"But it’s my family!"

This report focuses on extended family placements. The report is based on interviews with 15 children and young people who are or who have been placed with extended family.
The interviews show that children and young people find extended family placement to be less invasive than other placement types. They consider it more “normal” to stay with their grand parents than with another family. The children and young people also feel that extended family placement ensures a higher degree of stability in their life because their extended-family foster parents typically know their background and can remember good and bad experiences.
The interviews also show that relations in the extended family undergo dynamic processes in connection with extended family placement. Children and young people describe, for example, how cousins become “fathers” and “sisters” and paternal aunts become “mothers”.
The report is part of a larger evaluation of the child placement reform from 2006. This survey has been financed by the Ministry of Social Affairs.