ABSTRACT
Episodes when adolescents go missing from their foster homes and then return frequently bewilder foster parents and often seem equally bewildering for the adolescents themselves. Theoretically, both sociological and psychological theory point to reunion interaction following episodes of going missing as a productive focus for practioners. Attachment theory by drawing attention to the significance of reunion behaviour of young children following unwilling separations also throws light on reunion behaviour of adolescents after ‘chosen’ separations. Where foster parents were able to come to a plausible explanation of the adolescent’s behaviour as triggered by external events, they were more likely to welcome them back with warmth, empathy and perhaps some straight limit setting. In negotiating a return, adolescents draw attention to old wounds, to the place where it hurts. In doing so they expose themselves to the possibility of further hurt by the old pattern being confirmed, or alternatively to a different, more constructive response.
