Substitutional child care is an indispensable part of system of social and legal protection of children. Until 1989, institutional care was preferred, while after the fall of communist government it had been gradually replaced by substitutional family care, because of the inappropriateness of institutional care to fully compensate for family environment. Deinstitutionalization means transforming the system of placing children to alternative care and it is understood as transition from institutional care to types of substitutional family care, eventually to more individual type of care with more family character. An amendment to the Social and Legal Children Protection Act, which aimed at transforming the system of substitutional care towards more individual work with endangered children, came into force in 2013. The amendment restored the institute of temporary foster care and modified the institute of long-term foster care. Moreover it set up system rules for the work of social and legal children protection authorities, it focused on prevention concerning endangered children etc. The goal of the thesis is to evaluate changes in the area of deinstitutionalization of substitutional child care in the Czech Republic after the amendment to the Social and Legal Children Protection Act from 2013, especially...

Studiens syfte är att undersöka familjehemssekreterares syn på samarbetet inom det tredelade föräldraskapet bestående av socialtjänst, familjehem och biologiska föräldrar samt samarbetets påverkan på familjehemsplacerade barns anknytning. Studien undersöker även hur socialtjänsten hanterar sammanbrott i familjehemsvård. Med semistrukturerade intervjuer som metod fokuserar studien på fem familjehemssekreterares upplevelser då tidigare forskning saknar deras perspektiv. Resultatet visar att socialtjänsten inom det tredelade föräldraskapet brister i samverkan främst på grund av tid- och resursbegränsningar. Hög personalomsättning och bristande kompetens är vidare faktorer som nedmonterade det tredelade föräldraskapet. Socialtjänsten kunde på grund av detta inte ge det stöd som behövdes varpå familjehemmen fick ta ett större ansvar i det tredelade föräldraskapet, vilket ökade risken för sammanbrott. Det hade även negativa effekter på barns anknytning till både familjehemmet och till sina föräldrar. En bättre balans inom det tredelade föräldraskapet skulle därför kunna bidra till bättre förutsättningar för barn i familjehemsvård. / This study aims at investigating social workers’ view on the Swedish three-part parenthood, consisting of the social services, the foster home and the biological parents, and its effects on children's attachment. The study also explores how social services handle breakdowns in foster care. The main focus lies on the perspective of the social workers who are in charge of the contact and support of foster homes, due to the lack of this perspective in earlier research. The study follows a qualitative interview method, with a total of five interviews that took place both digitally and in person. Our findings show that the three-part parenthood lacked cooperation within the social services mainly because of time and resource issues. Furthermore, high staff turnovers and low competence were factors that dismantled the three-part parenthood. Because of this, the social workers could not give the support that was needed. As a consequence, the foster homes had to take a bigger responsibility, which increased the risk of breakdowns. It also brought a negative effect on children's attachment to both the foster home and to their biological parents. A better balance in the three-part parenthood could therefore facilitate a better outcome for children in foster care.

The purpose of this study has been to examine the construction of identities that are taking place when Swedish children and teenagers are, according to their local social services, in need of a family home. We have collected and analyzed data in the form of advertisement that is publicly available from the Swedish website Familjehemsbanken.se. It is a kind of marketplace that specializes as a go-between for the local social services in different Swedish municipalities and the presumptive local family homes. The descriptions of the children were looked at through a social constructionism lens where we identified patterns and different themes to which we assigned our own meanings or interpretations, based on the analyzed data and previous research and theories. What we found were broadly categorized into three themes; descriptions that were aiming to sell the kids to prospective buyers (family homes), descriptions that highlighted certain issues or problems that the child needed support with or descriptions that we considered neutral or ambivalent. As we conclude in the study, the descriptions in the last category could also be interpreted as either good or bad, depending on the reader and their own values and life experience. Our results show that even though child auctions (in essence: a form of economic slavery) were abolished in Sweden in 1918, today’s Swedish society are still dealing with socially vulnerable children as they – in practice – are still commodities on a marketplace. The methods and language may have changed, but the end result is still strikingly similar to what happened over a hundred years ago. One of the biggest challenges the authors faced was that it doesn’t exist any previous Swedish research on the subject at hand. We would argue, however, that the marketization of socially vulnerable children is an important issue that should be more deeply and thoroughly researched by further studies on the subject.

