Theories used to explain care-leavers’ journey out of care: A scoping review

Adrian D. van Breda; Sasambal Reuben

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0325776

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionNovember 22, 2024
22 Nov 2024 Author Response https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0325776.r001
11 Apr 2025 Decision Letter - Daryl Higgins, Editor PONE-D-24-53785Theories used to explain care-leavers’ journey out of care: A scoping review PLOS ONE Dear Dr. van Breda, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by May 26 2025 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org . When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. 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If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: N/A Reviewer #2: I Don't Know ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: I appreciated the opportunity to read this valuable article. It presents a clear overview of study rationale and aims, fills a major knowledge gap in leaving care research, presents a clear statement of methods and inclusion and exclusion criteria, detailed findings and a sound conclusion. I like the careful definition of ambiguous terms such as resilience, and the explanation of why only six theories used were analysed. I have made a few minor tracked sub-edits throughout the transcript, and posed one brief question. The authors could potentially address/add 2 minor items. One is whether the exclusion of grey literature may have weakened the paper given that there is an increasing number of comparative regional and intra-country reports linked to the emerging INTRAC networks being completed, for example, the 2022 OECD report, Assisting care leavers. Also, on page 26, I wonder if an area for future research could be linking theory to the disciplines of the authors. For example, are social work or psychology or sociology leaving care studies more or less likely to include theory, and if so, which types of theories? Other than that, an excellent paper which will add significantly to leaving care scholarship. Reviewer #2: 1. This is an easy-to-follow piece of research that answers the questions asked of the study: 1. What are the most frequently used theories to explain care-leaving? 2. To what extent does theory inform care-leaving research? 3. To what extent do theories inform practice recommendations? 4. What bespoke care-leaving theories have been constructed? The article effectively outlines the study's context and methodology, utilising the established PRISMA reporting system for scoping reviews. The methodology details trustworthiness strategies, inclusion and exclusion criteria, the screening process, sample size, data analysis, and methodological limitations. The way that the article clearly presents this process and justifies the methodological decisions allows for the replication of the study. 2. The statistical analysis presented is relatively minor. As I am not a quantitative researcher, someone with expertise in this area may be better suited to review this specific aspect of the research. However, under the section titled "Findings," specifically at line 186, you mention that the review includes 342 theory-article pairs. It would be beneficial to define what "theory-article pairs" means to enhance clarity. Adding a brief definition, perhaps in parentheses, would make Figure 2 easier to comprehend and help readers better grasp the statistical information in that paragraph. 3. The data is available within the article. While it is essential for transparency to include all the theories examined, could the 94 theories used once, and the 22 theories used twice be moved to an appendix? This might help reduce distractions from the analysis of the other theories that were used multiple times. This is a minor suggestion, and I understand it may not be feasible to have an appendix. 4. Besides the point raised in point 2 about adding a small definition of what theory-article pairs mean, the article is clear and well-written. Essentially, it argues that since Mike Stein's call for care-leaving research to incorporate theory and build a care-leaving theory, researchers have made progress, but there is still much work to be done, particularly in developing care-leaving theory. In addition, the research produced an emerging theoretical framework (analytical typology) that helped analyse how the theory was applied in care-leaving research. This typology is especially valuable for those researching the care-leaving experience. ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean? ). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy . 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Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: PLOS one review Dec 2024.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0325776.r002
Revision 1
6 May 2025 Author Response PONE-D-24-53785 Theories used to explain care-leavers’ journey out of care: A scoping review Thank you for the feedback on the manuscript. This is much appreciated. Revisions required Author responses Reviewer #1: I appreciated the opportunity to read this valuable article. It presents a clear overview of study rationale and aims, fills a major knowledge gap in leaving care research, presents a clear statement of methods and inclusion and exclusion criteria, detailed findings and a sound conclusion. I like the careful definition of ambiguous terms such as resilience, and the explanation of why only six theories used were analysed. I have made a few minor tracked sub-edits throughout the transcript, and posed one brief question. Many thanks for your positive feedback and for the language corrections and suggestion about interdependence. Language edits in the manuscript in track changes Thank you for spotting these errors, including the typo in the Children’s Amendment Act in the reference list. We have carefully checked each edit and incorporated them into our revised manuscript. We have not mentioned them individually unless, there was reason for some discussion. Line 456. You may need to define for the non-specialist reader, what is meant by interdependence. Thank you for this suggestion. We have provided a brief definition: “Interdependence emphasises the mutual supportive interconnections between people that enable them to flourish.” And we have cited Storø’s seminal publication on the concept: Storø, J. (2018). To manage on one’s own after leaving care? A discussion of the concepts independence versus interdependence. Nordic Social Work Research, 8(sup1), 104-115. https://doi.org/10.1080/2156857X.2018.1463282 