Gay, lesbian, and bisexual foster parents: strengths and challenges for the child welfare system

Historically, a shortage of skilled and dedicated foster parents has existed in America. Lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LBG) foster parents have received little attention in the published literature. This article documents the challenges and successes of a group of 60 LGB foster parents. All participants provided foster parenting for public (state or county) agencies. The primary successes of this group included meaningful and gratifying parenting and successful testing of whether adoption might be a natural next step after foster parenting. The primary challenges included insensitive, inappropriate, and difficult social workers; state or local laws that worked against successful foster parenting by LGB adults; failure to recognize parents' partners; and lack of support by the system to acknowledge the important role of LGB parents. Numerous recommendations are identified for improving how LGB foster parents are supported within child welfare systems including foster parent and social worker training in LGB issues.     

Child development in foster family care – what really counts?

Previous research has demonstrated that children who grow up in foster family care – along with other child welfare recipients – manage less well in adulthood compared to those children who do not. Given this challenge, this integrative literature review locates the critical factors that either positively or negatively affect a child’s development in foster family care. The articles were analysed using theory-driven content classification in relation to Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological framework on child development. The results of the review suggest that there is a wide range of factors that could impact on a child’s development in foster family care. Child­related factors such as the child’s age, gender, behavioural or mental health problems, etc. were mentioned most often in the data. Micro­environmental factors are also essential to a child’s development. Linkages taking place between two or more of the child’s circumstances, such as the relationship between the child’s birth and foster families and between the foster family and the social worker, were also identified as being influential. Service usage and political and legislative factors, as well as attitudes towards children in care, were also indicated to be strongly influential. It is suggested that the factors identified in this review should be carefully considered as important aspects of care for fostered children and care documentation.     

Exploring emotional aspects of care and control in social work with children and families - a single case analysis of conversation

ABSTRACT

In this article, I explore how emotions are displayed and dealt with on a communicative level in face-to-face encounters between social workers and parents in a child welfare setting. The analysis draws upon detailed analysis of a whole encounter between a social worker and a parental couple who have recently had their new-born daughter placed in foster care. By examining the way emotional stances are expressed and responded to I discuss how orientations toward institutional tasks and goals create constraints for the display, recognition and validation of clients’ emotion displays. I consider the communicative challenges this poses for the parents and the social worker and the implications these may have for the client–worker relationship.     

Temporary care foster parents: Motives and issues of separation and loss

Temporary care foster parents, that is, foster parents who specialize in the care of infants, provide an invaluable service to child welfare agencies. They are a unique group among foster parents, and it is important to understand what motivates them to care exclusively for infants. In infant care, separation and loss experiences are repeated more often than in any other kind of foster care. The article identifies five motives most often seen in temporary care foster parents and explores as well the impact of repeatel separation and loss on the foster family. Implications for practice are suggested.     

Parent-worker relationships in child welfare social work: a Belgian case study

The involvement of parents within child and family social work has become an important research topic during the past few decades. Within this research, a lot of attention is paid to partnership, which is recognised as a dominant concept in current thinking about the parent–worker relationship in present-day practice. The debate on parent–worker relationships, however, seems to be mainly focussed on the individual relationship between the parent and the social worker. Based on a historical analysis of policy documents on a Belgian child and family welfare service, this article offers a historical and sociopolitical contextualisation of the current debate on the parent–worker relationship. The analysis reveals that sociopolitical ideas about the responsibilities of the state, the community and the private family have induced a continuous reflection on which children and parents should be seen as the most appropriate clients for a particular service, as well as an ongoing development of diagnostic instruments to legitimise inclusion and exclusion of families within child and family social work. Consequences for parent–worker relationships in child and family social work are discussed, as well as some implications for future research on child and family social work practices.     

