Care-Leavers’ Views on Their Preparation for Leaving Residential Care in South Africa

General remarks: The authors write the terms “leaving-care” and “care-leaver” throughout the study. The hyphen between the two words is rather uncommon for me, as most studies so far report on “leaving care” and “care leaver”. I therefore suggest rewriting the whole manuscript using the latter terms in their study as well.

Thank you for your feedback. However, the use of a hyphen for ‘care-leaving’ is commonly used, e.g., it appears in the titles of articles authored by well-known care-leaving authors such as Waugh (2023), Refaeli (2022), Angehel (2021), and Collins (2021). We therefore prefer to retain the hyphenated term, as care-leaver refers to a person and care-leaving to a process.

The authors conclude that “building youths’ capacity for interdependence” is an important preparation for leaving care. However, I think the authors should carefully rewrite this throughout the manuscript. I think that care leavers should be prepared for self-empowered living, meaning that they master their own life with a job, finances, relationships, and all other administrative tasks falling into adulthood. However, they should be prepared for getting support from persons standing next to them (social support), because care leavers can be reluctant for support and services after leaving care – although they often might need it. Please rephrase similar conclusions throughout the whole manuscript accordingly.

Thank you for your interesting suggestion regarding self-empowered living. We think it is an innovative concept. However, this term is not used in the large body of literature on care-leaving. The predominant terms are ‘independent living’ or ‘interdependent living’. The latter term has become increasingly used in recent years, following the publication by Storø in 2018, e.g., Moodley et al., 2020; Starr et al., 2024; Doucet, 2022, and Collins, 2015. Because interdependence links closely with the African concept of Ubuntu, we prefer to retain this term. Interdependence is explicated in the last paragraph of the theoretical framework section.

Abstract: The authors state that “The study is framed in resilience theory, to identify the interactional processes that facilitate better-than-expected outcomes.” It is however unclear in the abstract, what the resilience theory is and what “better-than-expected outcomes” refer to. I suggest clarifying what the “better-than-expected outcomes” refer to. Please rephrase this sentence according to the goal of the study.

The abstract has a very limited word count, which does not allow for an explanation of the theory. We point the reviewer to the 1^st paragraph of the theoretical framework section, where the resilience theory is introduced. The term ‘better-than-expected outcomes’ is well used by international resilience scholars, such as Luthar et al. (2015), Liebenberg et al. (2020), and Holtge & Ungar (2022). In this manuscript, the term is explained in the 2^nd paragraph of the theoretical framework section.

Introduction: The introduction needs to be restructured as there are content-related repetitive parts. For example, lines 30-31 and 45-48, and the Literature Review and Theoretical Framework sections.

Thank you for your insightful comment.

In the introduction, we have moved the last sentence of the 1^st paragraph to be the first sentence of paragraph 4. We deleted the second sentence of paragraph 3 of the introduction and retained it in paragraph 4 of the literature review. We deleted the 6^th sentence in paragraph 5 and retained it in paragraph 10 of the literature review. We moved the 6^th sentence in paragraph 5 to paragraph 10 of the literature review. We deleted the 1^st sentence of paragraph 5 and retained it in paragraph 8 of the literature review.

Regarding the literature review, we restructured the 1^st paragraph of the We deleted the 2^nd sentence of the 11^th paragraph to paragraph 10.

In the theoretical framework, we deleted the 1^st paragraph and retained it in the 2^nd paragraph of the introduction. We deleted the 1^st sentence of the 3^rd paragraph and retained it in paragraph 8 of the literature review. We deleted sentences 2 and 3 of paragraph 3 and retained them in paragraph 5 of the introduction.

The literature review of existing studies on care leavers is incomplete as a vast number of studies on care leavers have been conducted in Central Europe, Nordics, and the US. I suggest that they extend their literature review and include a broader amount of prior study findings from different countries as well in their introduction. Particularly for “unemployment” (e.g., line 109) and educational outcomes, important work has been conducted in the Nordics so far which should be considered.

Thank you for the comment. We endeavoured for the literature review to be inclusive of many studies from different countries, but due to the vast number studies on care leavers, we could unfortunately not exhaust all existing literature in this study. We have however already included literature from Australia, Italy, the UK, the US, and Canada.

