Fostering unaccompanied asylum seeking young people: the views of foster carers on their training and support needs

Abstract

The implementation of the National Transfer Scheme, whereby local authorities across the UK are encouraged to voluntarily receive unaccompanied young asylum seekers, has prompted a necessary focus on the training needs of those caring for this population. As agencies consider how to build their capacity to support unaccompanied young people, this study set out to learn from the experiences and views of foster carers, in order to inform the development of effective carer training and support. Eight semi-structured interviews were undertaken with foster carers who have cared for unaccompanied young people in one county in the South West of England. The findings draw attention not only to the potential benefits of training focused specifically on fostering unaccompanied young people, but also reveal aspects of the impact that limited access to training and support can have upon carers. The findings shed light on the carers’ experiences of encountering ‘unknown’ factors and allow new insight into the networks they had developed over time to enhance their ability to access information and support as new challenges arise. Possible implications for local authorities and fostering agencies are considered.

Keywords

Unaccompanied asylum seeking young people foster care foster carer training foster carer perspectives foster carer expectations foster carer support

Introduction

National policy in England and Wales dictates that when an unaccompanied asylum seeking young person is initially found, the local authority has a responsibility to provide them with accommodation and support under the Children Act 1989. This is supplied through a combination of residential care, independent living arrangements and foster placements in a family setting (Association of Directors of Children’s Services [ADCS], 2016). It is largely recognised across the EU that foster care in a family context is the best care option for most unaccompanied young people (NIDOS, 2015). However, the UK is one of only 14 member states where family-based foster placements are routinely being used in preference to residential provisions.

Levels of experience and expertise in caring for this group of young people vary considerably between local authorities in the UK. Some have been looking after a disproportionately large number over many years and have inevitably developed specialist resources and knowledge. The converse is also true, with almost 30% of local authorities in England reporting five or fewer unaccompanied young people in their care in the year 2017‒2018 (Department for Education [DfE], 2018). In response to an overwhelming strain on relevant resources in ‘gateway’ counties where many young people arrive, in July 2016 the UK Government launched the National Transfer Scheme (NTS). The scheme encouraged all local authorities in England to voluntarily receive unaccompanied young people from these overstretched areas into their care (DfE, Home Office and Department for Communities and Local Government, 2016). Provisions for these arrangements were created within the Immigration Act 2016 and later extended to allow local authorities across Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to join the scheme (DfE and Home Office, 2018).

One of the implications of the NTS is that some unaccompanied young people are being transferred to areas where social care, health and education services have little previous experience of supporting them. Particularly in areas of low ethnic diversity, practitioners and foster carers alike may need to develop new skills associated with caring for unaccompanied young people. Kohli and Mitchell (2007: 154) point out as examples, ‘the need to communicate and develop relationships across languages, and the challenge of making assessments of needs and risks with limited knowledge and information’. Many local authorities around the UK, particularly those who have traditionally had few unaccompanied young people in their care, are therefore seeking to equip foster carers in their area with relevant knowledge and skills for caring for this group (ADCS, 2016; Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, 2018).

The statutory guidance for local authorities on the care of unaccompanied migrant children and child victims of modern slavery (DfE, 2017), updated in November 2017, advises that social workers, independent reviewing officers and others involved in their care should all have knowledge regarding the asylum seeking process and the potential impact of young people’s immigration statuses on their needs as looked after children. While the need for training on these topics is supported by research (Hek, 2005; Ní Raghallaigh, 2013; Wade, et al., 2012), UK-based research and events have indicated additional training needs for those involved in the care of unaccompanied young people. These include: training regarding young people’s cultural and religious identities, values and needs (Chase, Knight and Statham, 2008; Refugee Children’s Consortium, 2017; Rogers, et al., 2018; Wade, et al., 2012); training on how to assist communication and language learning for non-English speakers (Rees Centre, 2014; Rogers, Carr and Hickman, 2018); training on the rights and entitlements of unaccompanied young people, including relevant legislation (Chase, Knight and Statham, 2008; Hek, 2005); and training to develop an understanding of the impact of trauma on young people within this group (Refugee Children’s Consortium, 2017).

To date, there are no published evaluations of training courses that have been delivered in relation to caring for unaccompanied young people. Furthermore, there is a notable lack of best practice evidence being shared by more experienced local authorities, either in the UK or further afield, to inform agencies which are considering how best to train and support those caring for them (Bright, 2017). Further research to inform these areas of practice is therefore crucial at this time.

