La narrativité comme outil de recherche et d’évaluation à l’âge adulte des anciens enfants placés

Abstract

Whereas the number of children and adults who know or have known a follow-up by the Child Welfare represents 2 to 3% of the French population, whereas the fate of these people is described in the literature as being of poor quality (insecure attachment, psychiatric disorders, precariousness…), this population is the subject of a small amount of scientific research.To apprehend this complex object of research, which is the Child Welfare/foster child, we have set up a study on the outcome in adulthood of children who have lived in therapeutic foster care. This study combines discourse analysis according to a narrativity research tool – Edicode – and a qualitative analysis method – grounded theory.Our results show that in situations associated with insecure attachment, narrativity is comparable to that found in people who have experienced repeated trauma. In addition, all 33 participants named the importance of a debriefing/interview after the Child Welfare follow-up. These qualitative results confirm the data in the literature on the importance of a support program between 18 and 25 years old for all minors followed up.