with children and families understand and value the work of foster carers.
Numbers of placement moves
Many fostered children move quite quickly from one foster home to another. One study (66) showed that in the first year, many children move placements once, twice or even three times. In this study 'planned move’ was given as the reason for not only the first move, but second and third moves as well.
Many children have periods at home interspersed with periods in care, often not in the same placement. This means that, in effect, the child is in long term foster care which results in a great deal of uncertainty and generally poor outcomes (3).
The reasons for placement moves
Research shows that several factors appear to cause placement moves:
- A change of social worker causes disruption to the child and family and seems to be a trigger for a planned or unplanned move (66).
- Social workers may be too optimistic that children will be able to return home which may result in children moving from home to foster care and back again.
- Research shows that one-third of children entering care will have been in care before. One study (17) looked at 16-year-olds in care, who had first entered care at the age of 5 or below: on average they had three periods at home during their childhood. Another study (67) of care leavers indicated that on average this was more likely to be four periods.
- The breakdown of teenage placements is high and is a major cause of placement instability. It is estimated that around half of teenage placements break down before the young person reaches 18 (68, 69). Research shows that placement instability reduces for older teenagers, perhaps because, given their age, placements for older teenagers are not planned to last as long (3).
- Research shows that fewer than 20 per cent of young people stay with foster carers after they reach the age of 17 (17), (69), although this may now be changing as a result of requirements that require support to be given to young people beyond this age.
- While foster care may be able to provide permanence for foster children in the same way that adoption does, long stays with the same foster carers are unusual and this rarely happens (69).
- Placement disruption is much less likely if the child is aged less than 10 years. It is unusual amongst very young children aged 0-5 and comparatively rare from the age 5-11, even when the placement has been ongoing for some time (3).
- The child’s age, emotional disturbance and motivation appear to be key factors in placement breakdown. Gender, ethnicity and disability do not appear by themselves to play a significant role in placement breakdown (3).
What promotes placement stability?
In a recent practice survey (70) local authority fostering staff were clear about what they thought would promote placement stability:
- restructuring services around specialist looked-after children’s teams
- providing carers’ respite and targeted support
- providing high quality assessment and planning
- better retention of experienced carers
- better liaison and more provision between education and child and adolescent mental health services.
Other factors (3) that make success more likely are:
From a carer perspective:
- having adequate information about the child’s needs and long term plans
- knowing how long the young person is likely to stay with them
- knowing that the young person is the gender they requested.
From a young person’s perspective:
- feeling engaged with their carers and social workers about decision-making
- feeling motivated to stay and to make the placement work
- feeling that the placement is 'right’ for them.
However, placement stability does not always mean the relationship between the child and carer is happy or that the carers are satisfied. Sometimes, especially for younger children who are more likely than teenagers to have stable placements but less able to express their views, this is not the case.
Early indications of placement stability are important: if carers feel that children are 'settled’ from the start of a placement they are more likely to remain content.
Risk-taking behaviour in teenagers, such as alcohol and drug misuse, can often be an indication of a deteriorating relationship with carers. A downward spiral may develop where carers exercise less control, leading to an increasing acceptance of the behaviour which can initiate placement breakdown in itself (3).
Impact of placement moves on children
Research shows that generally children crave stability and that disruption may undermine their well-being and feelings of self-worth (17), (39). Nevertheless, a placement move may be in the child’s best interests at a certain time. In some cases children may want to be moved and some moves may be necessary for other reasons. Not all moves cause and are caused by serious disruption (71).
Research has not fully explained whether placement moves themselves produce poor outcomes for children, or whether they are the result of children’s previous experiences and difficulties. Some research suggests that instability itself leads to poor outcomes (33), (72), (73), and one study (74) found that children who did not demonstrate any behavioural problems before being in care were badly affected by placement moves.
Other researchers (17) have found that it is what happens as a result of the move, rather than the move itself, which has a negative effect. Furthermore, the association between placement moves and poor outcomes disappears if an allowance is made for the child’s difficulties before being fostered. At present this remains an area for professional judgement and demonstrates why performance indicators should not be the only criteria for making a decision (16), (75).
Research has emphasised that placement stability, as well as having a family member or carer who values education, is key to the child doing well at school (37-39).
Helping children move to a new placement
Research from children who have moved or are moving to adoptive placements suggest the following makes for a satisfactory and stable move:
- that the carer is positive and encourages the child to be positive in practical ways e.g. admiring the child's new bedroom
- that the carers tell the new carers about the child’s likes and dislikes
- that contact is maintained with the previous carers at first, gradually tapering off (3).
Children who return home
Children often say there is a lack of support from social workers when they return home (3). About half of returning children maintained some contact with their former carers, which they valued but did not always consider very supportive.
Many children and carers thought their placement ended too soon and often did not understand the reason why. Some children returned home when there seemed to be little or no change in the overall situation. For instance parents who had erratically visited their children during their time away from the birth home still had poor attachment with them.
In some cases, both the child and parents wanted the placement back at home, but this was at risk of failing without additional social work intervention. Additionally, many carers and young people felt 'pressured’ to move to independence before they were ready.
Children who returned home at any stage were more likely to be re-abused, to do badly at school and to have 'difficult’ behaviour. Social workers were much more likely to think that children who were fostered or adopted were safe and that the placement was meeting their needs compared to when they were living in independent accommodation or back at home (3).