Foster children: a longitudinal study of placements and family relationships

Foster children's family relationships have been one of the themes in a longitudinal study, starting with a disadvantaged group of children, 0–4 years of age when taken into care and placed in a children's home in Sweden. Seven rounds of data collection were carried out; the last two when the children were young adults. This article is about those 20 children in the study group who, in addition to temporary residential care at an early age, have experiences from foster care, either for the remainder of their childhood or before or after a period of reunion. Placement history is put in relation to family relationships, i.e. relationships to birth family and foster family. The categorisation in secure and insecure relationships or attachment patterns is based on interviews with the young adults, with a retrospect of previous relationships. The connection between placement history and family relationship is not obvious in this high-risk group. However, inclusive attitudes from the foster family towards the child's family promote continuity and a sense of security, also in periods of reunion or re-placement, and facilitate foster children's hard work in coming to terms with their family background and finding their own way.     

What is a family? Constructions of family and parenting after a custody transfer from birth parents to foster parents

The subject of stability for children in long‐term foster care is an emerging field within social work with vulnerable children. In Sweden, the adoption of foster children is not a common occurrence. Instead, when a child has been placed in foster care for 3 years, the local social welfare committee will consider whether the custody of the child should be transferred to the foster parents regardless of the circumstances of the birth parents, in order to secure stability and a sense of family belonging. Consequently, custody transfers raise questions such as “who is family?” and “who is a parent?” This qualitative interview study with custodians and young people who have experienced custody transfer highlights that who counts as family and as a parent is ambiguous. This article draws attention to how negotiations about family and parenthood revolve around biological, emotional, and relational dimensions. Furthermore, we show that stability for children in care has to be understood in terms of processes over time and not as the result of a single decision of custody transfer. Consequently, social workers need to take several aspects into account when they assess family belonging and stability for children in foster care.     

Everything for the Children: Orphans Growing Up in Informal Adoptive Families in China

Most orphaned children in China are cared for by their extended families or become state wards under the guardianship of child welfare institutions. Some exceptions are children who are found and cared for by families in the community, without a formalized adoption or foster relationship. In some locations, institutions now accept guardianship for these children and support the informal adoptive family to continue to care for them. This article examines the outcomes for these children as they became young adults by comparing these 12 children raised within the system as they approach or have approached young adulthood (now aged 16–40 years-old). Some of the participants were either informally adopted or lived in institutional care. The results of this study found that the family environment was more conducive to the young people’s wellbeing as they approached or entered adulthood. The participants raised in informal care appeared to be treated similar to the biological children in these families. When the institution formalized the state guardianship responsibility, it also meant the families had state resources for support to protect the children’s rights to economic security, education, health care, and social participation. This practice by the institution supported the addition of informal adoption, as one step closer to permanency than foster care. Future implications include considering this option to help promote the family system assisting these children, families, and the state.     

Exploring the mechanisms explaining the quality of sibling relationships when children are taken into care: A qualitative study of Norwegian children

Sibling relationships are potentially central in children's and young people's lives. Research has shown that the quality of sibling relationships changes in a variety of ways when a sibling(s) moves into care. There is limited understanding of the mechanisms that cause these changes. This study addresses this gap by reanalysing a dataset of 25 semistructured interviews with young people (16 to 23 years) drawn from a municipality in Southern Norway. The original study explored the changes in sibling relationships when the young person moved into care. This reanalysis of the data set explores specifically, using a template analysis, the mechanisms that children describe when exploring why these changes occur. Findings show the intricacies of the young person's social identification with the biological and/or foster family and how sharing a common identity may be key to the development of the sibling relationship when the young person(s) is taken into care. Our findings also show how key adults, such as foster parents and social workers, influence the relationship. The paper concludes with recommendations for social workers on how they may strengthen sibling relationships in families where children have been taken into care.     