This article discusses findings from a small-scale qualitative study undertaken in one local authority, which sought the views of foster carers on their training and support needs in relation to fostering unaccompanied young people. Although the limited geographical focus and modest sample size have implications on the transferability of the findings, the knowledge gained may still be of interest and relevance to those responsible for training or supporting foster carers in other areas. Possible implications for practice are considered.

Aim

This study is based on research conducted as part of a social work research placement in a local authority fostering team in 2016‒2017. The local authority is based in a semi-rural county in the South West of England with a considerably lower level of ethnic diversity than the national average. The local authority had cared for relatively small numbers of unaccompanied young people in recent years but joined the NTS in 2016 with a commitment to receive considerably more unaccompanied young people into their care. Upon joining the NTS, they tasked their in-house training co-ordinator with designing a training package for local foster carers in relation to fostering unaccompanied young people. In the absence of good practice guidance on such training, this study was designed to learn from the experiences of local foster carers who had cared for unaccompanied young people in order to inform the development of that course. Given that previous literature pertaining to foster care training has emphasised the need for training to be supplemented by ongoing support and resources (Triseliotis, Borland and Hill, 2000; Wilson, et al, 2004), the study also set out to attain the carers’ perspectives on the resource and support needs particular to caring for this group.

The broader aim of the study was to be able to share learning that may be of assistance to local authorities and fostering agencies considering the development of training and support for foster carers with whom they work.

Methods

A qualitative method was chosen for the study in order to allow foster carers to raise and discuss themes and topics they saw as relevant to the research questions. A purposive sampling method was used whereby local foster carers with experience of fostering at least one unaccompanied young person were invited to take part in semi-structured interviews. Invitations were extended through a local Independent Fostering Agency (IFA), the local statutory fostering department and a ‘UASC support worker’ based at a local refugee support agency.

Eight interviews were conducted with 11 foster carers fostering in one county. Three married couples were interviewed jointly. Five other carers were interviewed individually; three were single carers and two were women who fostered with their husbands but chose to be interviewed alone. In total, four men and seven women took part. One carer was Asian and the other 10 were British. Participants had been fostering between two months and over 20 years and had looked after between one and 20 unaccompanied young people each, predominantly male, in a mixture of emergency, respite and long-term placements. The make-up of placements had varied considerably. Three carers had only had one young person in placement at a time whereas the others had fostered between two and five unaccompanied young people simultaneously at various points, either from the same country or different countries and diverse faiths. Five carers had experience of fostering unaccompanied young people and other young people from the local area.

Participants chose the locations of the interviews; most took place in carers’ homes or at the local refugee support agency. Interviews lasted between 50 minutes and one hour and 40 minutes. Carers were interviewed about the needs of the unaccompanied young people previously or currently in their care and their perception of their preparedness for fostering them. They were also asked about their views on what training, support and resources had been, or would have been, useful to them.

The interviews were transcribed verbatim. A process of inductive thematic analysis was then applied to the transcriptions to identify themes arising from the data. Patterns within the data and themes that appeared meaningful to the carers were explored in more detail, with reference to existing literature. This article focuses in particular on findings related to the carers’ views on training and their experiences of seeking additional resources or support.

Ethical approval for the study was granted by the University of Bristol. Informed, voluntary consent was obtained from each participant prior to their interview in relation to the storage and use of any data they shared. The author has refrained from presenting some data which, although insightful, carry a risk of anonymity being compromised.

Findings

Ten of the 11 foster carers interviewed had experience of fostering both unaccompanied young people and others from the local area. Each of them emphasised that the needs of unaccompanied young people had differed considerably from those of others they had fostered. Indeed, there was a sense of ‘otherness’ commonly reflected in carers’ narratives, which framed looking after unaccompanied young people as ‘signing-up’ for a different kind of task from fostering in general.

