A reading report of Toussaint, E., Bacro, F., Florin, A. et Schneider. B. (2019). Qualité de vie et représentations d’attachement d’enfants accueillis en foyer dans le cadre d’une mesure de protection de l’enfance. Devenir 2019/2 (31). 165-185
Children’s well-being increased as an international preoccupation. There is a lot of laws and recommendation texts published. Children’s abuse is a major public policy concern.
Quality of life in child protection
There isn’t consensus of definition and clear indicators defined about children’s well-being with protection measure. On the other hand, we know that the quality of life is based on the person’s satisfaction level in different fields inclued physical, social, economic and psychological well-being (Upton and al., 2008). Children’s quality of life with protection measure is a minor researchs’ topic. In the majority of them, quality of life is evalueted by another person and not by the child personnaly.
Quality of life and attachment representations among children with protection measure
Security of relations and attachement representations are the basis of child devlopment. Since 1990’s, researchers gave interest to applications of attachement theory in adoption and child protection fields. Children whose abuse have more disorganized behaviour and attachment representation (Cicchetti et al., 2006).
Study
The goal of this study is to focus on relations between quality of life and attachement representations of children with a protection measure. It is a study from educators and children perspective. The authors’s theory is based on a link between quality of life and attachement representations.
The sample is composed of 40 children (28 boys and 12 girls) aged between 4 and 10 years old (meadle age : 5 years and 8 mois) living in an emergency children’s home. Some caracteristics of the sample :
- 84% of children have brother or sister place in care
- 32,5% of children lived before the placement with their 2 parents, 37,5% only with their mother, 5% only with their father. 25% of children lived with their mother in a reconstituted family.
- 92,5% of children have a judicial protection. 82,5% had a follow-up care before the placement.
Method
To evaluate attachment representations, the authors used the attachement story completion task by Bertherton and al., (1990). Children must complete stories with figurines. This method is used with 3 to 6 years old children but often with older one (Torres et al 2012 ; Bovenschen et al 2016).
To evaluate children’s quality of life with educators’ perspectives, they used the KINDL-R. It’s a questionnaire to evaluate quality of life in 6 fields (physical, emotional, social, familial, school and self-esteem). Higher is the total score, better is the quality of life.
To evaluate children’s quality of life with their own perspectives, they used the AUQUEI. This auto-questionnaire is for 4 to 12 years old children to estimate their life satisfaction with face picture (very sad, sad, happy, very happy). Lower is the score, worse is the quality of life. 4 categories are evaluated : separation, leisure, performance and family.
Results & discuss
Like in litterature, the authors observe different perceptions between educators and children. Moreover, there is a correlation between children’s quality of life in the framework of a child protection measure and attachement representations at all perspectives and all ages.
- More preschool children have secure attachment representations, more they are satisfied of their quality of life.
- More elementary school children have secure attachment representations, more they have a higher score of quality of life in « family » domain.
- More elementary school children have disorganized attachment, less they have a high score in quality of life in general and in « family » domain.
- More children are secure, more educators think they have a good quality of life in « self-esteem » domain
- More children are disorganized, less educators think they have a good quality of life in « school » domain
At the placement, there is a separation with the main attachment figure, no matter the type of relations with the parents. Attachment representations can be considered like a personal resource which increase or decrease quality of life factors effects.
Conclusion
It’s really important to use attachment theory in the framework of childhood protection. Children in childhood protection have traumatic stories, that’s why they likely have disorganize attachment representations and behavior. To conclude, we observed, here, links between attachment and quality of life. That’s why it’s important to make efforts to give a secure relation to children.
Words I have learned :
Self-esteem : estime de soi
Leisure : loisirs
In the framework of a child protection measure : dans le cadre d’une mesure de protection de l’enfance
A major public policy concern : préoccupation de politique publique majeure
A follow-up care : un suivi