Young people leaving care in Sweden

The transition from a placement in care to an independent life can be a problematic phase for young people. In Sweden, special care‐leaving services are almost non‐existent. What then happens to young people when they leave a placement in out‐of‐home care? This paper draws on the results of a study in which 16 young care leavers between the ages of 18 and 22 years were interviewed. Telephone interviews were also performed with the young care leavers' parents, social workers, foster carers and institutional staff. The aim of the study was to investigate how young care leavers perceive the transition from care to an independent life. The Swedish welfare model, the prolonged transition to adulthood and the family‐oriented welfare discourse have been used as analytical perspectives. The results show that young care leavers have a pronounced need for social, emotional, practical and financial support. Whilst such support is occasionally provided by foster carers and residential staff, it is seldom given by social services or biological parents. This group is at risk of facing severe problems in the transitional phase from care to independent life, a fact that is not acknowledged by the Swedish welfare system.     

The significance of a secure base: a psychosocial model of long-term foster care

ABSTRACT Long‐term foster care has been a much neglected area of social work practice and research. Yet there are obvious challenges that need to be understood when building a family for life in foster care. Is it possible for foster families, where there are no biological or legal ties between carers and children, to provide care, concern and family membership not only through childhood but also into adult life? The study on which this paper is based set out to explore that question by investigating the experiences of 40 adults, aged 18–30, who grew up in foster families. Qualitative interviews were conducted, transcribed and analysed. Theoretical frameworks from attachment and resilience were brought together with concepts such as ‘belonging’ and ‘family membership’ to make sense of the narratives provided. An integrated and dynamic psychosocial model of long‐term foster care was developed, which emphasizes the significance of a secure base and has some important implications for practice.     

Motivations and Family Functioning of Foster Families in Italy

ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper was to investigate foster family care to better understand this unique care-giving context. The research objective was to understand motivation, family functioning, and individual attachment styles in foster families. Participants were 33 foster parents who completed a questionnaire that included the motivations for choosing foster care, the relationship with the birth family and with social service workers, a measure of family functioning and adult attachment. The motivations for becoming a foster family were very different between families with a birth child and families without a birth child. The results showed that for the foster mother, the relationship with the birth family constituted a very critical element of the fostering experience. The same trend emerged in the relationship with the minor. The results showed that foster families were cohesive and expressive. With respect to attachment style, foster parents had lower scores than a normative sample on the discomfort with closeness, the tendency to consider relationships as secondary and the need for approval subscales. These results have implications for the practices of social work for foster family support and developing a shared commitment to the needs of the foster family in terms of both resources and weaknesses.     

Family contact in foster care in Portugal. The views of children in foster care and other key actors

This is a pilot study on the sensitive issue of how children and young people experience family contact in foster care, and the views of key adults in their lives on the same issue. There is a special focus on the children's experiences, opinions, and feelings. The study is a response to the relative scarcity of literature on family contact based on the experiences of children and adults in caring roles. This is a qualitative and exploratory study, with a sample of 10 children and young people in care in the district of Porto, aiming to identify key issues and areas for further examination. The results allow us to conclude that the possibility of maintaining contact is positively evaluated. However, perspectives on the relationships involved, and on the reactions to and difficulties associated with visits, revealed considerable disagreement among the actors. A possible set of implications drawn from the findings pointed out to the importance of developing a monitored cooperation that improves communication processes in order to take into account the children's and young people's views in the decision‐making process; and to develop more attentive and open working relationships with parents throughout the foster care placement.     

Carers and Professionals' Perspectives on Foster Care Outcomes: The Role of Contact

This study investigates the association between the contact of children or young people in care with their family, and the foster care placement evaluation (positive or negative) in Portugal. According to the perspectives of foster carers and service professionals' perceptions regarding children and young people's reactions, during and after the visits, are measured. Utilizing a quantitative approach, two fostering services teams and 140 foster carers completed questionnaires, which had 212 children in common. Results indicated that despite the importance of continued contact, especially for children and their parents, it was not determined to be essential to long-term placement. On one hand, there was the perception that a high percentage of children expressed positive reactions during and after the visit, while on the other hand, this didn't influence the perception of placement success. This study also showed significant differences between foster carers' and the professionals' perceptions on several dimensions of foster care, especially the children's reactions during visits. These differences need to be further analyzed in future research and the outcomes used to help improve contact management.     

