From Care to Agency: A Practitioner Inquiry into the Transition Experiences of Care-experienced Youth in India

The Evidence on Care Leaving

Stein’s (2012) foundational typology established that post-care outcomes are mediated by the quality of in-care relationships, preparation for leaving, and the availability of sustained post-exit support. Evidence from India corroborates this: Udayan Care’s (2019) study across five states documented compounding challenges upon exit—housing, documentation, education, employment, and psychosocial support. A rapid assessment by Aide et Action (2023) across nine states found that care leavers needed clearer support pathways and empowerment to influence policies affecting their well-being. Sinha (2020) note that aftercare services remain inconsistently implemented, producing gaps precisely when young people are most vulnerable. Comparable evidence from India remains limited—a gap that practitioner accounts such as this article are positioned to begin addressing.

Conceptual Framework: Agency and Capability

This article is anchored in Sen’s (1999) capability approach, which understands development as the expansion of what individuals are genuinely able to do and become. Applied to care-experienced youth, it directs attention to the capabilities that institutional care may constrain—autonomous decision-making, goal-setting, and the exercise of voice—and to the conditions under which these can be cultivated during and after transition. ‘Agency’, as used here, refers to the capacity of young people to act intentionally, make meaningful choices, and participate in designing the systems that serve them, drawing on both Sen and participatory development theory, which positions lived experience as legitimate knowledge (Chambers, 1994; Cornwall, 2008). The dependency-to-agency arc structuring Miracle Foundation India’s framework reflects this commitment.

Nature and Framing of the Inquiry

The data informing this article was generated through a participatory process originally designed for programme development: the co-creation of Miracle Foundation India’s youth strategy. This article represents a retrospective analytical engagement with that process, applying qualitative and participatory research principles to practice-generated data—consistent with an established tradition of practitioner inquiry (Reason & Bradbury, 2008; Schön, 1983). The process aligns with participatory action research (PAR) principles: collaborative knowledge generation with rather than about participants, orientation towards practical action, and recognition of lived experience as legitimate evidence.

Participants

Twenty-five care-experienced young people participated across two phases, recruited through Miracle Foundation India’s networks across five states: Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Maharashtra, Bihar, and Delhi. Participants spanned varying post-care transition stages, with educational backgrounds from secondary to postgraduate levels, and engagements in social sector work, peer mentoring, and freelance roles. Several were Youth Ambassadors, bringing both care leaver and emerging practitioner perspectives. Recruitment through existing networks introduces selection bias—those most marginalised or disengaged are unlikely to be represented, qualifying the generalisability of findings.

Phase 1: Regional Online Consultations

Two online consultations with 15 care-experienced youths from Tamil Nadu and Telangana ensured geographic representation beyond Delhi. Using a semi-structured format, consultations centred on lived experiences of leaving CCIs, transition challenges, and meaningful support. These served as analytical inputs to the in-person process.

Phase 2: In-person Strategy Development Workshop

A 2-day workshop on 3rd–4th July 2025 at Miracle Foundation India’s Delhi office brought together 10 care-experienced youth from Maharashtra, Bihar, Delhi, and Tamil Nadu, with staff as facilitators and observers only. Day 1 used experiential and narrative methods—guided visualisation, a Life Mapping ‘Bridge Activity’, personal storytelling circles, and a Problem Tree exercise—deliberately sequenced to build psychological safety before analysis. Day 2 shifted to strategy development: participants revisited problem trees, catalogued issues across 11 thematic areas, voted to prioritise six themes, and in groups developed structured action frameworks articulating vision, youth roles, partnerships, and monitoring considerations.

Analytical Approach and Positionality

Data were analysed thematically and inductively, mapping recurring concerns, root causes, and proposed solutions across the six priority areas. Themes from the online consultations were tested against workshop data, and the thematic framework was revisited with participants during Day 2—providing an element of member checking. As the author, I occupied a practitioner-researcher position, present throughout as an observer. This affords contextual depth and relational trust while carrying risks of confirmation bias. All participants consented to the use of their contributions in programme development; this article’s retrospective analytical use is addressed through transparency of framing, and no participant is identified by name.

