Examining the complexity of Placement Stability in Residential Out of Home Care in Australia : how important is it for facilitating good outcomes for young people?

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Bollinger, Jenna (2017) Examining the complexity of Placement Stability in Residential Out of Home Care in Australia : how important is it for facilitating good outcomes for young people? Scottish Journal of Residential Child Care, 16 (2). ISSN 1478-1840

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Abstract

Just over 5% of young people in Out of Home Care (OOHC) in Australia live in residential care, which equated to approximately 2394 young people in the system in 2015. There is little research, however, that provides data on significant decision-making in residential care, such as the timing and number of placement changes. Research into foster care has established that generally worse outcomes are experienced for young people who have experienced placement instability. In a residential care setting, understanding placement stability is more complex because of subtle instabilities. These include: changing staff; changes to the co-residents; as well as shifts of the children themselves to a new house; the latter typically result from organisational decisions, or are a result of challenging behaviour by the young person, or towards them by another young person. This paper examines the current state of the literature, and identifies the need for further research and theorization on what constitutes placement stability and instability for a residential care cohort.

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