The social networks of young people in Ireland with experience of long‐term foster care: some lessons for policy and practice

This paper presents findings from the first study of the social networks of a group of young people in Ireland who have experienced long‐term foster care. The study group was composed of two groups of young people, a group who were currently in care and a group who had left the care system. The central focus was to examine the impact of foster care on the social network experience of the young people. Findings indicated that foster care impacts on the young people's social network experience in the following ways: losing contact with extended family; a greater challenge in making and sustaining friendships; an impact on education; and an inability to maintain contact with groups and activities that are of significance. This paper also presents recommendations in relation to policy and practice, including the raising of awareness of the importance of a social network approach in working with young people with care experience.     

Intergenerational pathways leading to foster care placement of foster care alumni's children

This study examined a path model that postulated intergenerational relationships between biological parent psychosocial functioning and foster care alumni mental health, economic status and social support; and from these to the likelihood of children of foster care alumni being placed in foster care. The sample included 742 adults who spent time in foster care as children with a private foster care agency and who reported having at least one biological child. A full pathway was found between poorer father's functioning to greater alumni depression, which was in turn associated with negative social support, and then a greater likelihood of child out‐of‐home placement. Other parent to alumni paths were that poorer father functioning was associated with alumni anxiety and post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and poorer mother's mental health was associated with PTSD; however, anxiety and PTSD were not implicated as precursors of foster care placement of the child. Findings support the need for increased practice and policy support to address the mental health needs of parents of children in or at risk of foster care, as well as the children themselves, as family history may have a lasting influence on quality of life, even when children are raised apart from biological parents.     

Children in permanent foster care in Sweden

The Swedish child welfare system has no permanency planning as we know it from, for example, the United States and Great Britain. Regardless of whether the child is placed in foster care with or without the parents’ consent, the law requires semi-annual reviews and there is no time limit set on reunion. Nevertheless, there are foster children who remain in the foster home throughout the whole of childhood, on terms similar to permanent foster care or adoption. This paper concerns a selection of findings from a research project entitled ‘Is there a difference in being a foster child?’. Foster children aged 10–11 were interviewed three times and the children’s perspective was focused on, complemented by the perspective of their foster parent(s). When interviewed about their relationship to their natural family as well as to the foster family, and about having a sense of family belonging and expectations for the future, 11 of the 22 children perceived their stay in the foster home as permanent and regarded themselves as belonging only to the foster family, although all of the children had contact with their birth parents. The study concerns the children’s views as well as those of the foster parents. The perception of permanency in the absence of a legal option of permanency is discussed.     

Improving outcomes for children in out‐of‐home care: the role of therapeutic foster care

How best to support children and young people in foster care remains a challenge for child welfare. There has been little Australian research on the outcomes for children and young people placed in therapeutic foster care (TFC). This article aims to address this knowledge gap, presenting the evaluation of a state‐wide model of TFC known as the Circle Program operating in Victoria, Australia. Data sources for the study were case assessment analysis; surveys of foster carers, program workers and other stakeholders in the sector; and both focus groups and individual interviews with foster care workers. The evaluation found that the Circle Program lessened the number of unplanned exits of children from foster placements compared with generalist foster care. Another important finding was that the Circle Program positively influenced foster carers' decisions to stay in the carer role. Key components perceived as contributing to outcomes of the Circle Program included enhanced training of foster carers, intensive carer support, specialist therapeutic support to the child and carer, therapeutic service to family members and a network of services to provide support to the child.     

The motives of foster parents, their family and work circumstances

Summary In foster care research the focus is generally placed on thechildren, not on the parents who perform the foster care. Inthis article the focus is on foster parents of 10-11 year-oldchildren. They were interviewed about their motives for becomingfoster parents, which were linked to their family and work circumstances.Among the 21 foster families in the study, four different butequally frequent reasons or motives for taking care of fosterchildren from the very beginning could be distinguished: relativeswho feel responsibility for a certain child; couples who wantchildren and do not think they can have children of their own;families where the mother wants to be at home taking care ofbiological as well as foster children instead of having unskilledemployed work outside the home; and parents with grown-up childrenwho want to fill the 'empty nest' by becoming foster parents- combined with a family business at home or close to home.Changing family and work patterns in Sweden do not seem to haveinfluenced foster families as much as families in general. Theworth of acquiring more knowledge about the families involvedin foster care of children and young people in order to improvefoster care and reduce breakdowns of care is discussed.     

