(Photo by Dai Phong on Unsplash)Lived Experiences of Young People after They Leave Care
Homes/ Centres to Live Independently in Vietnam
FINAL REPORT
Submitted to International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW)
Prepared by:
Hoa Thi Nguyen 1, MSW, Ph.D.
Robert Gilligan 2, M.A.
Nga Hanh Do 3, Ph.D., M.A.

February 8, 2022

Senior Lecturer, Unitec Institute of Technology
Professor, Trinity College Dublin
3
Associate Professor, Ho Chi Minh University of Social Sciences and Humanities
12

Table of Contents
Executive Summary & Acknowledgement .................................................................................................... 3
Background ...................................................................................................................................................... 5
Implementation Method .................................................................................................................................. 7
Findings............................................................................................................................................................. 8
Education and Work Experiences After Leaving Care ........................................................................ 8
Accommodation Experiences After Leaving Care ................................................................................ 9
Social relationship after leaving care centers ........................................................................................ 9Connection with biological family ........................................................................................................ 10
Recommended Practice Strategies ............................................................................................................... 10
References ....................................................................................................................................................... 12
Appendix A: Interview Questions ................................................................................................................ 13
Appendix B: Project Photos .......................................................................................................................... 14

Executive Summary & Acknowledgement
This report presents some daily life experiences that our young people face after leaving
their care centers in Vietnam. It also provides an overview of the context that young care leavers
are in such as care models and supporting policies around leaving care. It is the result of aninternational partnership among Unitec Institute of Technology, Trinity College Dublin, and Ho
Chi Minh University of Social Sciences and Humanities. The project was funded by International
Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW), Trinity College Dublin, and Unitec Institute ofTechnology.
For young people leaving care, the ability to adapt and adjust during the transition is
crucial for their well-being as well as success later in life. The most well-known research in thisarea is largely confined to richer countries although some work is beginning to emerge in middle
and low-income countries. This article provides an overview of experiences of young care leavers
from different private and public care centers in Vietnam; looking at their progress in different
areas such as education, accommodation and work, friendship, biological family connection, andadjustment to life after leaving the centers. These themes were extracted from 25 interviews withyoung care leavers living in the South of Vietnam. The findings revealed despite facing many
significant challenges after leaving the care centers, they can still succeed with the right kind of
support together with their resilience and determination.
I would like to acknowledge a number of individuals that have made valuable contributions
to this project. First, Professor Robert Gilligan, who as the co-lead researcher in this project, has
initiated the ideas and topics for this project and contributed invaluable insights with his years ofexperience in conducting research on this topic in many different countries. This project would
have not been possible without him. Second, great thanks to Associate Professor Nga Hanh Do and
Ms. Thao Phuong Nguyen for their ground work in Vietnam in recruiting, interviewing participants,
and coordinating all the project-related work in Vietnam.

