Research Framework: In France, child protection tends to promote the involvement of fathers and mothers, and more recently that of relatives, in the lives of young people in care.

Objectives: Our objective is to understand the temporalities of relative’s involvement in the placement process, and the impact of their involvement on the situation of young people when they come of age.

Methodology: Young people aged 17 to 20 at the start of this research were interviewed in five French departments of Ile-de-France and Hauts-de-France. Following an initial questionnaire made to 1,622 young people aged 17-20 year-olds in child protection, a second questionnaire was also given to 501 young people aged 18-19 year-olds. This longitudinal research (ELAP) was followed by two semi-structured interviews with around a hundred young people. In this article, we draw on the comments made in the interviews with those who declared that they had been accommodated by an adult who had played a parental role for them during the initial wave of questionnaires.

Results: The periods of parental involvement are either prior to the care, or alternating with it, or overlapping with the placement. Each temporality corresponds to a distinct form of care (substitution for relatives, alternation with the family or delegation to a third party) and is accompanied by the continuation or absence of contact with the father and mother.

Conclusions: In cases where family ties are maintained, mainly in the last two forms (alternation or delegation), the young person is more inclined to leave the child protection system without mobilizing care arrangements between the ages of 18 and 21, in contrast to cases where child protection is their only option.

Contribution: This article provides an analysis of the temporalities and forms of mobilizing parental figures in the extended family, described by young people leaving child protection. It may be useful in considering the developments brought about by the 2022 reform

• life course
• extended family
• longitudinal study
• young adults’ words
• child protection
• coming of age

https://journals.openedition.org/efg/21679