This study is about the assessment of foster care families and what´s considered a suitable foster care home. It is a comparative study between two welfare countries, Sweden and Australia. The study aims to increase the understanding of social workers assessment on foster care families and examines what a suitable foster care home looks like for a few social workers in each country. The study was carried out through five qualitative interviews, three of them in Sweden and two of them in Australia. With a social constructivist theory the result was carried out and analysed. The result of the study shows differences in the way social workers in each country talk about the suitability of a foster carer. In Australia the social workers that participated in the study spoke about a suitable foster family as a family that is safe and can provide a safe environment. In Sweden the social workers spoke about a suitable family as a secure and stable family. The result of the study also shows similarities between the two countries, as an example the nuclear family is still the norm and other family structures are exceptions of the norm.

Theoretical part of this thesis deals with description of substitutional family care and its types. Importance of family care for child's development is emphasized at the beginning of the thesis. Further legislation of the substitutional family care and also terms of its mediation are described. The theoretical part deals with history of the substitutional family care in our country and also in other countries. Then some weaknesses of the substitutional family care and its system are mentioned. Second part of the thesis contains research with several chosen caseworkers who work in branch of the substitutional family care. Detection of respondents' opinions about education and personality predispositions for good practise of profession is the aim of the research.

This diploma thesis deals with the institute of foster care. Foster care has been a widely discussed issue lately, in the field of family law. After years of theoretical considerations, discussions and preparations, a lot of significant changes have been made in this area, which have been incorporated into the new Civil Code and have been defined by the Amendment No. 401/2012 of the Coll., of the Act on Social-Legal Protection of children. The main objective of such changes is to professionalize foster care, and thus create an alternative to institutional care, to make foster care work in a more efficient way, to lower the risks of failure in daily practice, and to increase a notion of such form of substitute care in public. On the very top of general ideas and considerations remains especially the best interest and well being of a foster child. The emphasis is laid on the child's right to grow up in a background of a family and on help provided to a family with an endangered child. The diploma thesis is divided into seventeen chapters. First chapter gives an introduction to the issue of substitute care and talks about individual forms of such care. Second chapter presents a historical view into the individual phases of the development of foster care. Third chapter is dedicated to state and international...

Foster care, which represents the most common form of substitute family care in many developed countries including Czech Republic, constitutes the topic of this thesis. Foster care is managed, controlled and financed by the state. Its purpose is to provide a foster home for child, whose parents cannot, do not want to, or fail to take care of for various reasons. In Czech Republic foster care has undergone an interesting development, which reflected situation at the time, as well as empirical and theoretical knowledge in this area. Under the Communist regime, which idealized institutional care, foster care was even canceled a number of years. At present, foster care is widely used and supported by the state. Experts stress the importance of long-term foster care and her ability to redress psychological deprivation in children. On the other side, the experts warn of dire psychological consequences of institutional care. According to the Act No. 89/2012 Coll., civil code as well as several international conventions, substitute family care takes precedence over institutional care. The diploma thesis defines the basic concepts related to foster care (the right to respect for family life, the best interests of the child, substitute care for children, substitute family care, foster care and foster care for...

The diploma thesis titled "Foster care" is dedicated to the foster care in the Czech republic. Its main objective is to explore the benefits of legislative changes to the functioning of foster care. The work also provides view of alternative forms of family education and types of foster care. In the theoretical part of the thesis focuses on the history of foster care, its forms, modes of mediation, both for applicants and in children. Furthermore, is the financing of foster care and foster's rights and obligations that are newly included within the framework of foster care. Finally, the work also addresses the difficulties that foster care entails, and which should be equated foster even before the adoption of a child in foster care. There is the thesis research among foster families focusing among other things on the evaluation of changes in foster care from their perspective in the practical part.

The first part of my work is focused on the definition of homosexuality and clarifies some concepts and a summary of its history. Registered partnership is explained there, including its advantages and disadvantages. Furthermore it also focuses on the importance of family for the child and review of the types of foster care. And finally, first part summarizes various factors that influences children's psyche. The second part described the results of my survey which is focused on the public image of child custody to gay couples. It consists of several reactions collected from various chat forums and the most representative opinions obtained from questionnaires. The work is accompanied by five case studies and opinions from among homosexuals.