Methodology: The authors should explain what the different forms of institutions (CYCC and NGO CYCC, lines 215-216) mean and describe the form of these two types of institutions to the broader audience of readers and for those who are not familiar with it.

We have added this clarification of the types of institutions in South Africa, as follows: This study was conducted with care-leavers from residential care facilities, referred to in South Africa as Child and Youth Care Centres (CYCC). Participants were sampled from three Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) CYCCs and one state-run CYCC in the Gauteng province of South Africa.

Can the authors please link the recruitment strategy with the explanation of the “two staged sampling approach” (e.g., lines 225-228 with lines 229 and 230) directly? I feel that it is not clear to the reader as it is described now.

Good suggestion. Thank you very much. Regarding the recruitment strategy in the methodology section: We moved the sentence about the sampling criteria in 4^th paragraph to paragraph 6. In addition, we restructured the 1^st sentence of paragraph 6 and replaced the words stage one in the same paragraph for the sentence to read as follows: During the purposive sampling stage…

We rephrased the last sentence of paragraph 6 for the sentence to read as follows: Nine participants were recruited during the purposive sampling stage.

We rephrased paragraph 6 to read as follows: Participants recruited during the purposive sampling stage recruited additional care-leavers through snowball sampling. During snowball sampling, permission was obtained from potential participants…Eight participants were recruited during the snowball sampling stage.

The authors state that included participants were between the ages of 19 and 28 years (lines 244-245). However, in the introduction they wrote that young people can be in care until the age of 21 (lines 45-48). Can the authors please explain in their study why they included participants older than 21 years in their study, nevertheless?

Our study is about care-leavers, i.e. those who have left care, not about young people still in care. Care-leavers are defined as young people who have left care. Ordinarily in South Africa, young people leave care at the end of their 18^th year, as stated in paragraph 4 of the introduction. Thus, participants in our study are aged 19 and older.

The interviews were conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic (line 248) and, therefore, I think that the answers might have been biased to some degree due to the general pandemic situation (especially regarding social connectedness). Did the authors consider the before/after of the pandemic when asking the interview questions (i.e., how was it before the pandemic)? Please consider this as a limitation/discussion point later, as well.

Thank you for this valuable input. We’ve added this as a limitation. We refer the Reviewer to the limitations section of the revised manuscript.

The authors state that they “dropped concepts irrelevant to the aim of this study” (line 260). Why did the authors do that? Because all topics that arise during the interview might have been worth mentioning and it might strengthen the researcher's bias in turn. Please explain.

The input is noted with thanks. A number of insightful themes emerged from participant responses. However, we reported on comments closely linked to the aim of this study. Concepts not closely linked to achieving the aim of this study, were for example: feelings associated when removed from parental- to alternative care, feelings experienced in care after being removed from parental care, etc. We thus rephrased the last sentence of paragraph 8 of the methodology section to read as follows: We clustered similar concepts. While all participant responses were significant, we reported on comments most germane to the purpose of this paper and studied them in more detail.

Member checking was conducted to enhance trustworthiness” (lines 266-267): What does this sentence mean, especially what does “member” refer to? Please clarify.

Member checking is one common method of building the trustworthiness and rigour of qualitative research. It involves sharing the transcripts or results of the study with participants, to ensure alignment between the participants (members) and researchers. Thus, “members” in this study were the participants. They were given the opportunity to confirm the accuracy of their transcripts. We have added a citation in paragraph 9 of the methodology section to support this term.

Findings. The authors begin their findings section that “two major themes emerged from the data” (lines 281-283). I think that the questions of the interview were already conceptualized such as that they capture these two themes and that the interview questions were not “open-ended”. So, I think that this is not new knowledge that emerged from the analysis. I suggest rephrasing this part of the findings or clarifying it in the methodology if needed.

Many themes emerged from this study, such as those mentioned above in our response to the question: why we dropped certain concepts. Further examples of themes not closely linked to the aim of this study were: the reasons why care-leavers were removed from their parents, how they coped with their removal, etc. Therefore, the authors selected themes that were appropriate to achieving the aim of this study and that could meaningfully be presented within the limitations of a journal article.

