Goldsmiths - University of London

The 'care leavers study' funded by the ESRC was a follow-up study with 30 young people who were in the process of leaving the care system to live independently. The study was an extension to an earlier Home Office funded study where the sample had been selected from a wider sample of 200 young people and were followed up six months after their first contact (July 2001 to June 2002). This extension study enabled us to follow them over a longer time period, that being a further 12 months, in order to examine the way in which their lives unfolded as they made this transition. Officially young people leave the care system to live independently between the ages of 16 and 18. We were therefore interested in how they managed and coped with living independently at this young age. We explored the type of life events they were experiencing during this time and age period and how these were impacting on their ability to establish themselves or reach the traditional milestones that are said to signify adult status, such as acquiring work or entering the labour market, establishing one's own home and domestic life and more generally establishing a footing among peers, families and communities.

Sample attrition is a problem with follow-up studies and although we were able to locate all of the young people throughout the duration of the study, some we failed to engage over the longer term.

Publications from the study

Ward, J. and Henderson, Z. (2003) Some practical and ethical issues encountered while conducting tracking research with young people leaving the 'care' system. International Journal of Social Research Methods. 6,3, 255-259.

Ward, J. and Henderson, Z., Pearson, G. (2003) One Problem among many: Drug use among care leavers in transition to independent living. Home Office Research Study 260. London: Home Office.