Line 458 – remove ‘a’ in “building voices of a difference” This phrase “voices of a difference” comes from the work of Gregory Bateson, but we recognise that this is rather obscure, and have rephrased the sentence as “…by building diverse voices into a care-leaver’s network of relationships” The authors could potentially address/add 2 minor items. One is whether the exclusion of grey literature may have weakened the paper given that there is an increasing number of comparative regional and intra-country reports linked to the emerging INTRAC networks being completed, for example, the 2022 OECD report, Assisting care leavers. We agree that this is a limitation, and have added it to the section on limitations. While we agree with the limitation, we think that the decision to focus solely on peer-reviewed journal articles was correct, given the large quantity of articles that emerged from the review. Also, on page 26, I wonder if an area for future research could be linking theory to the disciplines of the authors. For example, are social work or psychology or sociology leaving care studies more or less likely to include theory, and if so, which types of theories? Thank you for this interesting point. We agree that this could have been helpful, or would be helpful in future studies. Although you have phrased it as a recommendation for future research, we have included it in the Limitations section. Other than that, an excellent paper which will add significantly to leaving care scholarship. Many thanks for your positive assessment of this paper. Reviewer #2: 1. This is an easy-to-follow piece of research that answers the questions asked of the study: 1. What are the most frequently used theories to explain care-leaving? 2. To what extent does theory inform care-leaving research? 3. To what extent do theories inform practice recommendations? 4. What bespoke care-leaving theories have been constructed? The article effectively outlines the study's context and methodology, utilising the established PRISMA reporting system for scoping reviews. The methodology details trustworthiness strategies, inclusion and exclusion criteria, the screening process, sample size, data analysis, and methodological limitations. The way that the article clearly presents this process and justifies the methodological decisions allows for the replication of the study. Thank you for these affirming comments. 2. The statistical analysis presented is relatively minor. As I am not a quantitative researcher, someone with expertise in this area may be better suited to review this specific aspect of the research. However, under the section titled "Findings," specifically at line 186, you mention that the review includes 342 theory-article pairs. It would be beneficial to define what "theory-article pairs" means to enhance clarity. Adding a brief definition, perhaps in parentheses, would make Figure 2 easier to comprehend and help readers better grasp the statistical information in that paragraph. Thank you for the prompt on the meaning of ‘theory-article pairs’. We have included an explanation and example of this in the first paragraph of the findings. We hope this makes the interpretation of Figure 2 easier. 3. The data is available within the article. While it is essential for transparency to include all the theories examined, could the 94 theories used once, and the 22 theories used twice be moved to an appendix? This might help reduce distractions from the analysis of the other theories that were used multiple times. This is a minor suggestion, and I understand it may not be feasible to have an appendix. Thank you for this suggestion. We had, in fact, done this in an earlier draft of the paper. Our main reason for bringing the text back is to ensure that all 252 articles in the search are referenced in the manuscript reference list. We think that the 371 words in these two paragraphs are not unduly lengthy or distracting. 4. Besides the point raised in point 2 about adding a small definition of what theory-article pairs mean, the article is clear and well-written. Essentially, it argues that since Mike Stein's call for care-leaving research to incorporate theory and build a care-leaving theory, researchers have made progress, but there is still much work to be done, particularly in developing care-leaving theory. In addition, the research produced an emerging theoretical framework (analytical typology) that helped analyse how the theory was applied in care-leaving research. This typology is especially valuable for those researching the care-leaving experience. Thank you for these positive comments: progress since Stein’s 2006 in the theorisation of care-leaving, more work and some fruitful avenues still lie ahead, and a potentially useful framework to assessing the extent to which a study is theoretically informed or driven. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: PONE-D-24-53785 - Response to Reviews.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0325776.r003
21 May 2025 Decision Letter - Daryl Higgins, Editor Theories used to explain care-leavers’ journey out of care: A scoping review PONE-D-24-53785R1 Dear Dr. van Breda, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager® and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. If you have any questions relating to publication charges, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Daryl Higgins, PhD Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0325776.r004
Formally Accepted
Acceptance Letter - Daryl Higgins, Editor PONE-D-24-53785R1 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. van Breda, I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now being handed over to our production team. At this stage, our production department will prepare your paper for publication. This includes ensuring the following: * All references, tables, and figures are properly cited * All relevant supporting information is included in the manuscript submission, * There are no issues that prevent the paper from being properly typeset You will receive further instructions from the production team, including instructions on how to review your proof when it is ready. Please keep in mind that we are working through a large volume of accepted articles, so please give us a few days to review your paper and let you know the next and final steps. Lastly, if your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at customercare@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Professor Daryl Higgins Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0325776.r005

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