This diploma thesis deals with the public awareness of substitute family care. The theoretical part describes the current substitute family care system, its historical context based on the SFC models, including a summary of their advantages and disadvantages. There are also mentioned the changes that will follow after change the system of substitute family care after the entry into force of the amendment to the Act on Social and Legal Protection of Children. The practical part is focused on interviews with professionals working in this area. Experts are asked about current and future substitute family care system and their experience with it, including suggestions for possible changes. Keywords: The substitute family care, adoption, foster care

The purpose of this study is to illustrate how family home secretaries are discussing the conditions and importance of the biological children in foster families. Through this we want to gain an understanding of the subject and contribute with knowledge that can generate further research. Previous research shows that biological children are under prioritized in foster care. We were curious about what foster care secretary’s actually do for this group of individuals in their work. To get this information we interviewed six social workers who works with foster care. Our six informants were located in different municipalities in southern Sweden. The theoretical perspective we used were the norm of the core family, from private to public and the last theory we used were risk- and protection factors. The qualitative method for the study was semi- structured interviews that we transcribed and coded for our results. The results shows that the biological children gets often overridden due to the lack of resources and that the different municipalities argue differently about the need to support the biological children. The biological children in fosterfamilies has an important roll and meaning for the fosterchildren’s wellbeeing. Another result show that familychanges affects the biological children but the social workers dont’t reflect about that.

Doctor of Philosophy / School of Family Studies and Human Services / Karen S. Myers-Bowman / The focus of this qualitative case study was to examine the qualities and characteristics present in a successful resource family who parents high-risk teenagers. Perspectives were gathered from the resource parents, their birth children, a foster teen living in their home, and professionals that work with these resource parents. Utilizing Family Systems Theory and content analysis of the data, themes were identified as contributing to the success of this resource family. Themes identified were inclusion, communication, boundaries, humility, and a willingness to be hurt as well as positive attitude. Implications of these themes are discussed with the literature, theory, and the use of the pre-service training that resource parents are provided. A perspective was gained from both inside and outside the resource family for analysis. A discussion around implications of these findings as well as the need to explore additional areas is outlined.

The purpose of this quantitative study was to ascertain the extent to which the level of postsecondary readiness among youth residing in Independent Living Programs is influenced by the level of one or more of the following; graduation preparedness, independent living skills, sustainable independent living skills, and knowledge of their foster care rights. Approximately 15% of the 437,465 youth residing in foster care during FY 2016–2017 reached the age of emancipation. A quantitative research design was used in this descriptive study to examine the relationship between postsecondary readiness among youth residing in Independent Living Programs and their level of (a) graduation preparedness, (b) independent living readiness, (c) sustainable independent living skills, and (d) knowledge of their foster care rights. Participants placed in Georgia Independent Living Programs and preparing to exit the foster care system or emancipated from foster care were selected for this study using the purposive sampling method. Each of the 69 participants completed the Postsecondary and Education Readiness Survey. The instrument was pilot tested with 10 participants and determined to be valid and reliable. The data for the study were analyzed using the following statistical tests: descriptive statistics, frequency distribution, standard deviation, cross tabulation, and Spearman Rho. Participants represented a diverse group, including male, female, between the ages of 16 to 20 years old, black/African American, white, Hispanic/Latino/Spanish, other ethnic background, and between 1 and 18 years in foster care. The following results related to the four research questions/hypotheses: (a) there was a significant (moderately positive) relationship between the postsecondary readiness and graduation preparedness variables; (b) there was a significant (weak positive) relationship between the postsecondary readiness and independent living skills variables; (c) there was a significant (weak positive) relationship between the postsecondary readiness and sustainable independent living skills; and (d) there was a significant (weak positive) relationship between the postsecondary readiness and foster care rights variables. The following recommendations were inspired by the results of this study: increase funding for the Educational Training Voucher (ETV) program, provide additional independent living training for foster care youth and caregivers, and partner with other agencies serving young adults.