Everyday life of children in out-of-home care during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article scrutinises the impacts of COVID-19 on the everyday life of children in out-of-home care in Finland during the first year of the pandemic. A content analysis was conducted on survey data of municipal social workers’ evaluations on the effect of the pandemic on 773 children in foster and residential care. The pandemic, with restrictions and recommendations of social distancing, had impacts on the everyday settings of children: school, spare time and family. The effects of remote school were twofold: for some, it was a good solution, while for others the impact was negative. There were positive effects on the relations between the child and their foster family, but more common was the hardships on discontinuity in the fragile relations with birth parents. As children in care more often have difficulties in learning and social interaction, as well as fragility in social relations the pandemic has affected children in out-of-home care especially in their school, family and peer environments. The impacts on decisions made by the social workers due to the pandemic in individual cases were mainly associated with increased support and contact arrangements.