[pt] A presente dissertação visa discutir o processo e a prática de acolhimento familiar, onde crianças e adolescentes, normalmente, são vítimas de violência doméstica. O acolhimento, enquanto apoio social, ocorre no Brasil desde os tempos de colonização, porém nos atemos somente aos casos mediados pelo poder público ocorridos depois da promulgação do Estatuto da Criança e do Adolescente, ou seja, a partir da década de 1990. Especificamente no período de 1997 a 2005. Por acolhimento familiar entende-se: a prática que leva a um sujeito, criança, adolescente ou adulto a conviver como membro transitório ou definitivo de outra família que não é a família na qual nasceu conforme define a psicóloga Argentina Matilde Luna (2001:17). Pode ser considerado uma alternativa à institucionalização para algumas crianças e adolescentes quando se pensa no seu caráter provisório e transitório. Vale ressaltar que é um processo amplo e diferenciado de acordo com a sociedade e cultura em questão. As questões que norteiam nossa análise estão relacionadas aos aspectos que parecem aumentar a probabilidade de permanência de crianças e adolescentes em sua família de origem após a participação em um processo formal1 de acolhimento familiar. Esses aspectos não foram anteriormente problematizados pelos programas aos quais tivemos acesso. Utilizamos as categorias violência doméstica e acolhimento familiar. Para alcançar os objetivos foram entrevistados diversos atores envolvidos no processo de acolhimento familiar: famílias, técnicos e gestores dos projetos. Foram escolhidas quatro regiões do município do Rio de Janeiro e ouvidos representantes de projetos situados em outras cinco localidades do país2: Belo Horizonte- MG, Franca-SP, São Bento do Sul - SC, Campinas-SP e São Paulo-SP. Os resultados aqui encontrados estão dentro do limite do nosso escopo de pesquisa possibilitando a resposta a algumas perguntas e discussão de suposições. / [en] The paper in focus aims to discuss the process and practice of the foster care where children and teenagers are usually victims of the household violence. The foster care as a social support has been taken place in Brazil since the colonial period. But we are only going to study the cases under the public power that have been happened after the Child and Teenager Statute, since 1990. Only from 1997 to 2005. Foster care means the practice that takes a guy, a child, a teenager or an adult to deal with a passing or permanent member from another family, someone that is not from the family where he or she was born, according to Matilde Luna´s opinion, a psychologist from Argentina. It can be considered as an alternative from institutionalization for some children and teenager when it´s temporary and transitory. It´s a large and different process according to the society and culture. Our analyses are related to the aspects that may increase the permanence probability in the original family after they have been had under a formal3 foster care. These aspects have not been studied through the programs we´ve attended. Household violence and foster care were the categories used. To reach our goals we interviewed several actors involved in the foster care process: families, technicians and other people who are engaged in the projects. Four regions from Rio de Janeiro and another five4 different regions in Brazil where chosen in our research. The results found are within our reach. We may answer some questions and discuss about everything.

This dissertation addresses gaps in the child welfare literature from a systemic perspective. The extant literature focuses primarily on children in care, which excludes 90% of children and families involved with the system. In addition, foster parent retention has become an area of primary concern because there are fewer individuals who are willing to foster. Research that examines all children involved with the child welfare system and ways to improve foster parent experiences is imperative to address these areas of need. The two studies herein address these gaps in the literature by examining children who are in contact with the child welfare system but largely remain out of care, children who are in care, and foster caregivers. The first study compared two groups of children in the Ontario child welfare system: those who remain with their natural family and those in out-of-home care. The emotional and behavioural functioning, prosocial behaviour, education, health, and resources (internal and external) of these two groups of children were examined and relatively few significant differences were identified. However, it was found that, despite having comparable mental health and educational functioning, children who remained in their natural homes had significantly fewer external resources than children in out-of-home care. Children in out-of-home care may have increased access to community resources despite having similar needs to children who remain in their natural home environments. Additional research is needed to replicate and better understand these findings so that the child welfare system can best meet the needs of its children. The second study examined how foster child characteristics, as well as other foster parent and agency factors, impact Canadian foster parents’ experience of fostering, particularly related to agency workers, the fostering system, training, and foster children and their placements. Results identified that foster children’s needs and maltreatment histories, as reported by foster parents, were not significantly associated with perceptions about fostering. The factors that were the most highly associated with positive perceptions about fostering were increased practical and emotional support. These findings indicate that child welfare agencies can improve foster parents perceptions about fostering by providing sufficient practical and emotional support. A monitoring system that allows foster parents to provide regular feedback would be beneficial in continuing to evaluate their fostering experiences, assess the impact of interventions targeting foster parent support, and address any areas of concern. As a whole, the results of this dissertation highlight the importance of providing both children and foster parents in the child welfare system with appropriate supports that promote positive child functioning and foster parent experiences.

Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich vor allem mit dem Thema der Pflegschaft, sowie mit den anderen Formen der Pflege um das Kind. In der Arbeit werden die Entwicklung und die rechtliche Regelung der Pflegschaft behandelt. Die Entstehung der Pflegeförderung tritt auf, wenn die leiblichen Eltern gehindert sind, sich um ihr eigenes Kind kümmern zu können. Diese Hindernisse können kurzfristiger oder dauerhafter Natur sein. Die Pflegschaft kann in die individuelle Pflege und Gruppenpflege unterteilt werden. Ein Beispiel für die Gruppenpflege sind die SOS-Kinderdörfer. Wenn das Kind einer fremden Person anvertraut wird, steht am Anfang des ganzen Prozesses die Eintragung des Antragstellers in das Register, weiter folgt die Phase der Vorbereitung und dann die Vermittlung der Pflege. Die Rechte und Pflichten der Pflegeeltern sind durch das Bürgerliche Gesetzbuch und durch das Gesetz über den Sozial- rechtlichen Schutz des Kindes bestimmt. Die Grundpflicht der Pflegeeltern sowie ihr Grundrecht bestehen darin, sich um das Kind so persönlich zu kümmern, dass es sich gut entwickelt. Die Pflegeeltern sind dazu verpflichtet, die leiblichen Eltern über die Entwicklung des Kindes zu informieren, denn über alle wesentlichen Dinge wird von den leiblichen Eltern entschieden, beziehungsweise, wenn das Kind kein Elternteil hat, vom...

Magister Artium (Social Work) - MA(SW) / Despite remarkable strides being made in legislation in South Africa, the country still faces immense challenges which directly impact on the care and protection of its children. Many children are removed from their families and placed into alternative care because of high risk factors in the family and community. However, because of the socioeconomic situations of families, many of these children will not be able to return to their family. It is, therefore, essential that in the residential care programme, efforts are directed towards permanency planning for each child in order to ensure long term placement in a family. The host parent programme which has been introduced at Child and Youth Care Centres (CYCCs) acts as a precursor to foster-care placements. Following on this, host parents provide the child in need of care with opportunities to interact and form positive relationships with adult caregivers. This study has explored and described, by means of qualitative research, the experiences of host parents who accommodated children in need of care. Nine host parents were purposively selected from three participating CYCCs in Athlone, Cape Town. Data was collected by means of semi-structured individual interviews. The data was analysed according to the steps by Tesch in Creswell (2009). The findings suggest that host parents are instrumental to those children who cannot return to their natural families. The host parents’ interaction with the CYCC was both positive and negative at times. Recommendations and guidelines in order to develop and improve existing hosting programmes at CYCC’s are provided. / South Africa

abstract: In the first chapter, I study the two-sided, dynamic matching problem that occurs in the United States (US) foster care system. In this market, foster parents and foster children can form reversible foster matches, which may disrupt, continue in a reversible state, or transition into permanency via adoption. I first present an empirical analysis that yields four new stylized facts related to match transitions of children in foster care and their exit through adoption. Thereafter, I develop a two-sided dynamic matching model with five key features: (a) children are heterogeneous (with and without a disability), (b) children must be foster matched before being adopted, (c) children search for parents while foster matched to another parent, (d) parents receive a smaller per-period payoff when adopting than fostering (capturing the presence of a financial penalty on adoption), and (e) matches differ in their quality. I use the model to derive conditions for the stylized facts to arise in equilibrium and carry out predictions regarding match quality. The main insight is that the intrinsic disadvantage (being less preferred by foster parents) faced by children with a disability exacerbates due to the penalty. Moreover, I show that foster parents in high-quality matches (relative to foster parents in low-quality matches) might have fewer incentives to adopt. In the second chapter, I study the Minnesota's 2015 Northstar Care Program which eliminated the adoption penalty (i.e., the decrease in fostering-based financial transfers associated with adoption) for children aged six and older, while maintaining it for children under age six. Using a differences-in-differences estimation strategy that controls for a rich set of covariates, I find that parents were responsive to the change in direct financial payments; the annual adoption rate of older foster children (aged six to eleven) increased by approximately 8 percentage points (24% at the mean) as a result of the program. I additionally find evidence of strategic adoption behavior as the adoption rate of younger children temporarily increased by 9 percentage points (23% at the mean) while the adoption rate of the oldest children (aged fifteen) temporarily decreased by 9 percentage points (65% at the mean) in the year prior to the program's implementation. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Economics 2019

Magister Artium (Child and Family Studies) - MA(CFS) / Kinship foster care in South Africa, whereby orphaned and vulnerable children (OVC) are being cared for by their biological relatives, is increasing. The significant increase in kinship foster care has a strong correlation to the high rates of HIV/AIDS-related deaths, resulting in a high prevalence of children who are vulnerable and orphaned. Social workers are mandated to seek alternative care placements for such OVC, prioritising kinship care as opposed to foster care with non-biological families. However, such kinship foster care, in which children are likely to be placed in the care of their grandparents, as common practice in South Africa, is not without challenges relating to family dynamics, especially when foster children become teenagers.

