Does anyone know what is going on? Examining children's lived experience of the transition into foster care

Twenty children, ages 8 to 15, participated in a hermeneutic phenomenological study which examined children's lived experience of the initial placement into foster care. Using the sensitizing frameworks of life transition (Cowan, 1991) and cognitive appraisal theory (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), the analyses identified two primary transactions resulting from the foster care transition: the apprehension transaction and foster home placement transaction. Five main events and six domains of ambiguity were elicited from children's reports of the foster care transition. The implications of these findings and suggestions for future research are provided.