Locating “youth voice:” Considering the contexts of speaking in foster care

•Interest in “youth voice” in foster care has increased in recent decades.•Understanding “youth voice” must take account of relations of power.•Narratives of foster youth are used to examine the problematics of “youth voice.”

Within social services, an increasingly significant movement supports giving “voice” to children and youth, enabling them to express their views and to have those views taken into account in matters that affect them. In this article, the author draws from narratives of young people who grew up in foster care, examining stories of their efforts to impact the course of their own lives. The article explores the ways that very specific contexts and relationships of power shaped the utterances of young people in the foster care system and distorted, muted, or amplified their abilities to express their need and interests. This is a beginning attempt to identify ways that contexts of speaking in foster care can be understood and altered in order to strengthen the capacity of young people to voice their concerns and aspirations.