Young people in care have often very troubled educational paths. This is due to family difficulties, in particular abuse situations that lead to placement and that disrupt learning, the disadvantaged social background of their biological families, which has a negative impact on their schooling prior to placement, and the fact that they suffer from disabilities much more commonly than the average young person at the same age. These factors can be counterbalanced by placement in a foster family, who is involved in the children's schooling, inspire high aspirations in them and bring them up in a more privileged social environment than do their biological parents . In the case of residential placements, while some child protection professionals attach great importance to schooling, their expectations are often not very ambitious for these young people, who often struggle at school.
Whether in a foster family or in a residential placement, the institutional system, which forces young people to become financially independent at an early age, leads child protection professionals to steer them towards short education paths, supposedly to ensure their rapid integration into the workforce. As a result, young people in care are much more likely to have a NVQ-BETC (National Vocational Qualification-Business and Technology Education Council / CAP Certificat d'aptitude professionnelle-BEP Brevet d'études professionnelles) than other young people, and less likely to have no diploma than young people from the most economically deprived families. At the age of 20, more of them were working than other young people of their age. However, their jobs and their social classes are no different from those of other young people in work.
All in all, while placement partially restores the chances of academic and professional success, it does little to increase the probability of accessing higher education and obtaining a diploma conducive to upward social mobility. To remedy this, educational success should be made an explicit objective of placement, cooperation between the French Education Ministry and child protection services should be improved, and long-term statistical monitoring of young people in care should be introduced.
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