Introduction
Adolescents living in foster care centers face significant challenges and limitations to enter an independent life. These teenagers, unlike the general society, do not step into the world of adulthood in a gradual process, but all at once, and the realities of life appear in front of them all at once. The evidence and studies conducted in this field indicate the fragile and vulnerable condition of these people at the beginning of their independent life. Therefore, in addition to the specific problems of adolescence, children and adolescents in foster care centers face additional problems and issues due to the deprivation of family and living conditions in this environment. Therefore, this research has been conducted with the aim of analyzing and identifying the obstacles and challenges of female teenagers in foster care centers to start an independent life.
Method
The current research is a qualitative research study. The participants of this research include two groups:  first, the adolescents aged 18 to 20 years from foster care centers in Sirjan city who have entered an independent life so that at least one year has passed from this situation; second, the experts and social workers who have been working in the field of unsupervised and poorly supervised children and adolescents for at least two years. The sampling method was done in a purposeful way, based on the criterion of information saturation, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 female teenagers and 10 experts in this field. Data analysis was done based on thematic analysis.
In order to achieve trustiness in this research, the following items were used;
Long contact with the research field and examining the problem from different angles;
Using audit techniques and presenting the results of information analysis to experts; and
The use of member chek technique, through which the results of information analysis were provided to some participants and some ambiguities were resolved with their opinions.
In order to comply with the ethical principles, the necessary information regarding the objectives of the research, preservation of anonymity and personal identity, and the right to withdraw from the research were provided to the participants.
Findings
The data analysis showed that the participating teenagers and experts in the field had the same understanding of the subject under investigation and the information obtained from the two groups overlapped; the difference was that the experts expressed the issues raised by the teenagers with a broader view and a more scientific language. 413 primary concepts were extracted from the primary data crushing, and 23 organizing themes were obtained from these. After that, by merging and classifying and creating a semantic order between them, seven main themes were obtained, which include:
Low flexibility of related laws and guidelines (inappropriate discharge age, lack of differentiation based on individual characteristics, monotony in life routine, lack of autonomy);
Lack of comprehensive planning in meeting needs (emphasis on objective needs, lack of proportionality in responding to needs, assimilation of needs);
Uncertainty of living conditions (burden training in any direction, frequent replacement of new staff, sudden transfer, disproportion between the number of mentors and children);
Lack of comprehensive support (lack of comprehensive welfare support, limited family support, fear of the future);
Material obstacles (difficulty in employment, inability to buy or rent housing, insufficient income);
Dissociation from society (hiding one’s identity in society, being stigmatized by society, experiencing feelings of disappointment and humiliation, duality of feeling); and
Weak self-efficacy (weak self-concept, low social and communication skills).
Discussion
The lifestyle of children and teenagers in foster care centers leads to experiences for them that result in challenges and obstacles for them in their personal and social life, although these children are freed from the dangerous living environment and neglect of their parents and other people around them, but when they enter quasi-family centers, they also face many other problems. More clearly, entering this care system also exposes them to all kinds of behavioral, psychological, and social problems.
Some parts of the obstacles and challenges created in starting an independent life is due to the weakness in the relevant laws and organizational mechanisms, which in many cases creates a barrier against the specialized functioning of foster care centers. In the interpretation and analysis of the information obtained from this point of view, it is more about creating information and support resources as the most important mechanism in order to minimize the obstacles and challenges of teenagers. In this regard, there is a need to consider plans for the centers to act more freely to make decisions in the daily affairs of the children and to separate the residents of children according to specific criteria in spending the day according to the specific program of each group, which has many benefits in It improves people’s performance.
Adolescents in foster care centers, because of the negative experiences they have encountered in their childhood, choose a certain style of life and do not widen their circle of communication, which is different from the prevailing trend in society. This causes a negative evaluation and perception of oneself by the individual and others of the teenagers. As a result, they are deprived of the opportunities and resources that the majority of people in the society have access to, which is exacerbated by stigma. What is important is the mechanisms that facilitate the entry of these children and teenagers into the society and by overcoming the barriers related to being different, being in an orphanage and being a stray child, they can go on the path of growth and self-fulfillment.
In the conditions of teenagers in foster care centers to start and successfully continue an independent life, they face fewer obstacles and challenges, so that the lifestyle in the centers resembles the natural conditions of the family as much as possible, and on the other hand, regular and comprehensive support for every juvenile should be considered after discharge. Among the practical suggestions of this research, the following can be mentioned:
Managing the affairs of foster care centers by following the effective model of participatory management: the possibility of the presence of all the operators of these centers, including employees, coaches, as well as children and teenagers admitted, in planning and decision-making should be provided;
Creating a new support network or correcting a disrupted support network;
Trying to create and improve the quality of mutual communication between the welfare organization and departments and organizations that have the ability to facilitate the activities of the welfare organization; and
Changing the society’s attitude towards people who spend a part of their lives in foster care centers.
Ethical considerations
Contribution of authors
All authors have been actively involved in writing all sections of this article.
Funds
This article was written independently and no financial support was received from any organization to write it.
Conflict of interest
According to the authors, there is no conflict of interest in this article.
 Principles of research ethics
 Researchers in this study followed all the principles of research ethics in all stages