The development, implementation and evaluation of a blended care program for care-leavers in transition to adulthood

International research shows that may young people leaving out-of-home care struggle with the transition to adulthood and experience continuing disadvantage and social exclusion (Hartwell, Fisher & Davis, 2010, van Gypen et al., 2017; Brännstorm et al. 2017; Cameron et al. 2018). An international meta-analysis of Heerde et al. (2016) states that transitional programs can be valuable to support this young care leavers, but more detailed and rigorous research is needed to examine the characteristics of transitional programmes resulting in more successful outcomes for youth. In this PhD research we want to establish a process of co-creation between researchers, youth care professionals, youngsters leaving the youth care and a software company to develop, implement and evaluate a transitional ‘blended care’ program. This is a combination of traditional face-to-face support and digital tools. In Flemish youth care, blended care is still in its infancy, but practice organizations are increasingly experimenting with it. The evidence about blended care is, however, promising but still scarce (Wentzel et al. 2016)