Separation and psychosocial challenges of parents with children in foster care

Marina Lalayants and Inga Saitadze

Children and Youth Services Review, 2025, vol. 171, issue C

Abstract: Parents of children placed in out-of-home care experience intense loss followed by prolonged grief that often goes unrecognized and unvalidated by the public. Child removal frequently exacerbates parents’ pre-existing mental health issues, fostering dependence on unhealthy copying strategies and intensifying feeling of isolation and loneliness due to a lack of social support. This qualitative study explored the psychosocial challenges faced by parents after the removal of their children. The sample comprised 38 parents, including mothers and fathers, whose children had been placed in foster care. Through in-depth semi-structured interviews, parents shared their experiences following the child removal process. Analysis of the interview data found that child removal constituted a profoundly traumatic experience for these parents, highlighting parents’ experiences of loss, suffering, hopelessness, disenfranchised grief. Such experiences and consequent challenges associated with the removal could lead to an increased isolation, depression, loneliness, loss of identity, and a broken connection with their children. These findings underscore the need for support for parents working toward reunification that considers such experiences and to promote overall parental well-being.

Keywords: Child welfare; Foster care; Removal; Separation; Trauma; Grief (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740925000635
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:171:y:2025:i:c:s0190740925000635

DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2025.108180

Access Statistics for this article

Children and Youth Services Review is currently edited by Duncan Lindsey

More articles in Children and Youth Services Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().