Ambiguous loss of home: The experience of familial (im)permanence among young adults with foster care backgrounds

Achieving a stable family context for foster children—permanence—is the philosophy within which nearly all child welfare policy and practice is embedded. Although debates endure over defining permanence and the ideal pathways through which it should be achieved, this discourse rarely includes foster youth perspectives. This article presents findings from an interpretive study of 29 young adults who transitioned from foster care into adulthood without legal permanence. Findings extend ambiguous loss theory to conceptualize participants' experiences as an ambiguous loss of home, highlighting three patterns in the strategies used to manage familial impermanence: (1) creating a self-defined permanence, (2) rejecting adoption—navigating multifamilial memberships and allegiances, and (3) building permanence after foster care. Recommendations for policy, practice, and future research are offered, including a shift toward a multisystemic framework of permanence attending to both legal and relational definitions of family among youth in foster care.