Religion and Spiritual Development in Youth Care: A Literature Review

Currently, there is a lack of sufficient research regarding spirituality in the lives of young people in youth care contexts. In this study, youth care refers to various forms of either voluntary or mandatory support and care for young people (children and teenagers) and their educators for growing-up problems, parenting problems, and psychological, psychosocial, and behavioral problems or intellectual disabilities. The available research is not systematically gathered in an overview. Against this background, this article presents a systematic literature review based on the following main research question: What insights can be distilled from scholarly peer-reviewed journal articles published from January 2000–July 2025 regarding spiritual formation in youth care? The results of the review study were based on 41 journal articles. Half of these articles thematize the foster care context. The other articles are spread over other youth care contexts, including psychiatric care, child and youth welfare, residential care, social work, and services for unaccompanied minors. Most of the articles presented empirical research. Three major themes can be defined that connect most articles: (a) the discussion of religion and spirituality as naturally present in the lives of children and the need or right to recognize that dimension and to facilitate continuity in it; (b) the question or the hypothesis that religion and spirituality can promote well-being, including the finding that this does not always appear unambiguous, up to and including attention to the harmful effects of religion and spirituality; and (c) the question of whether and how religion and spirituality can be used more instrumentally in youth care services to provide the best possible care to young people. The article discusses these findings, and recommendations for youth care professionals and follow-up research are presented.