The many transitions to adulthood
Transitioning from a care placement to adulthood requires flexibility, the adequate support and the understanding of the individual experience
Becoming an adult is not a smooth and instant process. I do not remember when I considered myself an adult. I guess there were many moments and many transitions. Rebecca Solnit in her memoir, Recollections of my non-existence, stresses that it is impossible to consider adults as a coherent category and that there cannot be one specific moment when we become adults:
“Childhood fades gradually in some ways, never ends in others; adulthood arrives in small, irregular instalments if it arrives; and every person is on her own schedule, or rather there is none for the many transitions.”
Young people who grow up in alternative care are often expected to become “instant adults” and to reach almost immediate self-sufficiency, even though it has never been harder for them to find employment and affordable housing. Often ill-prepared and equipped to lead an independent life when leaving an alternative care placement, at the age of 18 or a bit later, those young people are likely to face an abrupt change in their ability to access essential services and support across many sectors — education, accommodation, employment, and healthcare (including psychological support). A recent report from Fondation Abbé Pierre, an NGO working with vulnerable populations, estimated that 36% of homeless people in France in the age range 18–25 had been in alternative care[1]. Similar studies in other European countries have highlighted these trends, for instance in Ireland.
The pandemic and the measures taken to deal with it have exacerbated the situation of young people ageing out of care around the world. A recent US study done in the last weeks has shown that the COVID-19 pandemic has aggravated the situation of young people ageing out of care: 7% reported couch-surfing or being homeless and 55% reported being food insecure as a result of COVID19, including only having access to “some” food, “very low” access to food, or being unable to access food.[2] Mélanie Doucet, a Canadian researcher at McGill University, stressed that the isolation and lack of support are intensified in this pandemic period.[3]
Rebecca Solnit describes in her memoir how abrupt the transition to adulthood can be:
“Some people have others who will tend and fund and sometimes confine them all their lives, some people are gradually weaned, some of us are cut off abruptly and fend for ourselves, some always did. Still, out on your own, you’re a new immigrant to the nation of adults, and the customs are strange: you’re learning to hold together all the pieces of a life, figure out what life is going to be, who is going to be part of it, and what you will do with your self-determination.”
In an article relating the heart-breaking story of a care leaver put in danger by the pandemic, the New York Times notes: “Among the well-off, there is little commitment to the idea that adulthood actually begins at 21. Around the country, in recent weeks, children have returned home from college to their own rooms, to privacy for remote learning, to parents who will bake a pie or roast a salmon or wash a sweater on demand.”[4]
This pandemic shows clearly that we are interdependent. Self-sufficiency is a myth that is harming many of the young people we have a responsibility to support as a community, those young people who cannot fall back on the comfort of a family in times of crisis. We should therefore, extend this understanding of interdependency to strengthen the support work for young people in care and ageing out of care, and to make them feel like precious members of the community. Some of the measures that States can take:
- Ensure a continuity of services (health, education, social work…) after the young person turned 18 and in the delicate transition years.
- Ensure flexibility in the services to ensure that they are feeling safe and supported. Support cannot stop at the same age for all the young people starting their adult life; and support might need to resume in (individual and collective) crises.
- Encourage children in care in building a support network.
- Design with the care leaver a pathway plan.
- Increase the number of after-care workers.
- Secure adequate housing services for care leavers that can be extended. (For example, Focus Ireland is calling for an extension of the ring-fenced funding for accommodation for care-leavers[5]).
We have to learn to support better the many transitions to adulthood and accompany young people on their own schedule.
[1] https://www.fondation-abbe-pierre.fr/nos-actions/comprendre-et-interpeller/24e-rapport-sur-letat-du-mal-logement-en-france-2019
[2] https://fieldcenteratpenn.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Foster-Youth-COVID-19-One-Pager-FINAL.pdf
[3] https://theconversation.com/covid-19-il-faut-un-moratoire-pour-les-jeunes-de-la-dpj-138595
[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/15/nyregion/coronavirus-sex-work-college.html
[5] https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/young-people-leaving-state-care-face-real-risk-of-homelessness-1.3861335.
