Abstract
•Qualitative study, examining networking skills, and social ties that are built and bind care-leavers to others.•The importance of these social connections and how care-leavers elicit the necessary help to achieve their goals in society.•Importance of fostering community and building social skills to support young people’s reintegration into society.•Social workers and care providers should work together to broaden care-leavers networks and build social skills.
This article aims to deepen and theorize our understanding of the psychosocial processes young people who are transitioning out of residential care engage in, specifically networking people for goal attainment. A qualitative approach was used to collect data from 31 South African residential care-leavers who were one to seven years out of care, aged 17–26 years. Using a grounded theory method of data analysis this study aims to fill the gap in theoretically informed studies by constructing indigenous theories to explain the care-leaving journey. This paper presents findings on (1) the need to elicit social connections; (2) honing networking skills in eliciting social connections; and (3) the strength in weak ties. The implications for practice point to the necessity of fostering a sense of community among care-leavers prior to their transition since this would eventually promote the development of youth resilience. Thus, to support young people’s reintegration, social workers and child and youth care providers should cooperatively assist them to cultivate and broaden their networks of social connections and work proactively on building social skills for those purposes.