Settling into a new home as a teenager: About establishing social bonds in different types of foster families in Sweden

Abstract

This paper provides a glimpse into young people's experiences and understandings of everyday life during their initial stages of placement in various types of foster families. The way family interactions strengthen or weaken the social bond between foster youth and foster family is focused upon. In this study the young people in kinship foster families reported the strongest social bonds to their foster families and the adolescents in traditional foster families the weakest. This is in line with previous research. However, youth in network foster families with whom they were not so close prior to placement also reported rather strong social bonds to the foster family, which is not well known. Including network foster families in the study sheds light on the importance of adolescents' active involvement and agency in choosing their foster family. Examples of family interactions which seem to be crucial in strengthening social bonds, also in traditional foster families, are e.g. fair treatment by other family members, mutual family activities, negotiating to find solutions, and, which is not so well known, humorous joking and laughing together.