A particular acknowledgement is due to the Advisory Group:•

Mr. Trần Công Bình: Programme Partnership Specialist, UNICEF Vietnam•

Mr. Phan Trường Sơn, Director of Tinh Than Foundation•

Ms. Trần Nguyễn Đức Hạnh, REACH Vietnam

They have provided invaluable advice, input, and feedback throughout the project. Special thanks
to the involved care centers for their support in recruiting participants. Without their support, we
would have not had as many voices as presented here.
I also would like to acknowledge our two research assistants:(1) PhD candidate Tran Thi Dan Huyen: School of Education, Victoria University of
Wellington(2) Dr. Le Cao Tinh, Senior ESOL Tutor, Wellington Institute of Technology & Whitireia
Community Polytechnic
They have worked really hard to translate the research findings into best practices and built abeautiful website with interactive videos for our online learning module.
Most importantly, special thanks to the IASSW International Project Grant, Trinity College
Dublin, and Unitec Institute of Technology for their funding to implement this project. This study
would have not been possible without this funding.
Sincerely,
Hoa Nguyen
Senior Lecturer
School of Healthcare & Social PracticeUnitec Institute of Technology
Auckland, New ZealandBackgroundIn most countries, children who grow up in official care centers, or in official foster
families, must leave the care setting when they reach 18 years of age. It is often very challenging
for these young people to suddenly have to manage on their own with little or no support. Youngpeople who grow up in their own families can normally count on their parents’ support and advice
as they begin to establish themselves in the world. But for the young people leaving official caresetting, they may lack this support and may have never had the opportunity to learn skills to live
independently. They will typically have little or no money or other resources and often don’t reachout for support from social service agencies.
The increasing complexity of many societies means that pathways from the teenage years toearly adulthood are more diverse and less ‘programmed’ than was often the case in the past. Youngpeople must now negotiate this period of transitions across multiple pathways. Young people
leaving care must manage on their own in so many ways: they have to find a way to make a living,
to find somewhere safe to live, to find friends and contacts who will be supportive and not takeadvantage of them. Even basic skills like cooking may not be easy for them.
In a systematic review of 21 studies of care leavers’ experiences of their transition from care(including some studies from the Global south), six major themes were identified as concerns indaily living. These were ‘academic qualiﬁcations, housing problems, employment and ﬁnancial
instability, building relationships and assimilating to cultural norms, and access to health care.’Various sets of factors may thus influence outcomes for young people leaving care – linked to thereasons they had to enter care or other pre-admission experience; the quality of their experiences
while they lived in the care setting(s); their experiences in the immediate period of transition; andthe longer-term conditions – supportive or otherwise – in their early adult years (Häggman-Laitila,
Salokekkilä & Karki, 2018, p.142).
The challenge of transition from care settings to life without support systems may be evensharper in countries without strong welfare state supports. In her study of 100 female care leavers inIndia, Dutta (2017) reported that 70% of her sample said that they had no one with whom they
could share their problems. Weak social support networks may be a legacy of placement in caresettings due to resulting disruptions to family or wider connections. As they seek to make their way
in the world with, possibly, few close ties or connections, care leavers may be forced to re-assess orre-negotiate family relationships and even to re-consider who counts as ‘family’ in their lives – anissue reported from different countries, for example, South Africa (Moodley, Raniga and Sewpaul,2018), Zimbabwe (Gwenzi, 2019), Ireland (Parker and Mayock, 2018) and England (Boddy, 2018).
In Vietnam, there is evidence from the Young Lives Study that 10% of young people
generally are not in education, employment or training (Espinoza, Benny, Duc, & Hang, 2018).
Based on studies from South Africa and other countries, there is evidence that such NEET rates areliable to be higher for care leavers than for youth generally. Given the disadvantages reported to befacing minority youth in Vietnam (Nguyen and Nguyen, 2018), it is reasonable to speculate thatcare experienced adults are among those disadvantaged groups and that they face a higher risk of
NEET status based on indirect evidence from within Vietnam and on the likely relevance of theinternational trend for higher rates of NEET among care leavers.
Actions at a policy level and at the front line of social work practice can help strengthen theefforts of young care leavers to establish themselves as adults who are full members of society,with positive experiences over time as parents, workers, students and citizens. The right types of
support can assist care-experienced young adults in leading satisfying and productive lives in theirfamilies, workplace and communities. Social research has an important role to play in shining lighton what helps and hinders progress towards this full social inclusion of care experienced by young
people. In their review of care leaving issues in Vietnam, Collins and Bui (2016) observe that little
is known about how care leavers fare after leaving the care setting.
As a contribution to help in closing this important gap in knowledge, this research aims to
explore the following issues: (a) What are the experiences that prove influential as barriers or
supports in the parallel transitions of these young people from care to independence and from youthto adulthood? (b) In what ways, does the young people’s own agency (or lack of) prove influential
in their progress after they leave care institutions? (c) What types of informal support (from family,
friends, etc) seem most relevant based on the experience of the participants? We are hopeful that
our findings can contribute to policy processes, future research and the training of social workers in
relation to the needs of this special population of young adults who have a special claim on theinterest and support of the people of each country.

Implementation Method
We undertook a qualitative study in which we interviewed 25 young people. Participants arealumni from a number of public and private funded care centers in Vietnam. Recruitment was
conducted with the help of care centers’ staff. At the beginning of the project, the four researchers
met in Vietnam in early 2018 to discuss project details and develop interview questions. Then, anadvisory group was formed, including one person from UNICEF Vietnam, one from Tinh Thanfoundation, and one from REACH. Both Tinh Than Foundation and REACH are non-profit
organisations that provide support to young care leavers in Vietnam. People in the advisory groupare experts and practitioners in the field of young care leavers in Vietnam. They provided advice on
recruitment strategies; identified key stakeholders to inform about the study from the beginning andat the dissemination stage; reviewed and advised on topics for interviews; reviewed and provided
feedback for the research report. The two researchers who locate in Vietnam had a first meetingwith the advisory group in Vietnam in mid 2018 to get their feedback about interview questions;
who and how to recruit interview participants.
A total of 25 participants were interviewed. They are from seven different care centers(three of them are non-governmental organisations, and four are public funded care centers). All areyoung adults from 21 to 34 years old, with 15 men and 10 women. The two researchers in Vietnam
coordinated the transcribing and translation in Vietnam and then sent transcripts to researchers in
New Zealand and Ireland for analysis. The analysis was primarily conducted by two researchers in
Ireland and New Zealand. Since the researcher in New Zealand is bilingual, she double-checked thequality of translation before and during analysis. Thematic and cross-case analysis were used toanalyse data. NVivo 12 was used to assist with the analysis and management of data. Bothresearchers read and analysed the transcripts independently and then compared and discussed thethemes that they individually extracted.

