A qualitative study in Hamburg.
International Master’s Programme in Social Work and Human Rights
Degree report 30 higher education credit
Spring 2013
Author: Julia Ahrens
Supervisor: Ingrid Höjer
Abstract
International research has shown that care leavers face a series of complex transition tasks on their way to adulthood. They have to master these with less emotional and financial support than their peers with access to family support. Consequently they are at higher risk of homelessness, unemployment and social exclusion. Unaccompanied asylum seeking young people leaving care face additional challenges due to their status as refugees with often un-regularized residence permits. Research findings suggest that a sound pathway planning can facilitate a more successful transition. This study explores how social workers structure the care leaving process for unaccompanied asylum seeking young people in Germany. It aims to determine external structural factors influencing this process and how the young people are perceived in terms of skills and resources as well as in terms of access to social capital. For this purpose nine semi structured interviews with social workers were conducted. The social workers identify a lack of guidelines and structure in the care leaving process. Furthermore they illustrate difficulties in facilitating a successful transition due to a severe lack of housing, the asylum process and the unpredictability of decisions of the funding agencies. The uncertainty of the young people’s stay in Germany due to pending asylum decisions additionally leads to mental health problems in the transition for the young people. The social workers perceive the young people as generally well equipped with skills and resources. However they illustrate how these skills are neglected in the German system. They further describe the young people as rich in bonding social capital but as lacking access to bridging social capital. The social workers in this study see themselves as responsible for facilitating this bridging form of social capital but describe their struggle in trying to enable this.
Title: Transitioning to Adulthood: Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Young People Leaving Care.
Author: Julia Ahrens
Key words: Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children/Young People, Youth, Transition to Adulthood, Social Capital
Acknowledgements
I want to thank everyone that helped me complete this long project! Especially I would like to thank:
All the participants for sharing your knowledge and opinions with me and dedicating some of your time to me!
Ingrid, for your advice, encouragement and helping me resolve my confusions!
Lisa, Imke, Steffi and Ingo for providing me with a home, support and inspiration during my stay in Hamburg!
Klod, for taking me to the beach and enduring my laments!
Eira, for locking yourself into your room and providing me with your valuable feedback!
Marianna you were my study buddy and stayed with me, every single day, throughout the whole time! I don’t know if I could have done it without you! And to Annie for joining this arrangement and teaching me all about comma rules (that I have already forgotten)!
And also all my classmates and teachers for the great time I had during these two years!
Table of Contents
Abbreviations 5
1 Introduction 5
1.1 Background 6
1.2 Aims and Research Questions 7
2 Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children in Germany 8
2.1 Numbers and Facts 8
2.2 Procedure 9
2.3 Situation in Hamburg 9
2.4 Follow up Care 11
3 The German Youth Care System 12
4 Previous Research 12
4.1 Germany 13
4.2 International Research 14
4.2.1 Care Leavers in General 14
4.2.2 Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Care Leavers 15
5 Theoretical Framework 17
5.1 Youth, Transition to Adulthood and Refugee Youth 17
5.2 Social Capital 19
6 Methodology 21
6.1 Design of study 22
6.2 Recruitment Process 23
6.3 Reflections on Researcher – Respondent Dynamics 23
6.4 Data Management 24
6.5 Ethical Considerations 24
6.6 Validity, Reliability and Generalization 25
6.7 Limitations 26
7 Results and Analysis 26
7.1 The Respondents 26
7.2 Findings and Analysis: Care Leaving Process 27
7.2.1 Findings: Care Leaving Process 27
7.2.2 Analysis: Care Leaving Process 32
7.3 Findings and Analysis: Impact of External Structural Factors 34
7.3.1 Findings: External Structural Factors 35
7.3.2 Analysis: External Structural Factors 40
7.4 Findings and Analysis: Perceptions of Young People 42
7.4.1 Findings: Perceptions of Young People 42
7.4.2 Analysis: Perceptions of Young People 49
8. Conclusion 52
Reference List
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Appendix 3
Abbreviations
CLCA Children Leaving Care Act
UNCRC United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
B-UMF e.V. Federal Association for Unaccompanied Refugee Minors (Bundesfachverband unbegleitete minderjährige Flüchtlinge e.V.)
KJND Children and Youth Emergency Service (Kinder- und Jugendnotdienst)
PTSD Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
UASC Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children
UASYP Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Young People
YWO Youth Welfare Office (Jugendamt)
1 Introduction
“I always had the feeling that no more than necessary is done. Youth care ends when you come of age then they have fulfilled their task. They make sure that you can more or less cope with the daily life tasks, but they don’t do much to facilitate a professional career. You have to do everything alone.”(Christian, 26, German care leaver)[1]
The situation of care leavers has not been given much attention by social policy and research in Germany. International research has shown that care leavers face a series of complex transition tasks on their way to adulthood. They have to master these with less emotional and financial support than their peers growing up with access to family support. This means they are at higher risk of homelessness, unemployment and social exclusion (Strahl & Thomas 2013). Unaccompanied asylum seeking young people leaving care face additional challenges due to their status as refugees and often un-regularized residence statuses (Wade 2011). This study explores the structure of the care leaving process of unaccompanied asylum seeking young people in a German context.