Carers’ reflections on the needs of the unaccompanied young people they had cared for drew attention to five common areas of need: (1) cultural needs, including those pertaining to religion and food; (2) needs related to adjusting to life in England, e.g. learning to use a new currency and engaging in the English education system; (3) communication needs resulting from language barriers; (4) advocacy needs often related to accessing services; and (5) needs pertaining to the asylum seeking process, including recovery from trauma, emotional support and practical assistance to attend appointments. Carers’ reflections on their initial experiences of fostering unaccompanied young people indicated that many of these needs had been unfamiliar to them in the sense that they had not been anticipated, or that they had felt unsure how to meet them in practice. As one carer commented:

For someone who’s from a completely different country, I think the foster carers should have a lot more support.

Views on training

At the time of the study, none of the carers had been offered the opportunity to attend any training about fostering unaccompanied young people in particular. Ten of the 11 carers proposed that a course specifically focusing on this topic was very much needed. Three carers articulated a sense of abandonment by their respective fostering services regarding the lack of training and preparation they had received:

Food, culture, language, you have no training whatsoever. These children are brought to you. The social worker comes back in a week, ‘Are they OK?’ or maybe phones, ‘How are they?’ Comes back in a week to see how they are, then they have a review within a couple of weeks. You have nothing.

A lot of carers say we’ve just literally had the children placed here and we don’t know what to do next.

Several carers referred to rumours or misinformation being perpetuated by carers and social workers in the area about particular challenges ‒ or conversely relative ease ‒ associated with fostering unaccompanied young people. Correspondingly, there was a strong emphasis placed on needing to have a clear, honest and well-informed overview of fostering unaccompanied young people in the context of training:

I think we need training of what looking after an asylum seeker incurs, you know, the court process, the travelling, food, where they pray, Ramadan.

Training about the asylum seeking process was frequently proposed as being essential:

I think you do need to know that little bit of background [regarding the asylum seeking process] because that’s all going on in their mind. All the time.

Several carers wanted training on potential cultural and religious differences and the expectations around family life that unaccompanied young people may hold. A range of additional topics for training were proposed by smaller numbers of carers and related to specific challenges they had each encountered. These included: assisting young people in learning English, communicating across language barriers, how to open a bank account, dealing with particular health needs, supporting access to education, providing emotional support following Home Office interviews, supporting those who have suffered multiple bereavements and caring for young people with post traumatic stress disorder.

A clear message that stood out from the interviews was that carers wanted training to be delivered by people with relevant expertise. Those they saw as fitting this description included people who work with asylum seekers, foster carers who have fostered this group over a long period and young people themselves. One carer suggested, for example, that training about the legal process be delivered by a foster carer with experience of supporting multiple young people through this together with a young person who could share their first-hand experience of the process.

Carers tended to suggest that all of the key topics could be covered in one training session. Those who considered the frequency of training to be important shared the view that any course should run repeatedly through the year. One highlighted the benefits of this in terms of increasing the likelihood of carers being able to access the training before taking responsibility for an unaccompanied young person. Others emphasised the value of being able to attend a training session more than once, as a ‘refresher’ when needed.

Aspects of the unknown

Carers’ reflections highlighted some of the implications of not having had training or some other form of introductory preparation. Most recalled knowing very little, if anything, about unaccompanied asylum seeking young people before their first placement. A prominent theme was not knowing quite what to expect before the young person arrived:

Well, I’ll tell you the very first thing, when Adeel ¹ came, we had no idea [what to expect]. This was our first asylum seeker.

I looked up [online] about the unaccompanied children … it was a lot of research in a very short time. So, I don’t think I really had any expectations….I had no idea. [After being given a few hours’ notice that an unaccompanied young person was coming into placement with her]

Only two out of the 11 carers described feeling somewhat prepared the first time they had an unaccompanied young person arrive in placement. Of those two, one had some previous experience of working with asylum seeking children abroad and the other had intentionally set out to learn quite extensively about countries where unaccompanied young people commonly come from, why they leave, characteristics of their journeys and the needs they might have. Still, both referred to a level of apprehension around the ‘unknown’ aspects of a young person arriving in placement.

One carer commented:

We don’t know what they’ve been through, we don’t know what their background is or their family or anything, do we. So we do take a big risk in taking them.

Five carers alluded to a similar sense of risk they had felt before a young person arrived, largely related to the limited information known about them.

Another carer referred to the ‘fear of the unknown’ in a broader sense: fostering an unaccompanied young person was her first experience of caring for a young person from another country and from a religion with which she was unfamiliar. She recalled her initial impression, before she had fostered an unaccompanied young person herself:

Maybe it’s because I was a single carer, I was a bit frightened of the unknown, not having come across Muslims at all to be honest. Where I live there isn’t a mixed culture. So … it’s sort of the unknown isn’t it a little bit. But I would definitely have one again.

