Cultural continuity in care: perspectives of birth parents from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child enshrines the right of children in out-of-home care to maintain ties with their family, community, and culture. Yet there is little research on how parents from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds maintain cultural connections for children in care. This study explored how parents understand and seek to maintain cultural continuity in out-of-home care. In-depth interviews were conducted with 10 parents of children in care in Australia and analyzed thematically. Participants collectively represented more than 35 cultural identities, languages, faiths and migrant experiences. Three themes were identified: living culture in day-to-day life, striving to maintain the parental role and challenging systems to seek cultural connections. Parents experienced grief and uncertainty as they sought to preserve their parental role and children’s cultural connections following removal. They viewed themselves as cultural knowledge holders and maintained cultural continuity through contact visits and sharing family narratives with children and their carers, despite significant barriers. Practitioners and carers should work collaboratively with parents from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds to support the family relationships through which children’s cultural identities are formed.