Syftet med den här studien var att ta reda hur familjehemsföräldrar upplever sitt uppdrag och det ansvar som uppdraget medför, vad som ger familjehemsföräldrar drivkraften att fortsätta med uppdragen, samt vilken känslomässig relation familjehemsföräldrar upplever att de får till de placerade barnen. Studien består av sex intervjuer med olika typer av familjehem, varav fem enskilda intervjuer och en parintervju. Det insamlade materialet analyserades med innehållsanalys. Tre teman framträdde i resultatet vilka var: Uppdraget som familjehem, varför familjehem och vardag som familjehem. Resultatet analyserades sedan utifrån tidigare forskning samt Antonovskys begrepp känsla av sammanhang, KASAM, och Bowlbys anknytningsteori. Resultatet visade att familjehemmen har olika synsätt beroende på hur länge de har varit familjehem, vilken typ av placeringar de haft och har, men framförallt av vilken anledning familjehemmet blev familjehem från början. / The purpose of this study was to figure out how foster parents view their task and the responsibilities that the task entails, what gives foster parents motivation to continue with the mission, as well as what kind of emotional attachment the foster parents experience they get to the placed children. This study consists of six interviews, of which five of them were individual and one pair interview. The gathered material was analyzed from content analysis. Three themes emerged in the results which were: The mission as a foster family, why foster family and the everyday of foster families. The results were then analyzed through previous research along with Antonovskys concept sense of coherence, SOC and Bowlbys attachment theory. The results showed that foster families have different views depending on how long they have been foster families, what kind of children they’ve had but above all, what motivated them to start a foster family.

The aim of this study was to examine how foster-care workers use their discretion, also how they evaluate foster-care investigations and which criteria affects the outcome of the investigations. Our focus group were social workers from four middle-sized municipalities and two social workers from the private sector. Two overall themes were identified after our interviews, both with underlying themes: discretion during investigation and criteria for foster-care takers.The analysis was based on previous research and theory. Our main conclusions were that social workers’ discretion is affected by the guidelines and methods established at their workplace. Also that the criterias for foster-care takers depends on the situation, but the foster child needs his or her own room in the home and the foster parent can not appear in criminal records.

About half a million children live in out-of-home care, generally due to state intervention (Children’s Bureau, 2016). The outcomes of youth in treatment are improved when they have stable relationships with caregiving adults. Group homes based on the Teaching-Family Model utilize a married couple who live in the home and are the primary care treatment providers. The present study employed a phenomenological approach to explore the lived experience of eight men who have worked in this role for at least a year. Intrapersonal and interpersonal processes and motivations were identified as common themes among respondents for how and why they continued in a difficult job and lifestyle. Implications for Teaching-Family Model group homes and foster care agencies are discussed, as well as possible directions for further research.

This study focused on the reason that close to 500,000 children were in the foster care system in 2009 in the United States, and the average length of care was over 26 months. The primary focus was why foster parents are unable to form a bond with the children placed in their home and the effects of not forming any attachment to the children. The results can be extremely negative for the children for many reasons including the foster parents not being invested in the child and providing only minimal standards of care. Moreover, the child does not receive the nurturance or guidance so desperately needed. The child’s wellbeing was not the primary focus of the foster parent. The child is unable to learn the core value of caring, nor form healthy relationships and unfortunately cannot develop or express other healthy emotions. This compromises the child’s ability to function in society as a healthy productive member. Further examined was the perspective of the child as to what the children’s social worker could do differently.

There has been a great deal of research published on foster youth’s perspectives regarding their relationships with foster parents, their experiences within the foster care system, and their longing for their biological parents. Limited research exists on foster parents’ experiences with the foster care system. More recently, foster parents have been asked to engage in the concurrent planning process, in which social workers work towards reunifying foster youth with their biological families, while at the same time planning for long-term, alternative placement in case reunification is not possible. The child welfare system depends on foster parents to care for and possibly be a long-term permanent placement for foster youth, yet we have little knowledge of foster parents’ experiences with concurrent planning and whether it impacts the foster parents’ ability to bond with foster youth. This is a quantitative study, which uses survey questionnaires developed by the researcher to explore foster parents’ experiences with concurrent planning and their self-reported experiences with bonding to foster youth. The survey was sent to 107 licensed foster parents at two Southern California foster family agencies using Qualtrics. The results of the survey questionnaires were documented in Qualtrics and a statistical analysis was conducted using SPSS Version 2.1. The foster parent participants in this study reported a range of experiences related to concurrent planning. Some reported receiving explicit training on the process from their social workers, while others received little to no information on concurrent planning. The study found a strong, positive correlation between the level of training and education participants received and their overall perceptions of the concurrent planning process. The study also explored relationship between the age of the foster child and the placement status of the foster child with the foster parent’s reported bonding to the child. The study found a small, positive correlation between the age of the child and the foster parents’ reported bonding. Similarly, the study’s findings suggest that foster parents with permanent placement youth report slightly higher levels of bonding with the youth than those with family reunification cases; however, this finding was not statistically significantly. This study’s findings suggest the need for more research regarding foster parents’ experiences working with concurrent planning and with the child welfare system in general. This study suggests that factors such as foster parent experiences, as well as foster youths’ characteristics, may play a role in bonding between foster parents and foster youth. These factors should be further explored to provide the best chance for children to develop strong, lasting relationships with their foster parents that may lead to permanency. Understanding foster parents’ experiences may provide insight on the kinds of support, education, and training child welfare agencies should provide for foster parents who serve as such crucial resources for the child welfare system and the children it serves.

