Care-leaving in South Africa: an international and social justice perspective

ABSTRACT

Internationally, the care-leaving debate began in the 1970s. The poor outcomes associated with care-leaving in the United Kingdom, United States of America and Australia prompted attention resulting in policy change in recent years, which continues to develop. The experience and outcomes for care leavers in South Africa reflects that of their contemporaries in other countries, however, contextual factors compound the problems that they face and there is little support available to them. This paper discusses some of the challenges facing care leavers and the development of the care-leaving debate, legislation and policy in the United Kingdom, United States and Australia. A comparison of the care-leaving arena in South Africa and the support services available to care leavers in the different countries will be presented. The paper concludes by arguing that the absence of services for care leavers is a neglect of the state’s responsibility as corporate parent, and represents an issue of social justice.

KEYWORDS:

• Care-leaving policy
• care leavers
• corporate parenting
• social justice
• South Africa

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Sue Bond joined the University of Johannesburg in 2016 as a lecturer in the Department of Social Work. She teaches assessment and intervention modules at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and health and family modules at undergraduate levels. She began her career in the field of child protection (statutory social work) where her interest in young people in care was born. Later Sue went into private practice, where she gained a wide range of experience in diverse fields of social work, including oncology, couple and family counselling, school social work, trauma and disability. Sue completed her Doctoral study titled “The Development of Possible selves and Resilience in Youth Transitioning out of Care” in 2017. She is particularly interested in young people in care, and who are transitioning out of care as well as the application of Possible selves theory across different fields of social work practice.

ORCID

Sue Bond http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7440-9720

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Research Foundation [grant number 93634].