Due to competing claims in the literature regarding the relationship between self-esteem and being ‘looked-after’, and the implicated ethical and clinical issues, a systematic review of the literature was carried out. Ten articles met inclusion criteria for review. The majority of studies made a limited contribution to the review due to poor study quality, and the ethical, clinical and research implications of this are discussed. In addition, anecdotal evidence suggests that young people in care do not want to be made to feel different to others but there appears to be an absence of empirical research confirming this. Interviews were carried out with nine 12-16 year olds currently residing in foster care to explore their representations of ‘feeling the same or feeling different’. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) guided how data was analysed, and resulting super-ordinate themes were identified. The research paper reports on one of these themes: ‘difference’, which is explored through four sub-ordinate themes. These relate to participants not wanting others to know they were in care, feeling alienated due to their foster care status, perceiving that others viewed them differently and, at times, noticing differences themselves. Findings are considered in relation to the extant literature on foster care and identity development and practice and research implications are discussed. A second super-ordinate theme: ‘making sense’ is presented in the ‘extended results’ which is explored through five subordinate themes. Representations involved participants making sense of why their birth parents could not care for them, conflicting feelings towards both birth parents and foster parents, and a desire to feel a sense of agency in their lives.

The poor outcomes of young people leaving foster care are well documented and demand a focus on placement permanency and interventions that encourage stability (Rubin et al, 2007). The need for better support for foster carers is widely acknowledged (Warman, Pallet & Scott, 2006; Morgan & Baron, 2011). To provide effective support an understanding of foster carers support needs is required. A qualitative approach explored the support needs of foster carers who look after young people perceived to have emotional and behavioural difficulties. Semi- structured interviews were undertaken with 17 foster carers employed by a local authority or an Independent Fostering Agency. A grounded theory methodology within a social constructionist framework was used to develop a new theoretical understanding from the data. A central storyline of ‘keeping your head above water’ emerged and appeared to encapsulate daily struggles and ways of managing. Categories which contributed to this were ‘becoming isolated’ from other professionals, ‘role ambiguity’ regarding the multiple meanings attached to being a foster carer, ‘making sense of emotional and behavioural difficulties’ highlighting a need to understand the children cared for, ‘a focus on behaviours’ illuminating approaches to parenting and ‘unmet emotional needs’ which is a possible consequence of focussing on children’s behaviours. The emergent theory may hold potential for developing psychological formulations, interventions and training programmes for foster carers. Suggestions for future support are put forward based on the new theoretical framework. Applications of the findings to Counselling Psychology are discussed in detail.

Antisocial behaviour by adolescents continues to present a considerable challenge to society. One intervention which has shown promise in reducing serious antisocial behaviour is Multisystemic Therapy (Henggeler & Borduin, 1990). A systemic review of the most recent research exploring the effectiveness of MST was undertaken. Consistent with the rapid global spread; this review found several randomised control trials conducted in and outside of America. The findings indicate the need for a clear understanding of usual services within local systems prior to adopting new approaches and highlight a number of methodological limitations of the eleven included studies. Chapter 3 explores the personal lived experience of delivering MST in a sample of seven therapists in London teams using the principles of Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis. Four themes were identified 1) Persisting despite challenges 2) MST and us 3) Relationships matter and 4) How do we know we are getting anywhere? The results have implications for clinical practice and are discussed in the context of directions for future investigations. Chapter 4 presents a critique of one of the few widely used risk assessment tools for adolescent general recidivism; the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory 2.0 (Hoge & Andrews, 2011).

