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Let’s talk about love: Perceptions of children in residential care

2022; Elsevier BV; Volume: 140; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.childyouth.2022.106584

1873-7765

Carole Côté, Marie‐Ève Clément,

Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health

All children need sensitive adults who can respond to their needs and love them enough to develop their capacity to love in return. Yet, due to their past experiences of trauma and their insecure attachment representations, it may be more difficult for them to benefit from a restorative experience with adults. This study aimed to better understand the experience of children placed in out-of-home care following a maltreatment report to child protective services. Twenty children between 6 and 15 years of age placed in residential care were interviewed. Semi-structured interviews included questions about the place where they live and their feelings of being loved by the child workers who looked after them. Findings showed that the majority of the children did not conceive affection and love as being at the heart of the child workers’ role. The children’s representations of their experience with placement were positioned along two axes: physical anchorage relating to their placement setting and affective anchorage to the people looking after them. Based on their position on these two axes, the children were classified into four distinct groups: the adrift (no anchorage), the moored (physical anchorage), the interlaced (affective anchorage), and the rooted (double anchorage). Only a quarter of the children exhibited characteristics related to double anchorage. These findings could serve as a base to develop a tool to support reflection on the services offered to children in out-of-home care settings. This could help to broach the subject of their experience by going beyond the physical setting and by developing warm and stable relationships within that environment.