Youth who are placed in the Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MTFC) program come from families with multiple risk factors. The MTFC program is based on social learning theory, which posits that youth learn from modeling those in their environment. It is unclear whether motivation for social learning decreases over time. Past research has indicated that there is an efficacious time period for treatment in the MTFC program (6 to 9 months). The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the behavior effects of remaining in treatment foster care for an extended length of time. This was measured through pre- and posttreatment scores on the Children's Functional Assessment Rating Scale (CFARS) and specific negative behaviors tracked through the Foster Parent Daily Report. Archival data were used for a sample of 34 youth placed in an MTFC program in a northwestern state. The repeated measures ANOVA results demonstrated increased scores on the CFARS from intake to exit date. Regression analysis indicated that the behaviors of arguing and defiance were observed at higher instances for youth in the MTFC program longer than 6 to 9 months. There were no significant findings related to the behavior of destructiveness/vandalism and the length of stay. The implications for social change include social workers being able to move youth out of MTFC sooner. Also, if behaviors are targeted and treated successfully as youth, then there is a decreased likelihood of the youth having negative and criminal behavior as adults.

This study investigated the educational outcomes of foster care youth utilizing the Road to Independence, Adopted from DCF, and Relative Caregiver tuition exemptions to pursue enrollment in Florida's state college system during the 2012-2013 academic year. An extensive literature review was conducted to examine the history of foster care, examine a contemporary portrait of the American foster care system, and the adult outcomes of former foster care. Federal and state policies impacting the population, campus support initiatives at colleges nationwide and the concept of resilience were also explored. In conjunction with the Florida Department of Education's Division of Accountability, Research and Measurement, the Florida Department of Children and Families provided access to a dataset compiled by the Community College and Technical Center MIS department. This file contained enrollment information for foster care youth utilizing one of three tuition exemptions to fund their education-related expenses. While all personal identifiers were eliminated prior to sharing the file, information within the document included student age, gender, race/ethnicity, academic discipline, and degree being pursued. Results of this study yielded some statistically significant differences across tuition exemption type. After examining relationships between gender and race/ethnicity and tuition exemption type, no statistically significant results were found. However, statistical significance was found after examining the relationships between academic degree being pursued and academic major/discipline and tuition exemption type. Many factors impact the experiences of foster care youth in the college classroom. These should be considered when developing programming, policy, and support services aimed at encouraging their success.

The backlog in foster care applications has been an issue in the Department of Health and Social Development, Johannesburg office, for the last number of years, resulting in foster care placement applications accumulating and families’ quality of life being affected and compromised. The service providers are inundated with high caseloads. Foster care applications could take up to a year or longer before they are processed and finalised at the Children’s Court. The aim of the study was to explore and describe the factors contributing to the foster care backlog from the service providers’ perspective and to provide suggestions to address this continuing backlog. The researcher employed a qualitative research approach and an explorative, descriptive and contextual research design. Factors such as high caseloads, lack of resources and lack of support and training from management were identified as contributing to the backlog. Recommendations made are the immediate filling of vacant posts, induction of new social workers, provision of adequate resources and infrastructure as well as the division of foster care services. / Social Work / M.A. (Mental Health)

As a social worker at the Desmond Tutu Child and Youth Care Centre in Gauteng province, the researcher noticed an increase in the number of applications for adolescents’ admission to the Centre due to a breakdown in their foster care placements. This raised a question regarding the factors contributing to this breakdown. The aim of the study was to develop an in-depth understanding of factors contributing to the breakdown of foster care placements from the perspectives of the adolescents who were fostered and from those of their foster parents. The qualitative research approach was used applying an explorative, descriptive and contextual design. Purposive sampling was used to select the participants. Data was collected using semi-structured interviews and was analysed according to the framework provided by Tesch (in Creswell, 2009:186). For data verification, Guba’s model (in Krefting (1990:214-220) was applied. Conclusions are drawn and recommendations made about foster care involving adolescents. / Social Work / M.A. (Social Work)