The Experience of Institutional Care: Stability and Constrained Agency

Across both phases, participants described growing up in CCIs as simultaneously stabilising and constraining. Institutions provided material predictability—regular food, education, healthcare, and peer community—that many had not experienced in their family contexts. However, the highly managed nature of institutional life, in which decisions were made on behalf of rather than with residents, meant that young people had limited opportunities to develop autonomous judgement. As Stein (2012) describes, this is the paradox of institutional care: the structures that provide safety may simultaneously constrain the capabilities most needed for independent life. Participants noted that they left CCIs poorly equipped for the sudden expectation of self-determination.

The Transition Experience: 11 Challenges, 6 Priorities

Through problem tree analysis and collective deliberation, participants identified 11 challenge areas in the post-care transition: loneliness and psychosocial distress; lack of education and career guidance; documentation and rights awareness; medical access; gender and caste-based discrimination; unemployment and job retention; financial insecurity; vulnerability to abuse and exploitation; limited pre-aftercare planning; lack of mentorship; and specific barriers for transgender youth and young people with disabilities. Participants then voted to prioritise six themes: psychosocial support, pre-aftercare, medical support, protection, rights entitlement and documentation, and entrepreneurship. That deliberating youth converged on these areas is itself significant—it suggests the most urgent unmet needs are not primarily economic but relational, protective, and systemic.

Root Causes: What Participants Identified

Root cause analysis surfaced recurring drivers: absence of family support; lack of sustained mentorship; gender and caste-based discrimination; poor medical access; inadequate life skills preparation within CCIs; limited rights and documentation awareness; and weak system accountability. A particularly significant finding was the participants’ identification of timing as a root cause in itself—young people were consistently leaving CCIs without knowing what documents they needed, what rights they held, or what support existed. Participants emphasised that rights awareness, documentation, and aftercare planning must begin between ages 14 and 17, well before exit. This is not a failure of individual capability; it is a failure of systemic preparation.

Relational Needs: What Mattered Most

Participants’ accounts of meaningful support were strikingly consistent and predominantly relational: a trusted adult who listened without judgement; a mentor who maintained regular contact; guidance in goal setting and navigating systems; and encouragement during difficulty. Both material and relational support were identified as necessary—but participants were drawing attention to a dimension that formal policy frameworks rarely address: young people navigating this transition face not primarily a resource deficit but a relational and capability deficit. This distinction has significant implications for how aftercare is designed and resourced.

Marginalised Subgroups: A Finding Requiring Specific Attention

A finding that emerged distinctly from the thematic prioritisation—and is not adequately reflected in existing Indian aftercare literature—was the compounded vulnerability of transgender youth and young people with disabilities. Current aftercare frameworks assume a normative care leaver, without identity-based or disability-related barriers. The heightened discrimination, more limited employment and housing access, and greater need for identity-affirmative support that these subgroups face require targeted programmatic and policy attention that current provision does not offer.

From Findings to Framework

Miracle Foundation India’s youth transition framework is not a pre-designed model applied to findings; it emerged from them. The six priority areas participants identified and voted on constitute the framework’s intervention logic, and its governing principles were refined in dialogue with participants, lending them co-authorship. Those principles include: respect for youth agency; an integrated approach to emotional, social, and economic needs; relational consistency over short-term outcomes; dignity and non-judgement; safeguarding as a precondition; early intervention from ages 14 to 17; and the active inclusion of youth as shapers of the systems meant to serve them. The programme offers a structured end-to-end pathway from onboarding and individual needs assessment through sustained follow-up to a planned exit, equipping young people with skills, networks, and systemic access for independent pathways.

Four Programme Pillars