I think it would be helpful for the reader to get an overview of the themes and subthemes in a table and list there how many participants answered which (sub)themes. Please consider providing such a table and including it in the manuscript or supplementary material. Another option would be to provide the number of quotations across the questions/themes in a (bar)plot.

We provide the two main themes in the 1^st paragraph of the findings section (section 5). Then, in the two subsections (5.1 and 5.2), we provide the subthemes under each of those themes. So, we do give the reader an overview of themes and subthemes.

We appreciate that a count of responses might be helpful, however, it is contradicted by the qualitative research approach, which focuses on the texts and not on the frequency of reporting. Counts of responses would be appropriate in content analysis, but are not appropriate to the grounded theory methods of analysis that we used. We therefore must decline this suggestion.

Discussion: The authors mention the Possible Me Tree model (lines 481-483) as a possible tool to help care leavers identify and build supportive relationships. Is this a therapeutic model/intervention or a model that might be implemented within social work in the institution? Please explain this more in detail and in which way the authors think this model might benefit care leavers as they mention this model later in the conclusions (line 596) again.

Thank you for seeking clarity on the mentioned model. We have included a brief explanation about how the proposed model could be used in paragraph 4 of the discussions.

Lines 495-506: As mentioned in one of my general remarks above, I think the authors should rephrase the fact that “interdependence” should be fostered among care leavers – I feel that they mean they should be prepared from a systemic perspective (e.g., being embedded in a socially supportive network, that they can accept and take social support when needed, get emotional support, etc.) rather than being “interdependent” on others per se.

Thank you for the suggestion. However, for reasons mentioned in the 2^nd paragraph of the introduction, we believe care-leavers, especially in cases where family support is completely absent, initially rely on interdependent living until they become self-reliant. Therefore, we unfortunately have to decline the suggestion.

The acronym MOI (“managed opportunities for independence”) (lines 526-527) is rather uncommon and I suggest just deleting the acronym and writing the full term throughout the paper. It rather irritates the reader.

Thank you very much. We have written MOI out in full each time.

Limitations: I think that the findings might not only be not generalized due to the small sample size, but also due to the different legislations and system-related factors across countries.

Thank you for this insight. We have incorporated this suggestion into the limitations.

Lastly, there are some studies in the US and other countries that explored the effectiveness of extended care (e.g., Mark Courtney and colleagues) which might be included in the implications and what this might mean for the results of the present study.

We have incorporated additional citations to the two citations to Courtney’s work on leaving care that we already have.

This article aims to better understand the preparation for leaving care of care leavers at the end of their 18th year in South Africa. The research is based on a qualitative research design (semi-structured interviews with 17 care leavers), developed and implemented in a participatory (with care leavers) and collaborative (with four governmental and nongovernmental organizations) perspective. The interest of this article lies in highlighting the particularities of leaving care, and its preparation, in the South African context, whereas the international literature on care leavers has long been dominated by work from countries in the global North. Moreover, the analysis of care leavers’ voices and experiences of placement settings is consistent with the need for an understanding of young people's perspectives on the services and policies that affect them. Despite the interest of the study presented, several shortcomings need to be addressed.

Thank you for your precis of the article.

Firstly, with regard to the problematization and literature review, it is unclear whether preparation for leaving care has already been studied in South Africa, and what is already known about it.

We have strengthened the problematisation of the study in the second last paragraph of the introduction, which we highlight the recent findings regarding preparation for leaving care in South Africa (generally negative results), and benchmarked this briefly against international literature.

The literature review should further highlight existing knowledge on the issue, on the one hand, in the South African context, to emphasize the study's contribution to the national literature; and, on the other hand, at international level, to indicate the contribution of this new study in a context of significant international production on the lack of preparation for leaving care (the authors refer to INTRAC’s work).

Moreover, it would be relevant to emphasize the weight of national contexts in understanding the particularities of young people's transition to adulthood and support needs, drawing in particular on literature in the sociology of youth; this will reinforce the study's relevance.

Thank you for this insightful comment. We’ve restructured the 1^st paragraph of the literature review. We also restructured paragraphs 3 & 4 of the literature review. This restructuring was necessary for a smooth flow of the literature review from mentioning work done by INTRAC in paragraph 1, to highlighting an international review of the literature on care-leaving, then narrowing it down to the South African context.

We have not only restructured the 2^nd paragraph, but also restructured the content to highlight existing care-leaving knowledge nationally and internationally, and to emphasize the contribution of this study to the growing body of care-leaving research, particularly concerning preparation for care-leaving.

At the end of the literature review, it will be necessary to add a short paragraph explaining what we know/don't know about the subject of the article, what is missing from the literature reviewed, and the objective of the article that stems from these elements

We’ve added a summative paragraph at the end of the literature.

It is surprising not to find, among the literature reviewed, Adrian Van Breda's work, which is central to the transition to adulthood of care-leavers in South Africa.

Thank you, we have incorporated several of Van Breda’s publications.

It is not clear whether the second part of the “Theoretical framework” section is another part of the literature review, since it returns to an understanding of the literature on the skills and abilities to be acquired in preparation for leaving care (so why put it in the Theoretical framework section?).

Thank you, we agree that our attempt to illustrate resilience theory in relation to care-leaving resulted in a duplication of material in the literature review. We have deleted the 1^st 3 sentences of paragraph 3 of the theoretical framework section and relocated them to paragraph 8 of the literature review.

A short box or paragraph could be introduced to describe the South African child welfare system and the challenges specific to this context in terms of transition to adulthood, especially as the authors indicate in the conclusion that there is “numerous legal and policy framework”. This will help contextualize the study.

Thank you for this progressive comment. We’ve included a summative paragraph about the South African childcare and protection legislative mandates as the second paragraph of the literature review.

The authors state that they conducted participatory and collaborative research, but very little is known about how this was operationalized for the participatory part.

We don’t find any reference in our manuscript to the research being participatory and collaborative. In fact, you the reviewer introduced this notion in your first paragraph of feedback to us, viz. “…developed and implemented in a participatory (with care leavers) and collaborative (with four governmental and nongovernmental organizations) perspective”. We appreciate this comment, but as you note, this is not operationalized in the paper, because we had not intentionally set out to the participative and collaborative, beyond what you have noted.

What were the inclusion criteria for the sample? They are mentioned but never detailed

The inclusion criteria were mentioned in the last sentence of paragraph 4 of the methodology section, viz. “The criteria for sampling were that care-leavers should have been in care for at least 12 months and should have left care between one and 10 years before data collection”.

The authors also explain their process of analysis anchored in a grounded theorizing approach; yet they previously indicate having a theoretical framework on resilience: what coherence is there between both indications?

We think the reviewer may have misread our references to grounded theory. In the two mentions, we specify that we used GT methods of data analysis. The study did not use a full GT research design.

In terms of results, several interesting themes emerge. It will be necessary to add more material in this area, for example, by contextualizing the reported statements with individual life courses and situations, so that we can understand the life course into which they fit. In addition, the authors could further develop the analyses carried out, to enrich the results, which for the time being remain rather descriptive of the participants’ quotes reported

This was done briefly before direct participant quotes of some participants, but not with all participants, for example, in the 3^rd sentence of section 5.1.1, we indicated Tshepiso’s situation by saying: not having parents and knowing he would soon be released into the big city… In the 1^st sentence of paragraph 2 of the same section, we indicated that Nkosinathi was grateful for being removed from [in his words] “a completely terrible situation”. We have expanded the contexts and interpretation of the quotations where feasible.

In addition, the relevance of certain themes is questionable, insofar as many of them are based on a few elements or are poorly supported across all the interviews. More specifically to these different elements, in section 5.1.1, what is supportive in the social relationships put forward? How does this relate to preparation for leaving care in connection with the work of social workers, as problematized in the literature review?

This comment is noted with thanks. We’ve expanded the explanation of what the man from the church did to support Nkosinathi in relation to care-leaving preparation. Specifically, the man both provided support for a prolonged period (3 years), and also enabled peer-to-peer support, by sponsoring a friend of Nkosinathi to live with him.

How do the authors differ from the elements reported in 5.1.2 on the mobilising network, which also mentions the question of social relations? This will reinforce the validity of the themes identified.