Role Perceptions of Foster Care in African American Kinship and Nonkinship Foster Parents: A Quantitative Analysis

This article reports on a study that examined a cohort of African American kinship (n = 57) and nonkinship (n = 53) foster parents' perceptions of their role responsibilities as a foster care provider. The Foster Parent Role Perception (FPRP) scale was used to measure perceived role responsibility. Results indicated that both the kinship and nonkinship foster parents perceived their primary role responsibilities as that of caring for the needs of the foster child(ren), while perceiving much less role responsibility for working with the biological family of the child(ren) or partnering with the agency. The implications of these findings for practice are discussed.     

The Abused and Neglected Foster Child: Determinants of Emotional Conflict and Oppositional Behavior

Behavioral and emotional problems have been observed in emotionally vulnerable children in foster care under certain circumstances. A common pattern involves the unpredictable appearance of a previously absent or unavailable natural parent. Such an occurrence precipitates the reawakening of the child’s ambivalent feelings toward both natural and foster parents as well as their fears of abandonment. This frequently leads to behavior that is oppositional and difficult to manage. If the foster parents find the child’s behavior unmanageable, and if they are not provided with appropriate professional support during this difficult period, a crisis often follows that precipitates the child’s removal from the foster home. Individual, familial, and systemic contributions to this dilemma are discussed" This article emphasizes the origins and nature of the intrapsychic dilemma faced by these children. Particular emphasis is placed on the manifestations of a conflict of loyalty, in the child, and its relationship to the oppositional behavior of these children in foster care. Additional considerations include the impact of inconsistent parenting, abuse and neglect by the natural parents, the assumption of a parental role by the child and a concomitant renunciation of the child’s dependency needs, as well as an examination of the role of the foster parent’s fantasy of what it will be like to parent a traumatized child.     

The language and policy of care and parenting: Understanding the uncertainty about key players’ roles in foster care provision

Recent debates about the care provided to looked-after children have been characterised by uncertainty about the differing roles and responsibilities of foster carers, birth parents, and social workers. To explore the assumptions underlying these uncertainties, we drew upon Foucauldian Discourse Analysis and compared the discourses used by professionals (social workers in a group discussion about foster placement breakdown) with those used by policy-makers (in the Governmental green paper ‘Care Matters’). In both cases, a discourse based upon Attachment Theory was used to explain why placements succeed and fail, and to predict the repercussions of failure. However, there was a key difference in the way that professionals and policy-makers constructed the roles of key players in foster placements. The social workers constructed the birth parents as the parental figures for children in care, constructing themselves in a non-parental role. ‘Care Matters’ largely ignores the role of birth parents, and instead constructs social workers as parental figures. Neither source viewed foster carers as parental and ‘Care Matters’ positions this group as strictly professional. We discuss the incongruence of foster placements being understood through Attachment Theory, while foster carers are understood as non-parental figures, and also the repercussions of labelling a social worker as a parent, and the professionalization of the role of the foster carer.     

The Use of Online Social Support by Foster Families

ABSTRACT

The extent to which foster families utilize social support on the Internet is examined in a sample of 34 foster families in a digital divide intervention program and a comparison sample of 30 foster families who were not part of the program. In spite of increased Internet access, the frequency of using online social support is low. A minority of parents and children increased their use of the Internet to give and receive help, communicate with other foster families and e-mail with their foster care worker. More than half of foster youth have used the Internet to stay in touch with friends and relatives and have “made a new friend” over the Internet. Implications for child welfare practice and for further research are discussed.     

The abused and neglected foster child: Determinants of emotional conflict and oppositional behavior

Behavioral and emotional problems have been observed in emotionally vulnerable children in foster care under certain circumstances. A common pattern involves the unpredictable appearance of a previously absent or unavailable natural parent. Such an occurrence precipitates the reawakening of the child's ambivalent feelings toward both natural and foster parents as well as their fears of abandonment. This frequently leads to behavior that is oppositional and difficult to manage. If the foster parents find the child's behavior unmanageable, and if they are not provided with appropriate professional support during this difficult period, a crisis often follows that precipitates the child's removal from the foster home. Individual, familial, and systemic contributions to this dilemma are discussed. This article emphasizes the origins and nature of the intrapsychic dilemma faced by these children. Particular emphasis is placed on the manifestations of a conflict of loyalty, in the child, and its relationship to the oppositional behavior of these children in foster care. Additional considerations include the impact of inconsistent parenting, abuse and neglect by the natural parents, the assumption of a parental role by the child and a concomitant renunciation of the child's dependency needs, as well as an examination of the role of the foster parent's fantasy of what it will be like to parent a traumatized child.     