Background: Children who enter foster care are known to show high rates of problems across a number of different areas, including their mental health, relationships and development, with difficulties often continuing into adulthood. There are indications that some of these baseline characteristics have an effect on a child’s outcome from foster care, but this evidence is limited due to an overwhelming reliance on administrative data for the analysis of potential links. In order to explore this more fully, face-to-face assessments with these children need to be conducted. There are known difficulties, including choosing reliable informants for the child, and deciding when is the best time to perform assessments. In this study, the aim was to explore some of the relevant issues while assessing, in the primary research question, how different child characteristics were associated with the quality of the relationship that the child had with their carer. Method: Seventy children aged between 6 and 60 months were examined between one and two months after they entered foster care. They were assessed as regards their mental health, language, cognition and relationships, and the results were compared with normative population data whenever possible (research question 1). The data were also explored to investigate to what extent the children had overlapping problems across the areas studied (research question 2). There is a lack of research on the mental health of very young children in care, and so a control group of 40 children aged 12-24 months were recruited from the general population, against whom they could be compared. This sample was age- and gender-matched with 20 children aged 12-24 months in the foster care sample (research question 3). It was possible to access the birth records of 38 of the sample with a view to assess whether the children had shown signs of being ‘at risk’ at birth (research question 4). The quality of the relationship between the child and their carer was assessed using a structured observation, the Parent-Infant Relationship Global Assessment Scale (PIRGAS). Regression analyses were conducted to analyse how the child characteristics of age,gender, mental wellbeing, cognition and language were associated with PIRGAS score (research question 5). In addition, the carer’s levels of commitment and experience were explored as potential contributors to the quality of this relationship (research question 6). The reliability of foster carers was assessed by investigating whether their level of worry related to the degree of problem that the child had. The child’s level of engagement in the cognitive assessment was measured and compared with the score they attained in the assessment, while the change in scores over time was also calculated (research question 7). Results: Research question 1. The results showed that, in line with previous research in the area, children who enter foster care are likely to be experiencing more problems with mental health, language, cognition and relationships than children in the general population, already at the time of entering care. Research questions 2 and 3. There was some indication that this difference between them and the general population may not be very pronounced in children under the age of 2. Children over the age of 30 months, on the other hand, were likely to have complex and overlapping problems. Research question 4. An examination of routine birth data showed that children who later came into foster care were already different from the general population at birth in having lower mean birth weight and higher likelihood of prenatal exposure to drugs. Research question 5. An examination of the primary research question showed that the child characteristics of age, gender, mental wellbeing, cognition and language together predicted 17% of the variance in the quality of the relationship between the child and their foster carer as measured by the PIRGAS. Some additional analyses revealed that mental wellbeing appeared to be the single most influential of the child characteristics. Research question 6. A complex interplay between the child’s wellbeing, carer commitment and relationship quality was also revealed with associations between all the factors. Research question 7. In some instances, the carers did not appear to be the most reliable informants for children in their care, sometimes reporting a lack of worry even when the child showed concerning symptoms or behaviours, as observed by the research team. There was a strong association between how engaged a child was in the task and how they performed on the task, and this has implications for how meaningful the score is as a predictor of ability. It was also possible to follow up a small number of the sample a year later. It was found that the cognitive percentile scores achieved when a child first entered care were not significantly different to those that they achieved a year later, suggesting that, despite the concerns about the validity of the assessments, these measures can be useful for predicting later performance. A much more mixed picture for language was found, in that scores achieved when a child first entered care showed little relationship to how the child performed a year later. Discussion: Overall, the results lend support to the notion of the importance of early intervention, with children over the age of 2 showing a greater number of problems as well as more complex problems than those under the age of 2. Mental wellbeing in the child, as measured by the presence of positive prosocial behaviours, showed associations with the quality of the relationship with the carer, as well as with the commitment of the carer. Carers did not report being worried about the youngest children who were not displaying these prosocial behaviours; thus it may be that foster carers are underestimating their importance, or are reluctant to report on such behaviours. The observations made over so many assessments and the work carried out to explore potential issues with the assessments guide recommendations for future work in this area. It is clear that there is a need to repeat measures to assess change, and to conduct holistic assessments, so that findings might be clinically interpreted in a meaningful way. Despite difficulties in assessing children who enter foster care, the findings underscore the importance of early assessment. The study findings confirmed that this is a vulnerable group, with very complex needs. Even though all children are likely to be negatively affected by the disruption that is entailed in entering foster care, only a thorough assessment will be able to identify which children also have underlying problems that will require support and intervention in addition to the safe and nurturing foster care that they all require.

