This study is an investigation of long-term foster care, which focuses on the reflections of 40 adults, aged 18-30, who grew up in foster families. The theoretical approach taken is developmental and the study draws on theories of attachment and resilience. The research method was qualitative. In-depth interviews were conducted, transcribed and analysed in order to generate a picture of the pathways taken through childhood and into adult life. The primary focus of the interviews was on family relationships and the development of the self, but relationships with peers, school experiences and practice relevant issues, such as what it meant to be `in care', the experience of stigma and the role of social workers, were also discussed. The analysis used the dimensions of placement continuity, the quality of family relationships and the nature of family membership to identify seven different pathways. The data suggests that although the development of secure emotional relationships is an important part of successful placement experiences, the development of a sense of family membership is also highly significant, particularly in adult life. In a psychosocial model of long-term foster care, a `secure base' can therefore be understood in attachment terms as an emotional resource, but can also be understood in a more social context, as providing a family identity and a place in society. The study concludes that foster families where there are no biological or legal ties can still be a form of permanent family placement. This has important implications for social work practice, both in the way in which placements are planned and in the importance of promoting continuity into adult life of relationships which officially end when a child leaves care. It requires a change in attitudes, so that long-term foster families are no longer treated as placements for childhood only, but are recognised as offering a home and a family for life

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.

No description available.

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.

Objective: The Casey Foster Applicant Inventory-Applicant Version (CFAI-A) is a new standardized self-report measure designed to assess the potential to foster parent successfully. The CFAI-A is described, and results concerning its psychometric properties are presented. Method: Data from a sample of 304 foster mothers from 35 states are analyzed. Results: Six CFAI-A subscales were identified, and internal consistency reliability for these subscales ranged from.64 to.95. The construct validity of all but one of these subscales is promising. Conclusions: The CFAI-A shows promise for use in research and practice, where it might be used to improve decisions about how to support, monitor, and retain foster families and to match, place, and maintain foster children with foster families.

Children with disabilities represent a significant and increasing proportion of children in foster care. In a national sample of 304 foster mothers we identified two groups of mothers, one willing to foster children with any type of disability except HIV/AIDS (51%) (Unconditional mothers), and a second group who were more selective (49%) (Selective mothers). Unconditional mothers fostered longer, fostered more children, and had more foster children in their homes.

Many foster parents serve only briefly, and foster and adopt few children. Anecdotal reports suggest that a small percentage of foster parents provide a disproportionate amount of care; however, we know virtually nothing about these parents. This study applied the Pareto Principle, also known as the 80-20 rule or Vital Few, as a framework to conceptualize these foster parents. Using latent class analysis, two classes of mothers were identified: one accounted for 21% of mothers and the other 79%. We refer to the former as the Vital Few and the latter as the Useful Many. Vital Few mothers fostered 73% of foster children - 10 times more than Useful Many mothers although only fostering three times longer. They adopted twice as many foster children while experiencing half the yearly rate of placement disruptions. Vital Few mothers were less likely to work outside the home, had better parenting attitudes, more stable home environments, more time to foster, and more professional support for fostering, but less support from kin. Further, they were as competent as the Useful Many on numerous other psychosocial measures. Understanding characteristics of these resilient Vital Few can inform recruitment and retention efforts and offer realistic expectations of foster parents.

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 purpose of this bachelor thesis is to examine the different ways thatFamiljehemscentrum use to increase the number of families that show interest in takingcare of foster children. This thesis will examine which families are targeted by Familjehemscentrums present communication, which families they should target in thefuture and also the best way to do that. In order to answer these questions a number of interviews were conducted. The first interview was a group interview with three social workers that all work at Familjehemscentrum. Three more individual interviews were conducted with representatives from foster families to investigate how they were recruitedand what they think about being a foster family. The study is based upon relationship management and different communication models identified in the Excellence-study. The results of the interviews showed that Familjehemscentrums communication is directed at heterosexual, non-religious, Swedish born families that live outside of the city. If they widen their target group to include homosexual, religious and non-Swedish born families they would have more families to pick from when deciding who should take care of a foster child. The social workers explained that they would like to see more young families become foster families. The conclusion of this thesis is that Familjehemscentrum can target these young families, along with other types of families, by using social media in a greater extent and also by using the present foster families as a type of ambassadors.

abstract: ABSTRACT Many foster children experience numerous placements while in out-of-home care; some up to fifteen in an 18 month period (Newton, Litrownik, & Landsverk, 2000). Placement stability is important for children to find permanent families, and for social, emotional and educational development of children. This study used the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-being (NSCAW) data set to examine foster child and caregiver characteristics, and the caregiver-child relationship as a predictor of placement stability in the long term foster care general sample. Logistic regression was performed with the Complex Samples add-on to appropriately weight the NSCAW sampling. Children who were placed in foster homes or kinship homes and who had not been returned home at the Wave 3 interview were included in the study. The sample consisting of 562 children was divided into three groups based on age: Early Group 1, childhood ages 1to 5, group 1;Group 2, Middle childhood ages 6 to 10, group 2; Group 3, Adolescence ages 11 to 18, group 3. Results are consistent with previous studies in that children in early childhood and middle childhood who were placed in foster homes were 83% and 87% less likely to achieve placement stability than children in kinship homes, respectively. In early childhood, each additional household member reduced the odds of achieving placement stability by 35%.The caregiver-child relationship did not predict placement stability. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Social Work 2011