Initially, when she had provided respite for an unaccompanied young person for the first time, one of her relatives had expressed concern:

Cath: She was particularly concerned about my safety. Now you see, but that again, I was a single carer having a foreign person, a refugee … how do I …

Interviewer: Was she concerned about your safety in terms of fostering generally? As in, you could have young people with quite complex backgrounds.

Cath: No…

Interviewer: So it was something to do with the unknown aspect…

Cath: It was the unknown of having a refugee. Yeah. Definitely. And that is fear of the unknown, isn’t it? Luckily, he was such a presentable young man, everyone who met him …

Interviewer: Was won over?

Cath: Completely! I mean he’s extremely good looking, with a wonderful smile and very, very polite. So yeah, they were won over by him. Straight away.

Having bridged the ‘unknown’, her sense of fear had subsided. However, she spoke of being very conscious of those she talked to about fostering him, because controversies over immigration had been in the media a lot at the time. Negative attitudes expressed by others within the local community were referred to by carers in two other interviews.

Seven carers cited the news, often war reports, as being their only initial source of knowledge about the countries the unaccompanied young people came from. In some instances, false expectations had been influenced by the media. As one couple recalled: ‘We were expecting a Syrian refugee. Coz that’s what you hear on the media really.’

Experiences of seeking information and support

Carers were asked about the support and resources that had been, or would have been, useful to them in caring for unaccompanied young people. Five resources had predominantly been accessed: the internet, a refugee support organisation, contacts in the local community, social workers and other foster carers.

The internet

Although one carer mentioned not having time to look for resources online, carers in six of the eight interviews referred to searching on the internet for information. Most commonly, they had sought to learn about particular countries, cultures and religions but some also spoke of searching to find out about unaccompanied young people in general. For the majority of carers, it was after receiving a phone call asking them to provide an emergency or respite placement that they had started to look for information. This was often at short notice and the internet had been an easily accessible resource for quick research: ‘When I was asked to have them on respite, I was frantically looking up things.’

While some valuable facts and guidance had been found, the usefulness of information discovered on the internet had been limited in two ways. Firstly, on occasion carers had formed expectations about young people based on information they had learned online that were very generalised and did not take into account the uniqueness of each young person’s preferences. For example, one carer recounted that having read that Muslims eat Halal food, she had gone to great lengths to find and use Halal meat for the young person in her care. However, after some time, she realised that he regularly ate non-Halal food away from home; when she asked him about this he explained that he did not need to be so restricted in his diet.

Further limitations of the internet as a resource were apparent in scenarios where information that carers found online conflicted with what young people had told them about their religious or cultural needs or wishes. Three carers gave examples of this. One, who had fostered predominantly Muslim unaccompanied young people, described how she had managed to build a relationship with someone at a local mosque who had been able to help her to navigate this type of challenge:

There’s another little holiday of about 12 days ‒ well, not a holiday. It’s like Ramadan but it’s not. And at the end there’s another Eid. Well, I had no idea what that was. So trying to find out, and actually I’ve got another friend who had a friend at the mosque and I’m like right, OK, so I’ve discovered lots of contacts of my own that I can then speak to and ask for advice. Coz they were also, they weren’t eating at that time either. They were fasting. And when I looked it up on the internet, I couldn’t see that they should be fasting. So I was really confused as to why they were doing this. [I later understood that] they had missed some days in the original Ramadan.

Refugee support organisations

Around half of the carers referred to a local refugee support project as a prominent local source of information regarding the legal process, religion, culture and family tracing opportunities. In this respect, two carers referred to it as ‘a Godsend’ and ‘a lifeline’. One commented that they were lucky to live in a town with this type of a project. Not all carers had been aware of this resource when they first started fostering unaccompanied young people.

Carers who had accessed this organisation for information also spoke about attending group sessions there, specifically hosted for foster carers to be able to discuss and learn about fostering unaccompanied young people. Two couples and a single carer in particular had highly valued the opportunity the group had afforded to ask questions to a child psychologist and a specialist support worker. Although some had clearly been glad of the opportunity to ask other carers for advice within that context, various challenges in the group dynamics were also highlighted.