This PhD study explored the day to day lives of young people living in foster care in the United Kingdom. This study utilises Bourdieu’s (1986) conceptualisation of social capital, which has been described as a useful heuristic as it focuses on practices and processes (Morrow 1999) within networks. One of the original contributions of this thesis is its application of Bourdieu’s theory as an analytical framework to explore young people’s experiences of foster care. The study employed qualitative methods to gather rich, contextualised data. Ten young people, aged between twelve to fourteen years old, participated in the research and each of the participants were interviewed on two occasions. Findings are presented across three chapters and they highlight the ways young people in foster care both preserve and build their access to social capital. Firstly, this includes the ways in which the young people are actively engaged in practices to manage and preserve their relationships and as a result their access to social capital. Secondly, findings show that young people in foster care experience stigma by virtue of having the status of being ‘in- care’, and in order to minimise this, the young people actively managed their spoiled identity (Goffman 1968), which allowed them to maintain access to social capital. Thirdly, the findings show that despite the experience of disrupted networks and multiple placement moves, given the opportunity, the participants demonstrated their ability to persevere in their attempts to start again, which built their access to social capital. This thesis offers a particular utility for the discipline of social work, by providing a way of understanding and theorising how young people continually work, in both prosaic and at times heroic ways, to minimise the disruption to their relationships, networks and their subsequent access to social capital.

This thesis investigates attachment styles in alternative care (AC) - both residential (RC) and foster (FC). Part I presents two chapters to highlight the number of children living in AC and the general move from residential to foster care across many countries. Furthermore, chapter one noted the lack of studies in less developed countries and that no study considers attachment in foster, residential and parental care in the same country. Part II presents five empirical chapters. Chapter 3 explored attachment based practices and managers' beliefs in RC (N= 17), highlighting these were associated with outcomes for children. Chapters 4 and 5 explore the experience of carers in RC (N=43) and FC (N=l4), reporting the extent of carers' emotional involvement in their relationships with children. Chapter 6 reports attachment styles in children living in AC and parental care (N=77); differences in attachment quality and other outcomes were found between AC and parental care, but no significant differences were found between RC and FC. Chapter 7 explores factors associated with attachment in AC (N=57); caregivers' sensitivity, responsivity and affection, and child:caregiver ratios were linked to secure attachments. Chapter 8 provides a general discussion of the results, with implications for policy, practice and research.

While many countries in the West have been broadly pursing policies of deinstitutionalisation since the latter half of the 20th Century, orphanages remain the norm for many countries. Orphanage research has often tended to be conducted through a bio-psychological lens, and there remains little qualitative research to reveal the nuances of micro-scale practices taking place within these institutions. This thesis employs a multi-sited ethnography and explores the orphanage as a complex institution influenced by Soviet and Post-Soviet practices of childcare. In particular, this research draws upon an ethnography conducted in an orphanage for children with severe intellectual disabilities. The thesis considers the multiscalar nature of this institution and explores childhood mobilities, agency and elements of discipline and control within the institution, destabilising the notion of the orphanage as an environment of care. This research addresses significant empirical lacunae in human geography and studies of post-socialism through an ethnographic study of Russia's disability orphanages. This research also challenges understandings of mobility in children's geographies by drawing upon theories of coerced and disciplined mobility. Finally, in highlighting the vulnerability of these children, this thesis develops the concept of 'contingent agency' to provide a more nuanced understanding of agency in children's geographies.

This study was prompted by my feelings of ignorance and insecurity as a newly approved foster carer welcoming a traumatised five year old child in to our home. What I perceived to be an inadequate preparation for the everyday practicalities of fostering was exacerbated by the lack of communication between and amongst social workers and foster carers. Yet at study days, I observed that experienced foster carers appeared to have acquired a practice wisdom that I was lacking and unable to access. As a result, my initial questions were as follows. Do experienced foster carers acquire a tacit understanding of their practice in caring for vulnerable and possibly damaged children? Does this understanding relate to known theories in such a way that allows non-specialised or non-treatment foster care to provide a therapeutic intervention for Looked After and Accommodated Children? In order to structure this enquiry, I looked initially to Nussbaum’s (1997) Capabilities Approach, an approach that asks the question: ‘What is this person able to do and to be?’(Nussbaum 2011:21). I adapted this question to: ‘what is it that foster carers do and how can they make a difference in the lives of Looked After and Accommodated children?’. For an individual to use their capabilities to their fullest extent requires the cultivation of their ‘capacities’, namely critical self-examination, connectedness with the world, narrative imagination and scientific understanding, those qualities which enable a person to flourish (Nussbaum, 2011). I used these capacities to construct a conceptual framework for the study. In order to connect with the world of care for children, I conducted ten semi-structured interviews with foster carers and, from that data, I created narratives related to specific areas of care, some of which I had identified a priori and others which I derived from the data. These narratives are explored in relation to current policies and relevant research in an endeavour to identify themes, patterns and contradictions. From this exploration, the key themes of care and caring, aspects of recovery from trauma, and theories of human development, including those of attachment, resilience and well-being, were identified and explored. The narratives and their discussion raise further questions with regards to the moral, political and legal landscape of foster care, my personal positioning in regards to my role, current constructs of care and the potential therapeutic contribution of non-specialised foster carers. Finally, I propose a new form of preparation for foster carers, ‘Learning to Foster’ as a synthesis of my data, which includes recommendations from the National Foster Care Review (LACSIG, 2013). Concluding the study, I suggest that foster carers have the capacity to provide therapeutic interventions for Looked After and Accommodated Children, but that their capability to do so is reduced by the current practices of social work systems. In order to enhance the contributions that foster carers can make, I suggest that dialogue between foster carers, social workers and managers needs to occur and to be strengthened. With the understanding I have gained from undertaking this study, promoting that dialogue will be my next endeavour.