Left behind: How to encourage biological parents' involvement in their children's group homes

This paper addresses the challenges and benefits of involving biological parents in group homes in Israel and presents various means to encourage their involvement in care. Using family systems theories and the concept of co‐parenting, it analyses the fragile and complex relationship caseworkers and foster parents have with biological parents. The paper presents four components that might play a role in encouraging parental involvement to benefit their children's adjustment. The components are demonstrated through case studies and include assessing the family profile; addressing the family's needs within the child's intervention plan; training biological and foster parents; and building co‐parenting between biological and foster parents.     

A sense of belonging in a changeable everyday life – a follow‐up study of young people in kinship,network, and traditional foster families

This in‐depth follow‐up study of 15 foster youth shows the importance of an ‘open foster family’, open to letting the foster youth into the family life and to cooperating with the adolescent's birth family. Previous findings about the importance of negotiations, mutual rituals, and having fun together in foster families for the creation of social bonds and belonging are strengthened in the follow‐up interview. A lack of these mutual practices is observed prior to disruptions. Most adolescents still living with the same foster family feel a sense of belonging to both their foster and birth families, especially when both families cooperate. This is most evident in kinship families. Over time, adolescents in traditional foster families have also strengthened their social bonds to the foster family, which makes the difference to youth in network foster families less pronounced than in the previous study. Despite life changes, above all changing schools and peers, most adolescents reveal personal agency by still coping with their situation. However, therapeutic support is now more common than 1 year ago, for girls in particular. Methods used are interviews, network maps and text responses (‘beepers’).     

Residential care: an effective response to out‐of‐home children and young people?

The ever‐growing number of out‐of‐home children in Italy over the last decade has urged an assessment of the available care services. Although foster care is spreading rapidly, many young people are still housed in residential facilities. Reflection on residential care quality has intensified at both a national and an international level. This paper presents the results of a study on residential care facilities for children and young people in the region of Northern Italy (Lombardy). Four dimensions of ‘quality’ are considered: efficiency, effectiveness, participation in planning and intervention, and empowerment of children and their family relationships. The combined effects of these dimensions are defined as ‘relational quality’. The results show that residential care facilities are generally good, while Social Services resources often appear inadequate for interventions aimed at birth families (efficiency). The well‐being of children in residential care facilities is high, even if they tend to move from one facility to another, rarely returning to their birth family (effectiveness). The involvement of children and their families at different stages of the care path is limited (participative approach). Finally, the most critical element is the failure to properly involve birth families (empowerment).     

Family relations, adjustment and well-being in a longitudinal study of children in care

The article reports on a longitudinal study of children placed in a children's home during the first two years of the 1980s. The 26 children placed when younger than 4 years of age and staying more than 4 weeks were followed up 3 and 9 months after leaving the children's home and 5, 10, 15 and 20 years later. The children's family relations, including early attachments and later parental relationships and the perception of who is their family, have been one of the predominant themes in the recurrent studies. None of them had lived with both parents after leaving the children's home and 20 of them had been in foster care for periods or permanently. At the time of the last study the children were young adults, aged 20–25. They are categorized in three rather distinct categories, one for those with a ‘good’ and one for those with a ‘moderate’ social adjustment and well‐being and one for those with a ‘bad’ social adjustment and well‐being insofar as involvement with drugs, criminal behaviour and legal sanctions are concerned. Their contacts and relationships with birth parents and foster parents and the perception of who is their family are analysed by use of attachment theory and developmental psychopathology.     

Three stories about mother: narratives by women who have lived in care

Families and social work interventions in their lives are at the core of child welfare. Child welfare practices can shape children's and parents' family memories and narratives of different family relations. However, there is little social work research so far based on the personal narratives of people who have lived in care. The study data consist of the written life stories and biographical interviews of three women who have lived part of their childhood in children's homes. In their narratives, the most central family relation was their relationship to the mother. They used different narrative strategies in their stories while trying to manage both living their childhood in care and presenting their mother morally in the same story. The central moral and emotional stance in the narratives of the mother–daughter relationship was love. Through the analysis, three moral characters of the mother were constructed. The first told about an absent mother, the second a loved and loving mother and in the third, the mother's moral character was continuously negotiated and contested. Constructing a personal story and moral character of oneself and of one's mother can be truly risky in the context of a childhood in care.