Findings
The findings describe experiences of young people in relation to progress in the arenas ofwork and education since leaving the centers, their experiences in managing accommodation in thesame period, and key aspects of their relations with peers and family members since leaving care.
This part also underlines the challenges that young people faced but also their determination to
make positive progress in their chosen path in work or education, and the support that they wereable to secure. The below will discuss some highlights from the findings in general. We are also
writing a journal article discussing these findings in more details.
Education and Work Experiences After Leaving Care
Leaving care at the age of 18, for many of our care leavers, the next step is usually tofurther their education either by going to university or taking vocational training. A majority of ouryoung care leavers chose vocational training as it was free and easier to be admitted. Some popular
professions that they follow include: cooking, trade, fashion design, graphic design, room service,and sewing.
Some managed to go to universities and the majors listed are nursing, tourism, electricalengineering, and social work. This is a big achievement as university entrance exam is very
competitive in Vietnam, especially for high demand and well-respected profession such as medical,
electrical engineering often require a very high grade. High school students would have to prepare
for this exam for several years with lots of extra tutorial classes. Some are even less lucky and faced
more challenges furthering their education. They end up dropping out of schools due to beingoverwhelmed with working and studying at the same time, plus with many personal family issues
such as the need to work to support families or looking after family members.
The work that our young care leavers do often links to their education and the training theytake during or after leaving the centers. People who graduate from universities often findprofessional jobs that fit with their majors and people who attend vocational training would findjobs that fit with their skills and people who do not have any qualifications often do labor jobs.
People who have disability would face even more challenges when looking for jobs or finding acareer for themselves. One person with visual disability find herself doing lots of different jobs justto survive such as selling lottery tickets, washing dishes for restaurants after leaving the carecenters.
Accommodation Experiences After Leaving Care
The participants reported a wide range of accommodation options which often seem to linkto their education or work circumstance. For people who study at vocational schools or doing
apprenticeship such as electrician, plumber, silversmith, etc., they receive free accommodation andeven free meals in some programs. For people who attend universities, they can choose to continue
staying at the care centers. However, due to the distance, some end up flatting with friends to beclose to their universities. For people who are working, they often rent a place with friends whomthey know from the care centers or workmates. Some connect back with their biological family
members and stay with aunties, biological grandmothers, mothers, or siblings.
Social relationship after leaving care centers
Most participants expressed that they would like to maintain close relationship with the
caregivers and friends at their care centers and try to visit the centers as much as they can. Several ofthem maintain good relationship with their care centers and feel an obligation of giving back tosupport the center that cared for them. The giving back could be through bringing gifts when visiting
the centers, buying school supplies, toys for children who are currently living there, giving money to‘foster mothers’, etc.

With all of the challenges of adjusting to an independent life and the social stigma from theex-care experience, making new friends can be a bit of a challenge for our care leavers. A couple ofparticipants seem to be loners and did not have any close friends that they hang out regularly. Morethan half of the participants has three or four close friends whom they hang out often and can rely
on when they have difficulties. These are often friends from secondary, high school, university
friends, or friends from the vocational training centers, or friends who live in the same care center.
A couple of people made some close friends at work. For people whose friends are far away, they
seem to stay connected via social media and do regular calls at night.
Connection with biological family
A few participants in this study still have either biological mother or father, and biologicalsibling(s). For people whose biological parents passed away, they still have relatives such as
grandparents, aunties or uncles and still keep in contact with them to varying extents. Despite the factthat our young care leavers did not grow up with their biological families, when they grow up andhave income, they have a strong sense of responsibility to care for their biological family. This themeis shown especially strong in the cases where the biological parent or grandparent still alive andbiological siblings are around.

