Where Is the Village? Care Leaver Early Parenting, Social Isolation and Surveillance Bias

Abstract

Young people transitioning from out-of-home care (termed care leavers) are known to be a relatively vulnerable group. One example is their over-representation in early pregnancy and parenting. This paper presents findings from a study of care leaver early parenting in the Australian state of Victoria. Sixteen service provider staff working with care leavers who had become young parents were asked, via focus groups and interviews, for their perspectives on the factors that influence the high prevalence of early parenting amongst care leavers, and the key support services that are available and necessary to assist both care leavers and their children. Service providers raised multiple issues common to the existing leaving care literature concerning the lack of support provided to young people being exited from state care as potentially leading to both early parenting and parenting challenges. Service providers also expressed concern about what many studies of care leaver early parenting have termed 'surveillance bias'. There was a clear consensus that young people transitioning from care face unique challenges and social isolation due to their difficult experiences pre-care, in-care and post-care. Those experiences place them at risk of disadvantages that impede their ability to demonstrate the practical, physical and financial means to safely raise children. At the same time, they are under greater scrutiny than other parents by being known to child protection already. Service providers argued in favour of greater support for young care leaver parents to prevent their children's engagement with child protection systems. Keywords Out-of-home care • Young people • Early pregnancy and parenting

Healing Trauma and Loss and Increasing Social Connections: Transitions from Care and Early Parenting

“…For ease of understanding, and because of the limited word counts, the results are divided roughly in half across two articles addressing the most frequently discussed (and coded) themes. The themes of 'leaving care and parenting challenges', sub code: 'protective interventions and 'surveillance bias' were the most frequently occurring but are covered in another article (Purtell et al, 2021). This paper analyses the codes and sub-codes in Table 2 below.…”

“…This article is one of two exploring the study's results which have been divided into the themes broadly concerning pathways to early pregnancy and parenting, and experiences of early pregnancy and parenting (Purtell et al, 2021). In this article we report service providers' perspectives on young care leavers' pathways to early pregnancy and parenting in transitions from care.…”

“…Service providers raised many concerns about the manner in which child protection and other interventions were carried out with care experienced young people in the current Victorian context. A broader discussion of these issues is covered in a related paper which more closely examines the issue of health and allied health professionals' 'surveillance bias' towards care leavers (Purtell et al, 2021). This is said to occur when services have knowledge of a young person's care experience, and make negative assumptions about their parenting capacity compared to judgements regarding other young parents.…”

“…The current article examines what service providers reported about key factors leading to early pregnancy and parenting among care leavers. Victorian service providers' perspectives on young people's experiences of early pregnancy and parenting in transitions from care are examined in a previously published article (Purtell et al, 2021).…”

“How About Being Trustworthy Rather Than Asking Families to Trust?”: A Prerequisite for Child Protection Authorities Partnering with Indigenous Communities

“…Most damning are accounts of how child protection authorities are too remote and ritualistic to meet their mission of acting in the best interest of the child (Davis, 2019). They may even open pathways to further abuse, exploitation and criminal activity (Maslin and Hamilton, 2020;Purtell et al, 2021). The Australian Centre for Child Protection (2020) has reviewed child protection case files and shown the unsuitability of many interventions: Interventions do not match needs.…”