Support from social workers

A few of the carers had approached young people’s social workers or their own social workers at some point for information regarding, for example, the asylum seeking process, specific cultural differences or the rights of the unaccompanied young people in their care. They encountered considerable variation in the levels of knowledge displayed by the social workers they approached. All but one shared examples of social workers having given them incorrect or contradictory information or having made assumptions about young people’s needs that were not accurate. These scenarios highlighted gaps in some of the social workers’ knowledge around unaccompanied young people, including their rights, cultural needs and the asylum process.

Carers’ perspectives on the knowledge that social workers should be expected to have varied considerably. Almost half felt that there should be a better level of knowledge across all social workers:

Social workers could do more. Like our fostering social worker, they don’t know much about asylum seekers.

They need to have a really thorough working knowledge of all of the aspects of this, so they can have the confidence to educate people like us.

However, the majority proposed that it would be preferable, or more achievable, to have a particular social worker or team with specialist knowledge who could be a point of contact for those fostering unaccompanied young people. This view was influenced by a variety of factors. Some referred to how busy social workers are. One carer felt that social workers could not be expected to all become experts in such a vast topic area. Similarly, another emphasised that this group of young people differ very much from the families and young people with whom most social workers have been trained to work.

Carer to carer support

Commonly, where foster carers knew of other carers who had experience of fostering unaccompanied young people, they had made contact to ask for advice at the outset. This tended to relate to practical matters, such as where to buy international food locally, and to gain insight on how others had managed to succeed in tasks such as opening a bank account, attaining a driving licence or securing a school place for a young person, which some had been involved in arranging. Carers often described such tasks as involving many ‘hoops’ to be jumped through, more so than for other young people in their care.

Two carers elaborated on the benefits they saw in talking to carers rather than social workers, when faced with particular challenges:

I think when you are in a difficult situation to be able to ring another carer that actually understands is invaluable. Talking to a social worker is fine, but they’re not living and breathing it. And they work roughly 9 to 5.

I think I got my support from the other two foster carers in [town] who I could pick the phone up to, and that was a plus. And that was partly because they knew exactly what I was going through because they had gone through it. While maybe a social worker wouldn’t have done.

However, not all carers in the study shared positive experiences of peer support. One recalled being given incorrect information by another and it was clear from a range of narratives that there had been conflicting views among carers about how to respond to particular situations or challenges. One couple spoke about their disappointment at being put in touch with carers whom they felt could not relate to them in terms of their age and stage in fostering.

At the point of their first placement, around half of the carers had not known any others who had fostered an unaccompanied young person:

Talk to other foster carers … That’s easier said than done. You know we’ve only been in the area at that point just about a year. Fostering about six months at that point. We don’t have a network.

A few had been given contact details of people with relevant experience by their social workers, but most had not and wanted a means of more easily connecting with others.

Local community contacts

A few carers had made particular efforts to find people who were from the same country as a young person in order to gain insight on aspects of culture and religion or to help them communicate with young people who didn’t speak English. This happened more often at the start of a placement. Where young people spoke English, carers had been able to ask them about their needs and wishes directly. However, the majority emphasised that the presence of a language barrier often prevented this. Carers’ accounts of particular challenges in the first week were very similar: they described that young people’s needs had not yet been assessed and the first opportunity to access an interpreter would be the placement planning meeting, a week later. In some cases, carers had called upon people they knew from the local community who spoke the young person’s language to help them communicate at this point. At times, these were people they had met only once or twice previously or ‘friends of friends’.

One couple described the sense of urgency they had felt about finding a way to communicate with a newly arrived young man:

We had a friend who spoke a bit of their language and I rung him and I said, ‘We’re in an awful situation, can you help us?’ He came up and saw us and he also brought a friend … and so he explained things to them and he was telling us, which was very helpful. Because otherwise we were left, and that was it.

Another carer illustrated the sort of questions she tends to ask young people when she finds someone willing to translate:

Give us a bit of background, on your country and, you know, stuff. So we’ve just got a little idea. So we’re not blind. And they’ve told us about their country, their family, their traditions, their religions. What’s normal to them, how their families were. So that we can sort of try to understand where they’re coming from.

