Relational Stability and Social Support of Children in Out-of-Home Care

This is part of the Talks at Twelve series from the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research.

This talk will will focus on how relationships for children in out-of-home care can be supported and sustained beyond placement endings, recognizing the importance for young people and their carers to have an ongoing relationship, even if they are no longer living together, along with the importance of facilitating relationships with birth family.

A particular focus will be on mechanisms to restore relationships, and to establish social networks for children in out-of-home care. The concept of ‘managed moves’ to support placement endings will also be explored. The talk will also draw on longitudinal, mixed-methods research that has examined associations between mental health, wellbeing, stability and social support. The issue of recording placement and relational stability will also be examined within the context of systematic recording, and administrative datasets. I will argue that often our focus on placement stability rather than relational stability is driven by data that are easy rather than meaningful to collect.

Lastly, the presentation will position the themes within the policy and practice landscape in the UK, and the juxtaposition of flexibility to meet children’s needs within rigid child welfare systems. The applicability of these for other child welfare systems, and international comparisons, will also be considered.

Lisa Holmes joined the School of Education and Social Work at the University of Sussex in January 2022 as professor of applied social science. Prior to this, she was an associate professor and deputy director of research in the Department of Education at the University of Oxford.

Over the past 25 years Holmes has carried out a range of research and evaluation projects, with a particular focus on the relationship between needs, costs and outcomes of services and support provided to children and families. Along with her colleagues, James Whittaker and Jorge F. del Valle, she is co-chair of the International Work Group for Therapeutic Residential Care and is a board member of the European Scientific Association On Residential And Family Care For Children And Adolescents (EuSARF) and the Association of Children’s Residential and Community Services (ACRC). In late 2017, along with colleagues at University College London and the University of Oxford, Holmes established the Children’s Social Care Data User Group. The group provides a forum to share expertise and learning between all users and potential users (academic, practice and policy) of children’s social care (child welfare) data.

Holmes has published a range of books and journal articles. Over the past two years she has presented her research in Australia, South Korea, Spain, Finland, Croatia, Lithuania and the U.S.