Parenting Support for Mothers Raised in Out‐Of‐Home Care

ABSTRACT Research and social indicators consistently confirm that young people who exit statutory out‐of‐home care (OOHC) tend to remain socially and economically disadvantaged through young adulthood. The present article reports findings from a qualitative study of the perceived parenting support needs of eight mothers (aged 17–30 years) who had spent some or much of their childhood in OOHC in Aotearoa New Zealand. Four superordinate themes (as well as several sub‐themes) were identified from participant interviews, using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), namely (1) ‘The influence of upbringing on mothers' supports’, (2) ‘Obtaining support: Experiences and opinions’, (3) ‘Barriers to receiving support’ and (4) ‘Seeking, accepting and benefitting from support can be complicated’. Mothers generally reported difficulty in locating and accessing appropriate parenting support services. However, they also reported considerable fear and uncertainty when engaging with parenting services that were mandated by the child protection agency—which in Aotearoa New Zealand is also the statutory OOHC agency. Mothers with care backgrounds require specialized parenting support as part of their OOHC after‐care support plans, which is responsive to their lack of parenting experience and normative role models and is independent of the statutory child protection agency.