Carers had also been able to fill knowledge gaps by asking questions to people they met in various meetings related to the young people. Multiple carers referred to the opportunity afforded when interpreters attended meetings to learn from their insight regarding, for example, particular cultures. One carer spoke of how much she had learned by chatting to a social worker on journeys to court and another described a key conversation with a solicitor:

Jen: My knowledge came from the solicitor [who] was absolutely brilliant.

Interviewer: So they gave you a lot of info about …

Jen: All about the court proceedings, for instance. And I asked lots of questions. I said, ‘I’m really sorry. I have no idea about any of this stuff so can you help me.’ And he was really good.

What such examples had in common was that they demonstrated ad-hoc opportunities for carers to learn. It was clear that carers' ability to access useful information improved as they developed networks of people who had knowledge they could draw on. One couple who had cared for unaccompanied young people for 14 years reflected: ‘When we first started this, we didn’t have any connections. Over the years, we’ve grown a phenomenal network.’

Printed resources

Most of the carers referred to printed resources they would find useful. Suggestions included print-outs of recipes from relevant countries, a list of websites with more information about life in different countries, a booklet designed for foster carers with details of particular religious customs and festivals and a flowchart of the asylum seeking process. Only one couple mentioned having come across The Fostering Network’s (2016) booklet about fostering unaccompanied young people, which contains some of that information. Multiple carers also commented that it would have been helpful to have some locally tailored information, such as a list of where to buy Halal food nearby. One couple discussed their view that social workers ought to provide carers with a list of local groups or activities for young people, in particular places where they could meet and socialise with others from the same country. Over time, they had found out about such activities but when reflecting on the impact of not having been told about them, one described how ‘There was no navigation for us. We were in the middle of the ocean left wondering which way do you go.’

Discussion

Informing expectations

The strong value which carers in this study placed on being able to access training specifically related to fostering unaccompanied young people resonates with calls from foster carers more widely (Refugee Children’s Consortium, 2017). The very limited notice of a young person arriving, as described by some carers here, is consistent with findings in other localities (Sirriyeh, 2013) and reinforces the need for advance preparation. Carers’ recollections of not having known what to expect the first time an unaccompanied young person moved into placement carry particular weight in the light of previous research, which has indicated that clear expectations before a placement can help to avoid disappointment (Sinclair, Gibbs and Wilson, 2004), improve carers’ sense of preparedness (Geiger, Hayes and Litz, 2014) and enhance their sense of being supported by their fostering agency (Randle, Miller and Dolnicar, 2017).

An apparent connection between not knowing what to expect and a ‘fear of the unknown’, as suggested in some narratives in this study, has previously been noted by Geiger and colleagues (2014) in their mixed-methods study of foster carer views on fostering teenagers. The accounts of the carers in their research similarly indicated that some fears had been influenced by stories carers had heard and negative public narratives associated, in that case, with teenagers. They recommended in that context that resources which help foster carers to build a clearer idea of what to expect could be helpful. Certainly there is evidence that this could be achieved to a certain extent through training (Sinclair, Gibbs and Wilson, 2004; Whenan, Oxlad and Lushington, 2009). Furthermore, Geiger and colleagues (2014) recommended that carers be provided with information that dispels negative perceptions where they are not evidence based. Elements of risk that some carers associated with fostering an unaccompanied young person may not be surprising given the negative framing of refugees and other migrants by many UK media outlets (Dempster and Hargrave, 2017), perhaps perpetuated by the limited information known about a young person when they first arrive. This has been found to foster hesitation in carers previously (Brownlees and Finch, 2010) and further supports the importance of foster carer training related to matters around asylum and seeking safety (Sirriyeh, 2013). Evidence suggests that it may be also beneficial to provide space for discussion about fears and concerns rather than avoiding discourse on radicalisation or other risk-related topics (Taylor and Soni, 2017).

The findings of this study show that at times, inaccurate assumptions can be made by carers and social workers about young people’s needs. Addressing the risk of making such assumptions where information and insight about unaccompanied young people is limited, Kidane (2001: 1) has stressed that ‘barriers to understanding must be overcome’. Training courses may indeed go some way to reduce these, minimising the risk of misconceptions and misinterpretation of young people’s needs through improved awareness about their journeys, needs and experiences (Ní Raghallaigh and Sirriyeh, 2014). Facilitating discussion around cultural expectations can also be useful (Linowitz and Boothby, 1988). However, the building of trust between a carer and a young person over time and the creation of opportunities for young people to share and explore their thoughts and perspectives with their carer, through an interpreter where needed, may perhaps lead to a more meaningful understanding of their experiences (Kidane, 2001; Larkin, 2015).

