Navigating Relationships With Birth Family After Aging Out of Foster Care: Experiences of Young People

As young people age out of foster care, many seek out their birth parents and extended families, but little is known about how these connections are navigated given past separations. Drawing from data previously collected from young people who aged out of foster care in a metropolitan area of one Western state (n = 57), this study analyzed the responses from 53 young adults between the ages of 18 and 22 who answered two open-ended questions about (a) reconnecting with birth families after foster care and (b) the nature of their current relationships with their biological parents. A three-step analytic process searched for themes in the data and distilled three groups: (a) Reconnected and navigating a relationship (n = 36; 68%), (b) Always connected and in a relationship (n = 8; 15%), and (c) Not connected and not interested in a relationship (n = 9; 17%). Implications for practice and recommendations for future research are offered.