An interesting topic came up at a webinar on Children in Alternative Care I attended during the Eurochild Member Days in June: the effects of lockdown on children in foster care. In various countries, surveys have been held to find out how children in foster care were coping with the lockdown. Some of the results were expected, some less so.
It came as no surprise that the survey showed that a group of children in foster care were struggling with mental health and behavioural issues as a result of the lockdown. With life-changing completely, overnight, and with so many uncertainties about how long and what will be next, stress builds. Some children are reliving things that remind them of traumatic experiences in their past. It is important that attention is paid to these problems and that proper support is provided to these children to help them cope.
However, what was unexpected is that there is also a significant group of foster children who are thriving now that they do not need to go to school. Being able to do their schoolwork at home, removes a lot of stress connected to their experiences in school. And for children who have issues with attachment, getting to spend more time together with their foster family is helping them develop a stronger bond with them.
In one of the discussion groups at the webinar, a participant who had been in care as a child himself shared that this did not really surprise him at all. In his experience, a lot of placement breakdowns in his life had been connected to problems at school. He also mentioned that having to go to a new school within days of having been placed in a new foster family – and then having the spend most of the day away from that family – added significantly to the stress of a new placement.
Considering the results of the survey that show that a group of children do better not going to school, he wondered whether it might not be better to provide the option of a few months of homeschooling when a child has been placed in a new foster family and seems to need it. This would give a chance to settle into the family, deal with issues connected to what came before, and start to develop a bond with the new family, before having to face the stress of also having to fit into the new environment at school.
I believe this is something that deserves serious thought. Because if not pushing foster children straight into a new school helps prevent placement breakdowns and stabilises the child’s situation, in the end, it is going to not only benefit the child’s mental health and outlook, it is also going to help him perform better in school.
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