This paper focuses on qualitative findings on how young people in long-term foster care in Ireland interpret permanence and stability.

This paper explores how the principle of linked lives can illuminate our understanding of how relationships positively influence the educational journeys of adults with care experience over time.

This paper explores how the principle of linked lives can illuminate our understanding of how relationships positively influence the educational journeys of adults with care experience over time.

Guided by the life course principle of expected ‘diversity in life course trajectories’ this paper identifies the pathways taken through education among 18 care-experienced adults (aged 24–36) in Ireland and some of the experiences and events that influenced these pathways.

This paper sets out to explore why formal kinship care has emerged in such a marked way in recent decades by investigating the emergence and development of formal kinship care in two neighboring jurisdictions in Europe where it now accounts for a substantial proportion of all care placements in Scotland and Ireland.

The focus of this collection is the promise of public health approaches to child protection and welfare systems development and delivery, and this chapter from the book Re-Visioning Public Health Approaches for Protecting Children is a case study of what such an approach looks like in practice.

The Care Pathways and Outcomes Study is a longitudinal study following 374 children who were in care and under five years old on 31/3/2000 in Northern Ireland. The study followed where the young people ended up living, whether they returned to their birth parents, went into kinship or non-relative foster care, or were adopted.

According to this article from the Irish Times, "the standard of support being provided to hundreds of children in foster care who have moderate to severe disabilities continues to be a cause of concern, the Ombudsman for Children has said."

The paper presents findings from a study of centre-based supervised child-parent contact. The purpose of the research was twofold; to ascertain the views and experiences of birth fathers on all aspects of the supervised child-parent contact they experienced in a centre; to find out from centre supervisors their views of engaging fathers and supervising contact, and from key stakeholders and referral agents (a community project worker, a child protection social worker, Guardian ad Litems, a family law solicitor) their perceptions of the supervised contact provision in the centre.

This opinion piece from the Irish Times explores the high rates of children and young people with care experience within the criminal justice system in Ireland, the factors that contribute to this overrepresentation, the policies (or lack thereof) addressing this issue, and the need for more information and data collection on outcomes for children and young people in care.