Due to the lack of attention given to the issue in Germany there is no definition of ‘care leavers’ available from a German context. However in an international context there are different definitions for what characterizes a care leaver. One example is given by the Children Leaving Care Act in Great Britain that defines a care leaver as a person leaving state care that has spent more than 13 weeks in this care until the age of 18. In this study the definition of the Care Leavers Association from England and Wales is used. This association is run by care leavers for care leavers, which is why their definition is chosen based on the assumption that it best represents their view. According to their definition a care leaver is:
“Any adult who spent time in care as a child (i.e. under the age of 18). This care would have been approved by the state through a court order or on a voluntary basis. It can range from as little as a few months to as long as one’s whole childhood (18 years). Such care could be in foster care, residential care (mainly children’s homes) or other arrangements outside the immediate or extended family. The care could have been provided directly by the state (mainly through local authority social services departments) or by the voluntary or private sector (e.g. Barnardo’s, The Children’s Society and many others). It also includes a wide range of accommodation. For example, it would include secure units, approved schools, industrial schools and other institutions that have a more punitive element than mainstream foster or residential care.“ (The Care leavers Associations (2013): online[2])
This study explores the care leaving process of unaccompanied asylum seeking young people that came to Hamburg before the age of 18. It is limited to those young people that have been placed in residential care. The focus is on the perspective of social workers on this process and their perception of the young people. In the following the importance of the topic and the aims and goals of this study will be illustrated.
1.1 Background
In the transition to adulthood young people placed in care are confronted with several challenges. They have often experienced adverse, traumatic events in their past and are additionally faced with the challenge of performing the transition to independent living with less support. The lower levels of support are due to a lack of a strong family network, financial resources and their often lower education levels. The transition to adulthood for care leavers also presents a more abrupt and compressed change in life circumstances than young people of the same age experience when living with their families (Stein 2011; Wade 2005). Unaccompanied asylum seeking young people (UASYP) face further difficulties since their stay in the country is often not regularized, meaning their application is pending, and their future life chances are uncertain (Hancilova & Knauder 2011).
The series of transition tasks young people are faced with are among others finishing school, entering the labor market or higher education, moving out from home or out of care and starting a family. Across Europe research has shown that this transition has been remarkably extended over the last decades and is now a process of several years lasting far into the third life decade (Buchmann & Kriesi 2011). It is furthermore characterized by openness and uncertainty (Höjer & Sjöblom 2011). In the phase of transition young people generally experience some areas of their lives in which they are autonomous and independent, whilst there are others in which they stay dependent or fall back into dependency. This phenomenon is called “yoyo-transitions” (Stauber & Walther 2007). For young people placed in care the possibilities of falling back are usually very limited. They are expected to have a linear transition from adolescence to adulthood (Höjer & Sjöblom 2011), very much in contrast to how the majority of their peers experience it. Young care leavers are confronted with an additional structural trajectory in addition to the range of transition events and structural trajectories that all young people have to go through. They are leaving the institutional care system mostly without the support of a persisting family network. This is alarming, since research has shown that young people become more dependent on their families during their prolonged transition into adulthood. This emphasizes the need for adequate and sufficient support during the transition for young care leavers (Höjer & Sjöblom 2011; Stein 2011; Wade et al. 2005).
Care leavers face different and more obstacles than their peers. The moving out process takes place earlier and is in most cases irreversible, compressed and takes place faster. They have fewer resources to draw on in order to cope with this trajectory and other institutional transitions, such as ending school, often do not happen synchronized. A successful transition is judged on the basis of institutional and structural expectations and not so much based on the individual and subjective goals and wishes of the adolescents/young adults (Höjer & Sjöblom 2010; Stein 2011; Wade et al. 2005). According to Cashmore & Paxman (2006) young people who leave care and have to transition into adulthood without the support of their families have by definition less emotional, social and financial support. They also lack the possibility to ‘space out’ (Stein 2005). Stein (2005) here refers to a transition period where young people try new things, take risk and are in search of their identities. Due to not having the possibility of falling back into a previous or ongoing support network care leavers are expected to reach adulthood instantaneously (Stein 2005).
Being an asylum seeking young person leaving care adds further disadvantages to this life trajectory and renders the young people more vulnerable. Most of the young people experienced traumatic events before or during their flight from their home countries. This leads to an elevated risk of anxiety and depression (Wade 2011). Their transitions are significantly affected by their asylum claims and their immigration status is often unresolved. They therefore do not only face uncertainty regarding practical issues such as housing, finances and also emotional networks, but also their general future about the stay in the country is insecure (Stein 2012). In different countries of the EU turning 18 even means to have less chances to get a permanent residence permit (Hancilova & Knauder 2011). The transition planning for this target group is complex, since many different outcomes concerning the stay of the young people in the country have to be taken into account (Stein 2012). This double status of being a care leaver and asylum seeker at the same time renders the question of pathway planning for this specific group even more important (Stein 2006; Wade 2011).
1.2 Aims and Research Questions
Research findings indicate that a sound pathway planning can facilitate a more successful care leaving trajectory and facilitate a better transition to adulthood. This small-scale study explores how social workers in Hamburg, Germany shape the care leaving process for unaccompanied asylum seeking young people (UASYP) leaving residential care. A key aspect is the fact that the transition to adulthood for this target group is determined by the asylum process. It can be a facilitating or limiting factor for the individual futures, which is often at the time of transition still open to both options. The impact of this uncertainty and the options for social workers to influence this process or prepare the young people for all possible outcomes is a strong focus of this project. Social capital, as the resources deriving from networks and relationships based on mutual trust, can provide the potential to resolve identity conflicts and to cope with uncertainties on the route to adulthood (Helve & Bynner 2007). Therefore it is also interesting to explore the social workers perception of the young people’s access to social capital. The main research questions are:
1. How is the care leaving process shaped and structured by the care system and the individual social worker and how does this affect the young people?
2. What external structural factors are influencing the care leaving process?
3. How are the young people perceived by the social workers in terms of skills, relationships, networks and social capital?