The Project
Research to understand what stability means for children in care, how stable care experiences are established and maintained, why children’s circumstances sometimes change, and how policy and practice can support positive and coherent care journeys.
Stability is an important part of children’s experience of care. Having consistent relationships, familiar places and dependable adults can help children feel safe, secure and supported. At the same time, change is not necessarily harmful. Some moves between placements, or other changes in a child’s life, may be necessary or may represent positive steps towards a more suitable or permanent arrangement.
This means that understanding stability is more complicated than simply counting the number of placement moves a child experiences. A child may remain in the same placement while experiencing changes in important relationships, education or other aspects of their life. Conversely, a planned move may help a child achieve greater security, continuity or permanence.
The Enhancing Care Stability: Hadley Research Initiative aims to build a stronger evidence base about what stability means for children in care, how it is established and maintained, why different care trajectories develop, and how stability can be better supported through policy and practice.
The research will bring together four sources of knowledge: research evidence, professional knowledge, the experiences of children and young people and foster carers, and local authority administrative data. The initial study will be undertaken in partnership with a local authority and will provide the foundation for a future programme of research across more local authorities.
A particular focus of the initial study will be the establishment of children’s care trajectories. We will explore what happens between a child’s entry to care and their arrival in a more enduring or planned placement, including the decisions, relationships, information and support that shape this period. We will then examine how trajectories develop subsequently: how placements remain stable or become fragile, how difficulties are managed, why some changes lead to greater stability while others contribute to cumulative instability, and how important relationships can be maintained through change.
Working with children, foster carers and professionals
Children and young people with care experience, foster carers and social workers will be actively involved in the research. Their experiences and expertise are essential to understanding what stability means in practice and identifying aspects of stability and change that may not be visible in administrative data.
Through workshops, interviews and focus groups, we will explore how different groups understand stability, how children’s care trajectories are established and experienced, where perspectives converge or differ, and what might make the greatest difference to children’s experiences.
Using administrative data to understand patterns and trajectories
We will examine what existing local authority data can tell us about children’s experiences of stability and change, including patterns of placement changes and longer-term care trajectories. We will undertake exploratory analysis of children’s trajectories from entry to care and explore how the sequence and timing of placements, transitions and other changes relate to subsequent stability.
We will also consider what important aspects cannot currently be captured and the potential for local data to be used more effectively to identify emerging concerns and support better decision-making.
Key research questions
The research will explore four overarching questions:
- What does stability mean for children in care?
How do children, young people, foster carers and professionals understand stability? What different forms of continuity and permanence matter to children? How well do existing measures capture these different dimensions?
- How are children’s care trajectories established and subsequently developed?
What happens between entry to care and arrival in a more enduring or planned placement? What decisions, relationships, processes and circumstances shape this period? Does it represent a distinctive phase of trajectory establishment, and how does it relate to subsequent stability and change?
- How is stability created, maintained and disrupted?
What factors and processes influence whether placements and relationships remain stable? What happens when difficulties emerge? Why do some placements adapt and continue while others disrupt? When do planned changes contribute to greater stability, and when do changes contribute to cumulative instability?
- What can be done to enhance stability over time?
What can children, carers, social workers, local authorities and wider systems do to support stable and positive care experiences? How can emerging instability be identified earlier? How can necessary changes be managed in ways that preserve important relationships and support children’s longer-term stability?
Additional Information
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