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Abstract
Foster care placement elicits conversations on whether it is an effective intervention for children and adolescents. Youth and adolescents in foster care placements often experience difficulties in building supportive, lasting social connections due to instability in foster care placements and lack of trust. The change in environment from a child’s family home to an unknown home, environment, and location affects them. Losing connections to family and support systems impacts social relationships and outcomes since a social support system is often difficult to build or maintain in foster care. The results of this study illustrate the significance social support and relationships have on an individual’s social outcomes. At the same time, in foster care placement, how does that translate once discharged from placement? The participants' experiences with connections and relationships impacted how they defined support and trust and built professional and personal relationships. Additionally, their perspective on positive and negative relationships was based on learning whom they could trust, what behaviors they had to exhibit to meet their needs, and what benefit they would receive from various encounters and relationships.