Recommended Practice Strategies
Based on the research findings, the research team with the help of two research assistants
have developed an online learning module that provides some best practices and strategies inworking with young care leavers in Vietnam, in consultation with the advisory group. The target
audience for this online learning module is social workers, staff working in care centers in Vietnam,
NGO staff who work with young care leavers, program managers in Vietnam. All materials are in
Vietnamese. Please find the link to the website here:
https://sites.google.com/view/tiengnoitreemcohoancanhkhokhan/gi%E1%BB%9Bithi%E1%BB%87u-chungThe online learning module includes 11 short videos to introduce the research, its key
findings, and 7 best practices in working with young care leavers before and after they leave theircare centers. The recommended practice strategies include:(1) foster a trusting and loving relationship with the children when they first entered thecare center(2) Strengthen supporting network for care leavers through current friends or people who
already left the care center(3) Keep in contact with them after they leave care and help them build a network ofconnection(4) Help them understand different education options and career pathways when they are inhigh school(5) Have a good understanding about mental health and well-being issues and provide intime support(6) Help them connect/ reconnect with biological or extended families and unpack somefamily-related issues (if any)(7) Help them build some life-skills to prepare for an independent life before leaving care
All videos have animated pictures with beautiful illustration to help learners easy to follow
and understand. Once completing watching all the videos, learners will have a chance to take an
online quiz and case scenario exercises to consolidate their learning and reflect on how to apply
these best practices in their work. The website also has an evaluation survey, asking learners toevaluate the online course and provide some feedback or comments about their experience. It willtake about 2 hours to complete the whole course.

References
Boddy, J. (2018). Troubling meanings of ‘family’ for young people who have been in care: frompolicy to lived experience. Journal of Family Issues. 40(16), 2239-2263.
Collins, M. E., & Bui, T. T. T., (2016). Youth Leaving Care in Developing Countries: Observations
from Vietnam. In Young People Transitioning from Out-of-Home Care (pp. 329-348).
Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Dutta, S. (2017). Life after leaving care: Experiences of young Indian girls. Children and Youth
Services Review, 73, 266-273.
Espinoza, P., Benny, L., Duc, L. T., & Hang, N. T. T. (2018). Youth transitions-Skills, work andfamily formation: Preliminary findings from the Round 5 Survey in Vietnam.
Gwenzi, G. D. (2018). Constructing the Meaning of “Family” in the Context of Out-of-Home Care:An Exploratory Study on Residential Care Leavers in Harare, Zimbabwe. Emerging
Adulthood, 8(1), 54-63.
Häggman-Laitila, A., Salokekkilä, P., & Karki, S. (2018). Transition to adult life of young people
leaving foster care: A qualitative systematic review. Children and Youth Services Review,
95, 134-143.
Moodley, R., Raniga, T., & Sewpaul, V. (2018). Youth Transitioning Out of Residential Care in
South Africa: Toward Ubuntu and Interdependent Living. Emerging Adulthood, 8(1), 45-53.
Nguyen, T and Nguyen, T.T.H. (2018). Leaving no one behind in a growing Vietnam: The story
from Young Lives. Oxford: Young Lives
Parker, S., & Mayock, P. (2018). "They’re Always Complicated but That’s the Meaning of Family
in My Eyes": Homeless Youth Making Sense of" Family" and Family Relationships.
Journal of Family Issues, 40(4), 540-570.

Appendix A: Interview Questions
1. Could you please tell me how long did you live in the care centre and the reason for living
there?
2. Tell me about your thoughts at point of leaving the centre finallyPrompts: when you were about to leave the centre, how did you feel? What were yourthoughts at that time?
3. Could you please tell me about your educational attainment at point of leaving centre, andcurrently?
Prompts: What did you study or do for education when you left center and currently? Do you
have any future education plan?
4. Could you please tell me about your current occupation, and any other occupations sinceleaving care setting, or while in care setting?
Prompts: What have you been doing for living since you left the center? Do you like yourjob? Any challenges? Any future plan?
5. Tell me about your accommodation arrangements since leaving care setting
Prompts: Where have you lived since leaving the center? Any challenges? Advantages?
Where do you seek help if you have difficulties in accommodation?
6. Could you please tell me about your contact with family members (parents / grandparents /siblings etc) since leaving care setting
Prompts: Do you have any family members that you keep in touch with? How often do you
see or talk with them? How is your relationship with them?
7. Tell me about your friendships with young people of own age since leaving care setting(friends from centre, others)?
Prompts: Who are your friends since leaving the center? How often do you see your friends?
How is your relationships? What are you guys do together when you meet? What support thatyou provide for each other? Do you have any challenges if terms of making and maintaining
friendship?
8. What are the best aspects of your life since leaving care setting?
9. What are the most challenging aspects of life since leaving care setting?
10. What advices do you have to a young person soon to leave a care centre – on the basis of theyoung person’s own experience?

Appendix B: Project Photos•

Advisory Group Meeting in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam(From left: Thao (Researcher), Binh from UNICEF, Hanh (REACH), Nga (Researcher), and Son (LIN) )(From left: Nga (USSH Researcher), Robert (Trinity Researcher), and Thao (USSH Researcher), Hoa
was via skype)•

Picture of Care Centers in Vietnam: