Disposable lives

Canadian youth in care were interviewed as part of a study aimed to sensitize child welfare workers to the issues of youth in care. The nonrandomized convenience sample of seven males and twenty females was asked about their care experiences, issues facing youth in care, and for suggestions as to how child welfare workers might best support youth in care.

Interview transcripts were used as a case study to test key dimensions of a theoretical model relevant to regulated care settings that related to: i) language, ii) interpersonal relations, iii) institutional relations, and iv) disciplinary practices. A multi-layered critical discourse analysis of the interview content identified three core themes: a disposable life; a regulated reality, and; a stained identity.

This paper presents a sub-analysis of the theme, a disposable life. Mirroring the nested approach to discourse analysis used in the original case study, the sections of the interview text related to a disposable life were examined in detail under the four dimensions of the theoretical model. Youth in care reported feeling powerless, invisible, frequently disappointed, like a "case," and discarded once out of care. The authors recommend child welfare workers actively involve youth in the care process, maintain consistent contact, elicit youths' perspectives, provide them information, ally and advocate on their behalf, and support them in forming long-term, secure and genuine relationships.