Better utilization of foster families might be linked to parents' reasons for fostering. This study used data from the National Survey of Current and Former Foster Parents to examine relationships between reasons for fostering and types of services and length of service foster parents provide. Top reasons for fostering were child-centered. The least endorsed reasons were self-oriented. Those who fostered to help children with special problems were more likely to have a child placed, had more children, and had fostered more types of special needs children. Parents who fostered because their children were grown were more likely to have a child placed, had more children, and were more likely to intend to continue fostering. Conversely, parents who wanted to be loved or who wanted companionship fostered fewer children Implications for improving foster family utilization are discussed.

Dissertation submitted to the FACULTY OF ARTS UNIVERSITY OF ZULULAND in partial fulfillment of the MASTERS DEGREE IN COMMUNITY WORK in the Department of SOCIAL WORK at the UNIVERSITY OF ZULULAND, 2008. / Social workers are expected to bring about changes in the lives of individuals groups and communities. The post 1994 era brought many changes in the South African welfare policy. Among the changes envisaged was the need for the adoption and implementation of the developmental approach in terms of the White Paper for Social Welfare (1997), which strives to promote basic human rights, dignity and self reliance. The developmental approach to Social Welfare: • recognizes the need for integrated and strength-based approaches to service delivery; • ensures and promotes sustainability of intervention efforts; • emphasizes appropriate services to all, particularly the poor, the vulnerable and those with special needs; and • recognizes that social work amongst other social service professions plays a major role in addressing developmental needs of society. This research intends to: • determine the application of a developmental model in working with foster families; • address any challenges experienced by service providers and seek to get their opinions of what could be regarded as the best practice model in handling foster families.

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Background. Four studies have found a core group of families who foster longer and foster and adopt a disproportionate number of children. We refer to these 20% as Vital Few families and the remaining 80% as Useful Many families. Three of these studies were cross-sectional and probably overrepresented families who foster longer and foster and adopt more children. The sole longitudinal study did not follow families over their entire fostering careers and perhaps underestimated length of service and number of children fostered and adopted. Futhermore, these studies did not provide information about characteristics of either group of families at the outset of their fostering careers, making it difficult to know how to recruit Vital Few families. This presentation will describe a longitudinal study used to address two questions: (1) Is there a small group of families who provide a disproportionate amount of foster caregiving and, if so, how large is this group and how do they differ from other families in terms of foster caregiving? (2) If there is a relatively small group of families who provide a disproportionate amount of foster caregiving, how do they differ at the outset of their fostering careers? Methods. From 1996 through 1999, 161 families participated in our study of foster family applicants, 113 were approved to foster, and 17 years later 100 of these 113 participated in our follow-up study. We used latent class analysis (LCA) to: (1) determine whether there are discrete types of families in terms of number of children fostered, adopted, and removed at families’ request, number of years fostered, and licensed capacity (all measured at follow-up); (2) determine the size of subgroups; and (3) assign families to subgroups. Results. Our LCA identified two groups of families, the Vital Few (10%) and Useful Many (90%). Vital Few families fostered two-thirds of all children, and they fostered three and one-half years longer. They adopted twice as many foster children and were licensed to foster twice as many children. Finally, the requested removal rate for Vital Few families was less than one-fourth that of Useful Many families. There were also differences between groups at the outset of their fostering careers. Vital Few families were more likely to say they would foster a sibling group. Also, Vital Few families were more likely to have children in the home; older mothers and fathers; mothers with previous foster parent experience; mothers not employed outside the home; and fathers with less education. Conclusions.Vital Few families are important to the foster care system and the children and families it serves because without them the chronic shortage of foster and adoptive families would be exacerbated and placement disruptions even more prevalent. In addition, previous research has demonstrated that Vital Few families place fewer restrictions on characteristics of children they are willing to foster and this is important given the many foster children with special needs. For these and other reasons we need to know more about how to recruit and retain these families.

