Research related to the living situation of care leavers particularly emphasises the disadvantages suffered by young people who have grown up in residential care (e.g. Courtney, Dworsky, Lee & Raap, 2010). In other words, care... [ view full abstract ]
Research related to the living situation of care leavers particularly emphasises the disadvantages suffered by young people who have grown up in residential care (e.g. Courtney, Dworsky, Lee & Raap, 2010). In other words, care leavers are specifically studied and constructed as a group in need of help and deserving support. This, in turn, is constitutive of social work in general (Scherr, 2013). Here, among other things, there needs to be a discussion of the structural conditions leading to or influencing these constructions and outcomes. That is not to say that young people in the youth welfare services are simply subjected to these conditions. Social work does not deal with passive beneficiaries but with “self-willed actors […] who are more than, and nothing like, puppets on the strings of their social circumstances” (Scherr, 2013: 230). They do not act in a vacuum; instead, their actions and, what is more, their agency, are embedded in social circumstances and structures. This interplay of action and structure is negotiated in debates on agency (Emirbayer & Mische, 1998) which can also be put into use in the context of social work (Scherr, 2013). This article picks up on the example of care leavers' social engagement to discuss the concept of agency, which can be conceptualised using the metaphor of “boundary work” (Schroer & Schweppe, 2013). The aim is to investigate how care leavers generate their individual agency by means of social engagement depending on their situatedness in social framework (structures, relationships, etc.).
In this article I will study this from a different viewpoint, examining young people in care and care leavers not (or not only) as in need of help, but as helpers; as socially involved young people doing their bit for others. Social engagement is particularly noticeable among young people with a relatively high level of education and among young people who have been introduced to forms of social engagement (Metz & Youniss, 2003). However, data from the collaborative research project “Higher Education without Family Support”, carried out from 2012–2014 by Israeli and German universities, reveal a wide range of heterogeneous processes of social engagement in the biographical narratives of the care leavers interviewed. The study sample consisted of 28 Israeli and German care leavers, aged 18-26, who had begun, were about to begin or had already finished higher education. The results show various ways of social engagement - some volunteer within their communities, some support members of their family of origin, and others integrated the idea of supporting others into their career choice. According to these young people, assuming a helper role provided a strong sense of purpose in life and contributed to their self-efficacy, social connectedness and ability to cope with their adverse past. Therefore, these supporting practices can be set out in relation with the discourse on agency outlined before. Social engagement gives the young people opportunities to see themselves as possessing agency as well as offering various aspects of social support – though care leavers are often denied the opportunity for social engagement (which brings in the issue of their situatedness within social structure). It is not only that there is a lack of low-threshold programmes and opportunities to become involved, but also that the youth welfare department itself does not have an idea of where or how young people in care could become helpers. Thus, finally, this article will find and name opportunities to provide young people in residential care with spaces for social engagement.