Support networks

The accounts of the carers in this study reinforce previous observations that training in itself is not likely to meet all the needs that foster carers might have for knowledge and learning (Whitehead, 2015) and that ongoing support is crucial (Wilson, et al, 2004). Previous research related to foster carer support has distinguished between informal support (peers, family and friends) and formal support provided by social workers and fostering agencies (Baginsky, Gorin and Sands, 2017). However, carers in this study have painted a new picture of support networks that often relied on people who were ‘experts’ by nature of their cultural heritage or the language they spoke. Professionals who were able to fill specific knowledge gaps and others perceived as having relatable experience were also seen to be of great value within those networks. These carers’ experiences demonstrate that the development of these support networks can be rather ad hoc. Larkin (2015) found a very similar pattern of advice and information seeking among social workers working with unaccompanied young asylum seekers in another locality. Carers’ reflections here suggest that there is scope and need for fostering agencies to assist in the development of those networks, such as by providing carers with written resources for signposting and creating opportunities for them to connect with one another.

Conclusion

While this article makes only a modest contribution to the knowledge base, it highlights some potentially important points for consideration. In their 2017 review of evidence in relation to the fostering system in England, Baginsky and colleagues concluded that those providing foster placements to unaccompanied young asylum seekers need to have the ability to ‘support [their] cultural, religious and other needs and be empathetic about their experience in their home country and during the journey to the UK’ (Baginsky, Gorin and Sands, 2017: 203). The picture painted by the carers in this article suggests that they agree with this assertion yet feel largely unequipped to do so in practice.

This study aimed to draw insight from the perspectives of foster carers, informed by their experience of fostering unaccompanied young asylum seekers, in order to contribute knowledge that may be of use to those developing training and support for carers. It has not only drawn attention to the potential benefits of training but has also revealed a range of implications for carers where that training is not available. The findings shed light on the networks that carers are able to develop over time, which can enhance their ability to access information and support as new challenges arise. They have also pointed to a number of practical steps which fostering agencies could take to assist carers to construct those networks, such as developing locally tailored signposting guides.

Implications for practice

The findings reported here resonate with national calls for training as a facilitator of good practice for those involved in the care of unaccompanied asylum seeking young people (Newbigging and Thomas, 2011). There is an ongoing imperative for local authorities and IFAs to review whether the training provision currently available to their foster carers, and indeed social workers, includes suitable learning opportunities. These findings reinforce previous suggestions that a ‘myth-busting’ element may be useful to include within training for those working with this group (Free, 2005) and indicate that it may also be helpful for trainers to draw attention to the diversity among unaccompanied young people’s needs, wishes and expectations.

The value that carers placed on the inclusion of experienced foster carers and young people in any training is consistent with the perspectives of those in previous studies (Sinclair, Gibbs and Wilson, 2004). The involvement of local refugee support agencies in the delivery of training could have the added benefit of extending the network of people carers can draw on for information and support on an ongoing basis. Similarly, the act of bringing foster carers together for training may provide a useful opportunity for them to network with others (Blythe, Wilkes and Halcomb, 2014; Murray, Tarren-Sweeney and France, 2011) and establish supportive peer relationships (Madigan, Paton and Mackett, 2017). Course evaluations administered by agencies already providing tailored training for those fostering this group of young people could be of great value to the development of good practice in this area.

These findings support Wade and colleagues’ (2012) assertion that there is a need to strengthen the support that local authorities provide to carers in relation to the needs of unaccompanied young people. They also indicate that there may be merit in social workers reaching out to offer relevant information or signposting to carers at the point a placement is allocated. Furthermore, it may be useful for agencies to review whether foster carers in their area are aware of nationally developed resources designed to assist them in this field, such as the country guides published for foster carers by BAAF (Fursland, 2007).

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Catherine Gara and Professor David Berridge for their comments on previous drafts. Sincere thanks also to all the foster carers who contributed their valuable time, experience and passion to this study.

Note

Abigail Sidery graduated from the University of Bristol with an MSc in Policy Research. This article is based on her dissertation. She currently co-ordinates a community centre in Baltimore, USA.

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