‘My disability was my own responsibility’: An institutional ethnography of the transitional experiences of disabled young people leaving care

Abstract

Across child welfare and disability policy, the intersectionality of being a young person with experiences with both child welfare and disability services is not well addressed. In line with this, a growing body of international evidence shows a gap in the level of transitional and post-care support provided to meet the needs of this group of young people leaving care. The present article draws on data from a qualitative interview study with eight disabled young people leaving care in Norway. However, rather than giving an account of their individual experiences of aftercare, it uses these experiences as a starting point to a broader investigation of how the institutional setting of aftercare shapes these experiences. The study is inspired by institutional ethnography (IE), a method of inquiry developed by Canadian sociologist Dorothy E. Smith, which attempts to describe the interface between individual experiences and institutional relations. Our findings showed that the study participants experienced insufficient support from child welfare services related to their disability during the transition to adulthood. The institutional forces behind these findings are explored and discussed.