title: Identifying divergent foster care careers for Danish children.
abstract: Foster care children who experience placement disruption and foster care instability are at elevated risk for a host of poor outcomes, yet little work considers what these unstable foster care careers look like or what causes them. In this article, I start by using previous studies on foster care drift, instability, and placement disruptions to define the unstable foster care career as a subset of foster care careers. I then use administrative data on 30,239 Danish children born 1982-1987 who entered foster care to generate nine foster care careers, two of which meet the criteria for an unstable career. Children with a high number of risk factors associated with foster care entry were also the most likely to enter an unstable career. I end by discussing implications for recent studies of the effect of foster care on children's later life outcomes and the relevance of the findings for practitioners.
authors.affiliation: Rockwool Foundation Research Unit, Sølvgade 10, 2. Tv, DK-1307 Copenhagen C, Denmark; Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen C, Denmark.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Fallesen
mesh_terms: D017028:Caregivers / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D002652:Child Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003718:Denmark / Q000453:epidemiology; D005581:Foster Home Care / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D017421:Sequence Analysis; D013997:Time Factors
keywords: Administrative data; Foster care; Instability; Sequence analysis