In Hong Kong, studies on family reunification for children placed in out of home care are woefully lacking. This study aims to explore the changes of the lived experiences through the narratives and interpretations of children and caregivers in the process of "going home". Furthermore, this study explores the power issues in the "going home" process, particularly the perceived roles and power distributions of the key stakeholders, namely, children, caregivers and residential child care social workers; and the strategies they utilize in response to each other while striving for their own purposes.;The design of the study is longitudinal and qualitative. The data were collected by in-depth interviews, supplemented with the method of photo elicitation for children. The research has utilized narrative analysis of the stories told by the children and their caregivers in the three periods of pre-placement, placement and post-placement.;The plot of "going home" of the children was characterized as the path of "stabilization", i.e., from chaos to organization. Three themes emerged, namely, "uncertainty", "restoration" and "challenge", at three points in the process. The plot of caregivers is conceptualized as "struggling"---proving their parental competency. The themes of "inferiority", "adjusting" and "challenge", respectively, were identified from the stories of the caregivers in the three waves of data collection.;Negotiation of discharge was the shared concerned area and struggle for the children and the caregivers. Whereas the children had strong sense of powerlessness when they negotiated the discharge with adults, including their caregivers and the residential child care social workers, the caregivers found that their views had to be endorsed by both the referring social workers and the residential child care social workers. The residential child care social workers had paramount power to make the discharge plan; they perceived their own role as that of an assessor and an enabler. Indeed, the findings revealed that the residential child care services were, in the stories of the children and the caregivers, a disciplinary force. The children and the caregivers utilized strategies such as compliance and resistance in response to the power of the residential child care social workers.;The research showed the dominant discourses of children, of family and of child protection that are embedded in the experiences of respondents. Children are constructed as innocent, lacking knowledge, innately good, incomplete, and redemptive vehicles, which shape the needs of their special care from adults. Family is constructed as the best place to fulfill the needs of children, though the caregivers should prove that they are competent before the children return home. Child protection is shaped as discipline and supervision for the children, and as punishment, blaming, and risk minimization for the family. Residential child care services, as part of the array of Hong Kong's child welfare services, share the dominant discourses of child protection.;The research findings have implications to theory building, policy direction and service-delivery model choice.
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