Background and Purpose: Many foster parents serve briefly, and foster and adopt few children. This makes it difficult to ensure the placement, care, stability, and well-being of foster children. Rather than focus on this majority of foster parents, it may be more useful to understand highly productive foster parents. The Pareto Principle provides a useful conceptual framework for doing this. This principle originates from economics and has empirical support in other fields. It also is known as the 80-20 rule or the Vital Few and states that roughly 80% of effects come from 20% of causes. This presentation will report research that identified such a group of foster parents and will describe their characteristics. Methods: In Study 1 we used a cross-sectional design and a national non-probability sample of 304 non-kinship foster mothers. In Study 2 we used data from the National Survey of Current and Former Foster Parents (NSC&FFP), which included a national probability sample of 876 non-kinship foster families. We used latent class analysis (LCA) to identify discrete subgroups of foster families based on number of children fostered; years fostered; and number of foster children in home at the time of study participation. Study 1 also included number of foster children adopted and number removed at foster parents' request. In Study 1 we also examined differences between subgroups in the quality of care provided. Results: LCA revealed two classes: 21% and 79% of the sample in Study 1, and 19% and 81% in Study 2. We refer to the smaller group as the Vital Few and the larger as the Useful Many. Vital Few: families fostered 73% and 74% of children in Study 1 and 2, respectively; 10 to 11 times more children than the Useful Many, despite having fostered only two to three times longer. Also, in both studies the Vital Few had 50% more foster children in their homes. Finally, the Vital Few in Study 1 had adopted twice as many children and requested removal rate was of one-half. In Study 1 we regressed class membership on quality of care indicators using logistic regression. The odds of being in the Vital Few were higher for mothers who: were less likely to use psychological control in parenting or inconsistent parenting; had less need for social readjustment; had more time to foster; and anticipated more help with fostering from professionals. Mothers who anticipated more help with fostering from kin were less likely to be in the Vital Few. Conclusions and ImplicationsFindings suggest that a disproportionately small percentage of foster parents care for most foster children. Understanding the characteristics of these resilient Vital Few can inform recruitment and retention efforts and the designation of other limited resources. Embracing the phenomenon of the Vital Few can reduce frustration of workers and provide more positive and realistic expectations of foster parents. Further research on the Vital Few is warranted to assess the motivations of this group, the quality of care provided, and outcomes of children fostered by these families.

There is an inherent risk in studying contemporary fiction. Serious questions form around issues of an author's longevity and legacy, a work's merit and its endurance for later scholarship, and the varieties of current critical reception and methodology against the shifts to come. The attendant difficulty of assessing and analyzing a work before an industry of critical reception has formed also presents challenges. David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest ( 1996) represents these challenges, and much more; it is at once an encyclopedic novel of 1079 pages, full of both liberal arts and scientific erudition, and an encomium to an apocalyptic end of late millennial American culture. The novel is highly allegorical and operates with three crucial subtexts, in addition to the standard diegetic narrative. In this study, I present three different, though not mutually exclusive, interpretations of this novel, a novel that has presented interpretive difficulties to scholars of contemporary fiction. In Part One, I survey and compare Wallace's aesthetic with the radical, yet self-contained, aesthetic of the poet, G.M. Hopkins; Part Two examines the integral concept of mediation and explores the subtext of the return of the dead author-the novel operates, in part, as a rejoinder to the death-of-the-author critical impasse; Part Three is primarily comparative and analyzes Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov (1880). Wallace has rewritten (or reimagined) Dostoevsky's novel and translated it into a contemporary context and idiom as a remedy for postmodern American solipsism. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This study proposed to explore several factors that promote foster parent satisfaction in order to preserve quality foster homes to serve the 532,000 displaced children currently in the child welfare system. A sample of 52 foster parents were surveyed to determine overall satisfaction with their foster care experience at Children's Way Foster Family Agency in San Bernardino, California. It was hypothesized that the higher the level of foster parent satisfaction, the higher rates of retention. A modified version of an existing instrument titled "Foster Parent Satisfaction Survey" was utilized in this study.

The purpose of the study was to examine the guiding factors that help foster youth emancipate successfully. The goal was to examine five areas: housing, education, identifying role models, social skills and effectiveness of Independent Living Program (ILP) services.

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