The educational achievement and well-being of looked after children are a priority nationally and locally. The majority of looked after children enter the care system due to abuse and neglect and foster care is the most common placement type (DfE, 2012). Early experience of abuse and neglect is associated with changes to development in the frontal brain regions resulting in executive function difficulty. Executive functions are a collection of interrelated but distinct functions with responsibility for purposeful, goal-directed, problem-solving behaviour (Gioia, Isquith, Guy, & Kenworthy, 2000). Evidence of neural plasticity in the prefrontal cortex suggests executive function development can be supported. The two main methods of support are computer based training, such as in working memory training which yields immediate gains but may not be sustained or generalised (Melby-Lervåg & Hulme, 2013) and ecological executive function interventions, which are promising but are mainly used with pre-school samples (Bryck & Fisher, 2012).Parental involvement in children’s education is promoted nationally (DCSF, 2008) and valued by carers (Cooper & Johnson, 2007). Consultations between carers and professionals can indirectly support fostered children (Osborne & Alfano, 2011) but few studies have evaluated the use of consultation to support executive function development in fostered children (Lansdown, Burnell, & Allen, 2007). A multiple case-study design, with embedded units of analysis, was adopted to qualitatively explore the implementation processes and outcomes of a school-based intervention that adapted conjoint behavioural consultation (CBC) (Sheridan & Kratochwill, 2007) to support executive function development of children in foster care. Both cases consisted of a school-aged fostered child, living in the north west of England, with prior experience of abuse and/or neglect. The participants across cases were two educators and three carers and data gathering consisted of semi-structured interviews and participant-observation. Data analysis utilised thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) and a cross-case analysis (Yin, 2009) identified common themes alongside themes pertinent to each case. The findings indicate that an adapted CBC retains the relational objectives which are received positively by participants but outcome objectives are more variable. The limitations of the study and the implications for educational psychologists, stakeholders, and future research are highlighted.

This thesis is concerned with the education of children in care. Its analytic focus is on ways in which children in public care are and have been constructed by knowledge and policies that are embedded in the discourses that surround them. A literature review of empirical research conducted in the UK concludes that the dominant research strands and epistemologic studies in this area have failed to allow foregrounding and exploration of children's own accounts of their experiences at school as children in care. Other literature concerning policy and historical contexts is considered within subsequent analytic chapters where a Foucauldian approach is adopted. The empirical work reported is of the content of interviews conducted in schools with 27 children and young people who were in foster care. A Foucauldian perspective allows consideration of the fashion whereby practices of surveillance and "the gaze" construct children by adults. The children's accounts are foregrounded in the data chapters where, firstly, their experiences of adults are explicated in terms of the three mechanisms of surveillance that Foucault identified. Adults' writings about the children, particularly within Records of Needs that had been opened to delineate the special educational needs of some of the children, are described and the fashions whereby these too construct the children, often negatively, are exposed. A sometimes overpowering sense of public intrusion into the children's private lives permeated their accounts but the final data chapter considers the ways they utilised their own agency sometimes as a struggle to resist the markers of difference experienced. Here again their own stories are given prominence. The implications of these accounts lead to suggestions about how changes to adults' practices in their dealings with children in care could be introduced in a range of settings including schools, the meetings held about children and educational psychologists' activities where, fundamentally, a need for adults to display more genuine respect to children and young people is required.