Flemish Foster Mothers’ Perceptions of Support Needs Regarding Difficult Behaviors of Their Foster Child and Their Own Parental Approach

Family foster care is a valuable, but vulnerable type of out-of-home placement. Adequate support of foster parents is an important factor for placement success. This requires an accurate assessment of the support needs of foster parents. This paper focuses on the support needs of foster mothers concerning difficult behavior of the child and their own parenting behavior. Data were gathered from 282 foster mothers. 46 % of the foster mothers needed support on at least one behavior of the child, 40 % on at least one parenting behavior. Foster mothers, who felt less competent to deal with the child, expressed a higher support need on both areas. A high support need concerning difficult behaviors was further predicted by the foster mother’s age, the type of foster care, and the number of biological children. A high support need concerning parenting was further predicted by the quality of support by the foster care worker and the number of foster children. Careful monitoring of all types of foster care situations with special attention to problem behaviors and how to handle them could make this type of out-of-home-placement more effective.     

Socioemotional characteristics of minors in foster care: A comparison between the estimation of parents,teachers and children

During the child's first few years, it's of fundamental importance the presence of a strong emotional base as long as it creates the possibility to open themselves to physical and social world with confidence, and as it acts as a facilitator of cognitive development. For this reason, if the family cannot ensure such base, social services are forced to resort to foster care, a resource that has a lot of difficulties, leading to different implications in the development of the child and of the foster family. It is therefore important to analyze in depth the socio-emotional variables that characterize children who are in a situation of foster care in order to provide adequate assistance to optimize their development. For this 32 minors in foster care, 31 foster parents and 28 teachers from the city of Valencia, were administered the BASC. The results highlight that parents are evaluating children, in general, worse than tutors. Specifically they consider children more aggressive, they detect more behavioral and attention problems and recognize in them a greater tendency to externalize the problems, while the teachers consider these children as with more social and adaptive skills. There were no significant differences between the scores of parents, teachers and children. High levels of psychopathology (which are clinically significant in various cases) and the fact that host parents evaluate minors as more problematic, are indicators of parents' and minors' need of support from public organizations.     

An Assortative Adoption Marketplace: Foster Care,Domestic, and Transnational Adoptions

Among sociologists of the family, there has been relatively little attention paid to child adoption. When it is mentioned, many characterize the process as a universal family form. The goal of this review is to complicate this subject by disaggregating adoption into three different market segments: foster care, domestic, and transnational. Specifically, the paper argues that adoption is an assortative process that stratifies parents and children. Of the members of the adoption triad (e.g. the birthmother, adoptive parent(s), and adopted child), prospective adoptive parents possess the greatest degree of choice when deciding which market segment to pursue. However, their options are often tempered by strict eligibility requirements and financial restraints. Drawing broadly on the extant sociological and child welfare literature, the bulk of the review is devoted to identifying and analyzing how these social forces funnel parents and children into forever families. I pay particular attention to the demographic profiles of children and adoptive parents, including how transracial adoption factors into foster care, domestic, and intercountry adoptions.     

Foster Parents Speak: Preferred Characteristics of Foster Children and Experiences in the Role of Foster Parent

Foster parents play a pivotal role in the child welfare system. A study that employed focus groups with foster parents was conducted at a private foster care agency with the initial purpose of understanding the characteristics of foster children that foster parents both preferred and not preferred. In the qualitative research tradition, their answers addressed the topic of characteristics and expanded to provide additional data on their experience as foster parents. Using theme analysis, the following themes were generated: foster care as service; foster parents' preferences of foster children's characteristics; foster parents do not feel valued or trusted; increased caseworker and foster parent partnership; problems in the foster care and related systems; and focus group as support. Implications for research and practice are forwarded.     

