• Extended kin networks offer underused potential for leaving-care support. • Kin ties are selectively shaped and foster belonging in unstable life contexts. • Grandparents and kin act as key figures of attachment and support. • Grandparent ties can matter even when parental–grandparent relations are strained. • Grandparent closeness can also be ambivalent and not always linked to safety or care. • Cultivating a deep bench of reliable figures is key to support across life stages. The transition from care to adulthood is a challenging phase in the lives of care leavers. It often occurs abruptly and is accompanied by questioning and renegotiation of existing social relationships. This paper focuses on kinship relations beyond the nuclear family — particularly grandparents and other relatives such as aunts, uncles, and cousins — and examines how care leavers actively shape and integrate these relationships into their everyday lives. Although grandparents and extended kin have received increasing attention in recent years, and existing studies highlight their potential as sources of emotional and practical support, further research is needed to better understand the complexity, variability, and biographical significance of these relationships in the context of leaving care. The study draws on qualitative research conducted in Austria that explores the social networks and family relationships of young adults aged 18 to 27 with care experiences. Using narrative interviews and accompanying network maps, the analysis examines how family connections beyond the parent–child relationship are remembered, interpreted, and actively maintained. The findings show that care leavers construct kinship relations selectively. These processes of negotiation reveal a tension between normative family expectations, biographical experiences, and the need for belonging. Relationships with grandparents and extended kin often carry significant biographical meaning and may serve as important though context-dependent resources in the process of leaving care. By foregrounding the selective and negotiated character of kinship ties, the study contributes an empirically based perspective to debates on informal support networks in the leaving-care process. The findings conceptualise grandparents and extended kin as contingent and relationally embedded figures whose relevance is actively shaped by care leavers in light of their biographical experiences and broader family dynamics.
Georg Streissguertl (Sun,) studied this question.