In communities across the United States, thousands of young people leave foster care without the support of family or community. At age 18, now legally adults, young people in foster care face potentially dramatic life changes as they are terminated from foster care services because they have reached the age of ineligibility, commonly referred to as “aging out.” Although research has increased an understanding of the experiences of youth exiting the foster care system, studies focusing on their experiences while transitioning out of the foster care system and into adulthood have been largely absent in the literature. This qualitative study is an effort to address this gap in the research. Using a modified grounded theory approach, this study explores the experiences of fifteen young adults between the ages of 18 and 24, as they transition to independence after exiting the foster care system. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 15 young adults ages 18-24, who have aged out of the foster care system or are receiving extended youth services. Results from this study support previous findings that youth exiting the foster care system face challenges transitioning to adulthood, particularly in their efforts to learn the skills needed to function independently, gain the education and/or vocational training to gain skillful employment, and have the social and emotional support needed to help facilitate their transition. The study results indicate that 87% of the participants expressed having a caring, supportive adult in their life who has assisted them. 66% of the study participants were enrolled in post-secondary institutions and expressed the importance of placement stability to maintain school credits and supportive relationships with their teachers. Specific areas of challenge for the youth preparing to transition to independence focused on money management and daily living skills. Implications for further research, professional practice, and policy development include states incorporating tools to assess readiness for independence, addressing the barriers to education as identified in the study and exploring the impact of family involvement/support for youth exiting the foster care system.

Short-term foster care is a fairly new form of substitute family care. Despite it having been incorporated in law since 2006, short-term foster care have only begun being employed seven years later. Only then the details of its administration were laid out in legislation. Purpose of this form of substitute family care is to prevent a placement of children into institutional care. It's possible to look at the professional foster care from different angles and thus assess it differently. Certainly, it has its positive and negative aspects as well as possible problems. It's undeniable that a well-functioning family is the best environment for raising and caring for a child. Forming an emotional bond is one of the most discussed factors contributing to the proper development of children placed in short-term foster care. Experts as well as the general public are looking for answers to the questions whether or not it's in the interest of the child to form an attachment to someone who's with them only for a short period of time, which children is professional foster care best suited for, whether children living in short-term foster care placements are less prone to suffer from emotional deprivation than children placed in institutional care or whether the duration of this form of foster care is sufficient. More questions arise over the degree of health care provided to infants placed with a professional forster family as well as over the level of risk of these children suffering traumas and stigmatizing experience compared to children living in institutional care. The objective of this thesis is to survey and assess the experience gained so far from implementing short-term foster care and to try and describe based on (previously) established facts how the children benefit from this form of substitute family care. In order to meet the set objective I chose a qualitative research strategy, the interview as a method, a semi-structured interview and a secondary analysis strategies. The results show that the most common reason for placing a child in this form of foster care is the impending adoption, i. e. it's mainly being used for infants whilst adoption placements are sorted out for them. To a lesser extent there are other reasons, respectively a minimum of older children are placed with professional foster families. Given these facts, it appears necessary to regard the short-term foster care differently depending on the age group of children placed in it. Undeniable merits of all cases of short-term foster care are an individual approach to each child that minimizes emotional deprivation and development of trauma, the development of the attachment behaviour and enough stimuli to influence a child's development. In the case of older children these are an experience of living in a well-functioning family and a positive educational impact. Developing an attachment between the child and the foster parent and then losing it because of the child's departure from a family is more risky for older children than newborns and toddlers. Claim that no attachment is to be formed between the child and the foster parent proved entirely unrealistic. The lack of permanent medical supervision can be seen as a disadvantage of professional foster care especially from the perspective of child welfare workers. Children placed for adoption often come from not monitored pregnancies or parents at-risk, i.e. these are children with unknown history whose development can therefore be risky, so they require a professional medical care in the first weeks of their lives. Research results have also indicated foster parents' positive motivation to professional fostering, an undisputed enrichment that this occupation brings their entire families and a satisfaction resulting from the meaningfulness of their work. The author believes that the institute of short-term foster care is undoubtedly very beneficial for a certain category of

The backlog in foster care applications has been an issue in the Department of Health and Social Development, Johannesburg office, for the last number of years, resulting in foster care placement applications accumulating and families’ quality of life being affected and compromised. The service providers are inundated with high caseloads. Foster care applications could take up to a year or longer before they are processed and finalised at the Children’s Court. The aim of the study was to explore and describe the factors contributing to the foster care backlog from the service providers’ perspective and to provide suggestions to address this continuing backlog. The researcher employed a qualitative research approach and an explorative, descriptive and contextual research design. Factors such as high caseloads, lack of resources and lack of support and training from management were identified as contributing to the backlog. Recommendations made are the immediate filling of vacant posts, induction of new social workers, provision of adequate resources and infrastructure as well as the division of foster care services. / Social Work / M.A. (Mental Health)