The Role of Social Support in the Transition From Foster Care to Emerging Adulthood

Many youth leave foster care with disrupted relationships with their family and others in their social networks. Previous research has documented the severe adversity that former foster youth face in the transition to young adulthood. Perhaps some difficulties are at least partially related to a lack of social support that results from frayed relationships. This article reviews the literature on social support, particularly as it relates to foster youth, for the purpose of examining the role that formal and informal supports play in the transition to adulthood. The implications of this literature for successful transitions for former foster youth are discussed, as well as ways child welfare workers can engage youth and their families, and help them develop supportive social networks.     

Culture loss: American Indian family disruption, urbanization, and the Indian Child Welfare Act

This study examined the perceptions and views of urban American Indian parents regarding foster care and American Indian family issues. Findings highlight four themes: (1) discouragement from working with the current foster care system, (2) the role of culture in caregiving, (3) differing definitions of family and relatedness, and (4) the effects of historical pain due to past family disruption. These themes are used to formulate guidelines for the development of an American Indian foster care and child welfare program.     

The Power of Information:

This article explores the interactions of African-American foster parents with child welfare agencies. Data from the 1980 Survey of Foster Parents in Eight States were used in assessing the information exchange patterns between two groups of foster parents-traditional and extended-and child welfare workers. Findings show that traditional foster parents request and receive more information about general agency policies and services as well as the role of foster parenting than the extended types of foster families. Implications of these findings are discussed in the context of recruitment and differences in expectations child welfare workers and foster parents have about the role and function of foster parents and the delivery of services in the child welfare field. Empowerment strategies are recommended to increase the power of foster parents, especially among related foster parents.     

Fictions and Facts about Parents and Parenting Older First-Time Entrants to Foster Care

Knowledge about the parents of older first-time entrants into foster care is embedded in fictions created by media images, anecdotal stories of professionals in the child welfare system, as well as reports and observations of youths who have experienced foster care. Even though there are caring and effective nonrelatives who are foster parents, the public perception of non-relative foster parents is sometimes quite negative. In order to separate some of the facts from some of the fictions about the parents/caregivers of older first-time entrants to foster care, this article will describe the parents and relative caregivers (grandparents and others) of older first-time entrants to foster care in an urban public welfare agency by examining maltreatment data.     

Comparison of role perceptions of white and African American foster parents

The number of U.S. children entering foster care is increasing faster than the number of available foster parents. Of particular concern are the growing number of African American children in foster care and the lack of African American foster parents to care for them. This study compares role perceptions of African American and white foster parents and provides information on recruiting African American foster parents. These foster parents are more likely than their white counterparts to feel responsible for facilitating the relationship between foster children and birthparents. They are more likely to accept responsibility for the roles of agency partner and emotional developer of the child. Implications include the need for agencies to develop recruitment models that are sensitive to the qualities African American families can bring to the foster parent role.     

Administrative case reviews: Improving outcomes for children in out-of-home care

For nearly three decades foster care review has been required and practiced in the United States. It is well established that foster care review was designed with the intent to reduce the time children spend in foster care and increase permanent placements for children. This article presents that foster care review, as practiced in Colorado, is a social work intervention and quantitative results of this study demonstrate that as an intervention, timely administrative case review is an effective social work intervention related to improving child welfare outcomes for the children and families served in Colorado. The major findings show that timely administrative case review and increased levels of review attendance (mother, father, Guardian ad litem's, and foster parents) are predictors of the child welfare outcomes of permanency and length of time in out-of-home care. Bivariate results indicate a median length of stay approximately 10.76 months longer for children who do not consistently receive timely case reviews. Additionally, the results show that timely care review moderates the underlying casework process related to caseworker contacts, demonstrating that a child's length of stay differs depending on the level of timely case review. In essence, the administrative case review process in Colorado is effectively achieving its goal and is an effective intervention for improving the lives of children in foster care.