Citation

del Valle JF, Bravo A, Alvarez E, Fernanz A. Child Fam. Soc. Work 2008; 13(1): 12-22.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1365-2206.2007.00510.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper presents a study carried out in Spain that followed up 260 young people, the majority of them adults, who had been in residential care for significant periods. The follow-up takes place between 1 and 9 years after participants had left residential care, and assesses their level of social and work integration, as well as considering the incidence of problems related to marginalization and social exclusion. Furthermore, it analyses the reasons for the child being taken into care, the socio-family context, length of stay, changes in placement and other features or incidents in relation to the residential care. The data show that close to 15% have serious problems (drug dependence, delinquency, etc.), 25% receive help from the social services and the rest manage independently to a greater or lesser extent. We discuss the significance of these data, especially the relationship between the final result and the initial and process variables.