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Abstract
Young people leaving alternative care in Serbia face numerous challenges while they frequently lack formal and informal support for emancipation. Resilience and preparedness for leaving care increase their chances for successful transition and social integration. This article aims to understand the resilience of youth leaving care in Serbia and the relationship between resilience, type of placement (foster, residential or kinship) and preparedness for leaving care. Quantitative analysis of replies 134 adolescents leaving alternative care had made in self-assessment questionnaires showed: high resilience scores of subjects, lower resilience of youth leaving residential than foster care and interconnectedness between the resilience and most of the indicators of preparedness for emancipation. Results suggest that resilience: (a) could be fostered by improving mental health, structured leisure time, self-care and social skills, and by quality foster carers' support; (b) contributes to positive feelings and general positive attitude toward life; (c) is not connected to school achievements and support by family and other caregivers; (d) of care leavers had more to do with their skills to gain social support than with receiving support from family and the alternative care system. Future research could investigate emancipation outcomes of youth with different baseline resilience and preparedness levels.
Notes
1 It is provided regardless of whether it is in accordance with the decision of the court or the guardianship authority, at the initiative of the child, his parents, relatives or if the caregiver spontaneously took care of a child / young person in the absence of their parents.
2 At the time of the study, the most frequent form of guardianship is direct custody (62%), while a relative or other significant person is the guardian for only 7.2% children (ISPRS, Citation2016), which is much lower than in other countries for which comparable data exists. The percentage of children that are in residential placement was only 5% (RISP, 2016). In 2018 there were 4,672 children on guardianship from which 86.6% are on foster care (RISP,2018). Number of children on residential care had been significantly decreased during the intensified period of welfare reform from 2000 – 2006 due to the expansion of foster care. While in 2000 there were 2,672 children in residential care, in 2018 only 705 children were in residential placement (RISP, 2018).
3 In Serbia, social welfare has no unified information system that follows each child, but only a summary of data given by relevant institutions (Ministry of Labor and Social Protection, centers for social work, residential homes and centers for foster care and adoption) to the Republic Institute for Social Protection (ISPRS), which publishes them in annual reports with only few data in total, such as: gender, age and type of care. The availability of data on youth who are about to leave or have left alternative care is limited to that annual report, where the number of young people who left care is listed without any other data, like age, sex, ethnicity or nationality. There is also no data on services provided to them by service providers. Such data is only occasionally published by the very service providers.
4 Based on the findings of previous research on youth in alternative care (Burgund, Žegarac, Citation2014), indicators of socio-demographic status (SES), the needs of young people in alternative care, preparation for emancipation and their readiness to leave alternative care were defined. The first version of the questionnaire was tested and revised in a pilot research in 2015, that included five child protection professionals (first revision) and 10 young people in alternative care, five in residential placement and five in foster care in Belgrade (second revision and finalization of the questionnaire).
5 Participants who answered that they do not have foster carers, foster care advisers and facility caregivers were excluded from relevant analysis.
6 The positive answers were those that indicate what upsets them. The answer: “Nothing disturbs me” is considered as the negative one.