The Emotional Nature of Birth Family Relationships for Care-experienced and Adopted Young People: A Longitudinal Perspective

Montserrat Fargas Malet; Dominic Mc Sherry

doi:10.1177/0192513X20978439

The Emotional Nature of Birth Family Relationships for Care-experienced and Adopted Young People: A Longitudinal Perspective

Montserrat Fargas Malet, Dominic Mc Sherry

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

206 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Research focused on relationships and contact with birth family for children
and young people who were separated from them as infants has rarely
acknowledged the emotional and dynamic nature of such interactions.
Curiosity has been dominant in adoption research. However, in our
longitudinal study of young people who entered care at a young age, a
range of other feelings and combination of feelings emerged in the youths’
narratives, including contentment and mixed feelings such as anger, affection,
loss, guilt, or worry. Type of placement, that is, whether the young people
had been adopted, lived with kinship foster carers or non-relative foster
parents, did not determine their emotional reactions to their birth family.
The young people’s perspectives and emotions often changed over time. In
this article, we describe the young people’s emotional responses to birth
family, and highlight implications for theory, research, and practice

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	2263-2288
Number of pages	26
Journal	Journal of Family Issues
Volume	42
Issue number	10
Early online date	16 Dec 2020
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513X20978439
Publication status	Published (in print/issue) - 1 Oct 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: A grant to fund Wave 4 of the study was provided by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) in the UK.

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2020.

Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

Keywords

emotions
birth family
contact
adoption
care experienced
longitudinal
Social Sciences (miscellaneous)
longitudinal research
care-experienced young people
family relationships

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1177/0192513X20978439

Journal Family Issues paper Fargas Malet and McSherry 2020Final published version, 139 KBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "The Emotional Nature of Birth Family Relationships for Care-experienced and Adopted Young People: A Longitudinal Perspective",

abstract = "Research focused on relationships and contact with birth family for childrenand young people who were separated from them as infants has rarelyacknowledged the emotional and dynamic nature of such interactions.Curiosity has been dominant in adoption research. However, in ourlongitudinal study of young people who entered care at a young age, arange of other feelings and combination of feelings emerged in the youths{\textquoteright}narratives, including contentment and mixed feelings such as anger, affection,loss, guilt, or worry. Type of placement, that is, whether the young peoplehad been adopted, lived with kinship foster carers or non-relative fosterparents, did not determine their emotional reactions to their birth family.The young people{\textquoteright}s perspectives and emotions often changed over time. Inthis article, we describe the young people{\textquoteright}s emotional responses to birthfamily, and highlight implications for theory, research, and practice",

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The Emotional Nature of Birth Family Relationships for Care-experienced and Adopted Young People: A Longitudinal Perspective

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

UN SDGs

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Dominic Mc Sherry

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The Emotional Nature of Birth Family Relationships for Care-experienced and Adopted Young People: A Longitudinal Perspective

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

UN SDGs

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Fingerprint

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Dominic Mc Sherry

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