Resource Family Approval (RFA) is a policy that was recently enacted in California. The process seeks to merge existing policies on the regulations of families who wish to care for children involved in the foster care system. The purpose of this study was to understand the perceptions of resource family approval social workers and the implementation of RFA. Ten participants were chosen from the resource family approval unit from a county child welfare agency. The study was a qualitative design with in person interviews. Common themes emerged in responses to social worker's thoughts about RFA, social worker's ideas for preparing other workers, families and the agency, and advice to new workers in RFA. The study found that participants had mixed responses regarding their own thoughts about RFA. The majority of the participants in the study felt that RFA was good in theory but not in execution. The study also revealed that RFA workers needed to be open-minded and focus on communicating with all parties involved in RFA. One of the recommendations is for policy makers to assess the effectiveness of the policy before enacting changes and give the policy time to work itself out before trying to change things so often. Another recommendation is that it is critical to offer ongoing trainings to both the workers and the families for RFA to be implemented and run smoothly and effectively within the community.

There is a demonstrated association between children's negative behaviors, placement disruption, and foster parents' attachment style in early childhood; however, there is an absence of research examining this relation among foster children in middle childhood. Researchers have found that in early childhood, children respond more favorably to foster parents with a secure attachment style, while greater placement disruption is associated with foster parents having an insecure attachment style. The purpose of this study was to examine the association between foster children's negative behaviors, placement disruption in foster children during middle childhood, and foster parents' attachment style. Bowlby's and Ainsworth's attachment theory was the theoretical framework of this quantitative study. Thirty-six foster parent-child dyads from 2 foster care organizations in Texas formed the convenience sample. Participants completed the Behavior Assessment System for Children, the Parent Rating Scale (predictor variable), the Revised Adult Attachment Scale (moderator variable), and a postbaseline telephone call (criterion variable). The results of a binary logistic regression analysis indicated that children's negative behavior was not significantly related to placement disruption. A moderated regression analysis was not conducted to test if foster parents' attachment style had a moderating effect between children's negative behavior and placement disruption due to the low number of respondents in the insecure style. These findings provide insight into the influence of foster parents' attachment style to children's behaviors. Social change implications could promote attachment theory in the development of training programs for foster parents which may help increase placement stability.

No description available.

<p>The aim of this study is to describe and understand the reasons to why people choose to become foster parents. By using the theory of action we wanted to investigate their intentions rather than their motives. The questions we wanted to answer where: How do the foster parents describe their reasons for becoming a foster home? What reasons do they give fore keeping on being foster parents? How do they comprehend their task and the fulfilling of it? The study was performed by utilizing qualitative interviews with five foster parents, four women and one man. In the analysis we used the theory of action as a theoretical perspective. The interpretation of the results is inspired by hermeneutics. The result showed that the wish to help a child was the primary reason for them to become foster parents. During the assignment new reasons came up and they were to a great extent related to their own satisfaction. Further, the study demonstrates that the foster parents believed they had a large space of action. It is our belief that their space of action had an impact on their willingness to continue being foster parents because they felt they had the power to influence their situation.</p>

<p>Ett stort antal barn är idag placerade i fosterfamilj. Flertalet av dessa barn uppvisar ett asocialt beteende med dåliga sociala relationer. Multidimension Treatment Foster Care (MTFC) är ett program vars mål är att förändra barnets attityd. Det är en öppen vårdinsats där barnet placeras i en utbildad fosterfamilj. En kvalitativ studie genomfördes baserat på nio intervjuer. Syftet var att utifrån ett utvecklingsekologiskt systemperspektiv undersöka hur MTFC- familjer och biologiska familjer upplever effekten av behandlingen. Resultat visar att biologiska/fosterföräldrar upplevde programmet som ständigt närvarande med tydliga roller. Samtliga familjer bekräftar att programmet har positiva effekter på barnet beteende. Programmet upplevdes erbjuda fosterföräldrar en yrkesmässig relation till barnet och biologiska föräldrar en möjlighet att utveckla ett ökat självförtroende som förälder.</p>