Home or care? A comparison of education experience and outcomes for maltreated children

It is widely considered that educational outcomes for children in care are generally poor. However, although the gap in attainment at age 16 has been documented, less attention has been paid to the educational outcomes of... [ view full abstract ]

It is widely considered that educational outcomes for children in care are generally poor. However, although the gap in attainment at age 16 has been documented, less attention has been paid to the educational outcomes of younger children, on entry and during the first few years of formal school.  In addition, most studies to date have been unable to disentangle the effects of being in care from the impact of the difficult experiences (in most cases, abuse or neglect) that led to their admission, and have instead tended to compare outcomes to those for the general population. 

This longitudinal, mixed-methods study (2014-2016) was based on a large sample of children (n=390) who experienced maltreatment before the age of 8, and aimed to investigate whether children who enter care do better or worse than children with similar backgrounds and histories who remain at home, supervised under a Child Protection Plan.  Educational outcomes included a standardised measure of receptive vocabulary (the British Picture Vocabulary Scale), and measures from the National Pupil Database (scores from assessments at ages 4-8 in primary schools in England).  This was linked to administrative data on care placements and child protection plans; data from follow-up interviews with parents and foster carers; and data from a survey of social workers.

The results show that whilst, on average, our sample of children performed less well on tests of receptive vocabulary and early educational performance than children in the wider population, when we compared children in out-of-home care to maltreated children who remained at home on a child protection plan, we found no significant differences.  This suggests that poorer language development and educational performance were at least partially due to the histories of maltreatment and family difficulty they shared with maltreated children, and unlikely to result from their placement in care.