Magister Artium (Child and Family Studies) - MA(CFS) / In South Africa family foster care is the first option of alternative care for children removed from their biological parents, adoptive parents or guardians, due to neglect, abuse or abandonment. Similar to international trends, South Africa prioritises family foster care. However, when the foster care placement disintegrates, children are generally placed in child and youth care centres (CYCCs) in accordance with the South African Children’s Act 38 of 2005. This qualitative study aims to explain the adverse childhood experiences of adults regarding their transition from foster care to CYCCs, using family systems theory (FST) to contextualise these accounts. The population for this study was adults living in Nelson Mandela Bay (NMB), who were formerly moved to CYCCs after the break down of their family foster care placements.

Foster care drift is the extended stay in foster care without attaining family reunification or permanency with another placement. When foster care youth experience foster care drift, they face the possibility of aging out of the foster care system. Interventions and policies have been implemented to aid family service workers during the process of permanency planning; however, a great number of foster care youth remain in care. This study explored the perceptions of social work professionals regarding foster care drift regarding issues and challenges that social workers engaged in foster care placement face regarding foster care drift. The ecological system theory provided the foundation for understanding the connection of social workers and the external systems surrounding them. An action research design was used to carry out this study. A focus group with family service workers in the southeastern region of the United States was conducted. Seven participants discussed foster care drift and developed possible solutions. Key findings from the study show 3 main themes: ineffective communication, unproductive parent education classes, and unhelpful allocation of agency funding. Possible solutions to decrease foster care drift include improving communication among workers and other agencies, improving parent education courses to include an independent living skills component, and allocating monetary resources to develop programs specific for foster care youth and their families. The findings of this study might effect social change by supporting a shift in focus of foster care services from out-of-home interventions to preventative services to promote family stability.

Nationwide more than 2 million youth are placed in custody annually, approximately 80,000 children return home, and more than 70% have a diagnosable mental disorder. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the outcomes of 311 youth released from secure residential facilities in Georgia between January 2012 thru May 2017. In the dataset, 136 youth returned to regular homes, 128 returned to group homes (GC), and 47 returned to traditional foster homes (TFC). The goal of the study was to examine the differences in probation outcomes based on the type of placement. For the purpose of the study, probation success was defined as having no additional placements in a secure residential facility within 365 days of release. To provide additional context, mental health status, race, sex, and age were analyzed. Binomial logistic regression and chi-square tests were performed to answer the research question. The tests did not reflect a statistically significant difference in the outcomes. However, the analysis did reflect that race and placement type had some effect on probation success. For race, success was 15.4% for black, 24.0% for white, and 24.1% for other. For placement type, probation success was 15.6% for youth returning to GC, 20.6% for youth returning to regular homes, and 23.4% for youth returning to TFC. As reflected in the literature, issues such as lack of proven programs in the community, mental health, and family impact the outcomes of delinquent youth in foster care. This study and the literature reflect the need for social change which can occur when the needs of delinquent juveniles supervised in foster care are addressed systematically.

This dissertation draws on semi-structured interviews with 20 former youth in care to examine their experiences in Ontario’s child welfare system and the long-term impacts of those experiences. Using a symbolic interactionist approach, the study analyzes the biographical disruption that experiences in the care system represented for participants and how this affected their life trajectories. The findings are organized and discussed around three themes: a) participants’ involvement with the system – how they experienced entering, being in, and exiting the system; b) the stigma participants experienced while in care, and their efforts to neutralize or manage the stigma; and c) the impact that their care experiences had on participants as adults. The data reveal a range of challenges that participants encountered while they were in care, including loneliness, isolation, neglect, general mistreatment and in some cases, abuse. Particularly damaging were the stigma and assaults on “self” that participants experienced as a result of their care status. The data also reveal that in one way or another, these early experiences followed participants into their adult lives, leaving them with a myriad of issues and concerns. The dissertation ends with a discussion of the substantive and theoretical contributions of the findings, as well as a section that addresses the policy implications of the research. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This dissertation draws on semi-structured interviews with 20 former youth in care to examine their experiences in the care system and the long-term impacts of those experiences. Participants described their time in care, including the stereotyping, stigma, abuse, and general mistreatment they encountered, as well as the loneliness and isolation they experienced. Leaving the care system also came with a distinct set of challenges that often persisted into their adult lives. The analysis focuses on impacts relating to identity, self-perception, and material circumstances for those who pass through Ontario’s child welfare system.