We agree that the mobilising networks are not sufficiently differentiated from supportive relationships and have removed this. We have rather emphasised the agency support (from the childcare facility) and early workplace exposure as the enablers of preparation for leaving care. We acknowledge that this was a single case, and have noted this and emphasised the potential value of such initiatives.

The authors will also need to better demonstrate the extent to which the themes go beyond the situation of a single person: some (too) short sections are based on the quote of a single participant, which calls into question the relevance of the theme identified (e.g., sections 5.1.2 and 5.1.8). In general, short sections (e.g., 5.1.6; 5.1.8) should be explored in greater depth.

It is unfortunately that most of the positive comments about preparation for leaving care are isolated and individualised. We have noted this in the introduction to section 5.2 (formerly section 5.1.3). Even though only one person had early exposure to the workplace, we believe this n=1 example provides a helpful instance of how agencies could help prepare young people for leaving care. We have clarified this in section 5.1.2, as noted above. We’ve also added participant quotations to 5.1.6 and 5.1.8 (which should be 5.2.3 and 5.2.4).

In section 5.1.5, the idea of overprotection is better demonstrated, with the example of Nomasonto: we don't necessarily understand, with the interview quote, why permission was not granted

We’ve rephrased the introduction to Nomasonto’s frustration with being overprotected, that despite her following the correct internal procedure to visit friends in the place of safety, permission was still not granted.

As for Lexie's quote, this time there's nothing to explain why her reaction is linked to overprotection; it could well be linked to supervision and confinement (Lexie talks about freedom). This raises the question of how to interpret the results here.

Thank you. We have revised the linking of the two quotations and strengthened the introduction to Lexie’s quote.

Section 5.1.7 deals with inadequate preparation for leaving care. But don't the other sections also deal with preparation for leaving care? Why a specific theme on this issue, when it is the cross-cutting subject of the study, to which each of the sub-sections contributes? The title could therefore be reworded to better characterize the specific content of this section and what distinguishes it from the other results.

This is a good observation and suggestion, thank you. We deleted the section about inadequate preparation for care-leaving and moved the quotation about Lorenzo to the section that talks about the lack of support with schoolwork, to support the single quotation under lack of support with schoolwork, as both quotations speak to lack of support with schoolwork (section 5.2.3).

The remaining content has been themed as “lack of community integration”.

The section on the family could also be integrated into the following section 1.5.8.

Suggestion noted with thanks. We moved the quotation about parents not being prepared … Section 5.2.5.

Finally, doesn't Lorenzo's quote contradict the idea of a lack of support for schooling put forward in section 5.1.6? These various elements call into question the relevance of the analytical themes put forward.

We think that Lorenzo’s comment clearly shows a lack of support for schooling by the social worker. Nevertheless, we agree that the placement was not right and have moved it to 5.2.3. Kindly refer to our response to the reviewer’s comment two rows above and section 5.2.3 of the revised manuscript.

Finally, the article's discussion returns to the theoretical framework of resilience, which seems to have been little used in the analysis, especially as the authors indicate that they have adopted a grounded theorizing approach. Resilience is discussed here mainly in terms of the literature, but not in direct discussion with the results. This should be done; otherwise, resilience should not be announced as the theoretical framework.

Thank you for this observation. We have opened the discussion with a reflection on the resilience theory which guided the study, but which did not much materialise in the participant quotations.

The discussion announces that particular elements have been brought to light by the study, whereas they have not always been presented in the results section: this is the case with the question of exposure to work during placement, or with the idea that research participants have suggested their investment in preparation initiatives to be promoted to ensure their effectiveness.

Thank you for alerting us to this. We have worked carefully through the discussion to ensure that our discussions are rooted in the evidence presented, and linked meaningfully to relevant literature.

Generally speaking, the originality and contribution to the literature of the study carried out remain little put forward and need to be better demonstrated. This should be reworked once the literature review has better identified what is missing in the literature and what the present research addresses. The article is nonetheless of interest, and these proposed adjustments will help to bring out its original contribution more clearly.

We hope that the revisions to the findings, discussion and implications help to foreground the original contribution of this paper.