How Does Foster Care Work

How Does Foster Care Work? is an international collection of empirical studies on the outcomes of children in foster care. Drawing on research and perspectives from leading international figures in children's services across the developed world, the book provides an evidence base for programme planning, policy and practice. This volume establishes a platform for comparison of international systems, trends and outcomes in foster care today. Each contributor provides a commentary on one other chapter to highlight the global significance of issues affecting children and young people in care. Each chapter offers new ideas about how foster care could be financed, delivered or studied in order to become more effective. This book is important reading for anyone involved in delivering child welfare services, such as administrators, practitioners, researchers, policy makers, children's advocates, academics and students.

Andy Pithouse and Alyson Rees use original research to identify key ingredients needed to help create successful foster placements and help prevent placement breakdown. In this study the lives and activities of 10 foster families who provide lasting and effective care are examined. The families' everyday world of meanings, negotiations, activities, settings, rituals and relationships that help to create these successful placements, are explored. The authors identify the main components that, according to the carers and the children, contribute to acceptance, belonging and stability in the family. The book examines the emotional and practical work involved in caring, and explores how it is received and reciprocated by fostered young people. With important insights into child and carer perspectives on fostering, What Works in Foster Care is a source of invaluable information for foster carers, children's service professionals, and trainees and care staff more generally who may be engaged with children who are looked after.

Drawing on the findings of the largest recent study into foster care in the UK, and including quotes from children themselves, this book examines the impact on children three years after they have left foster care.

Based on exhaustive research, the authors discuss the primary concerns in foster placement planning. By monitoring and describing the individual characteristics of the child within their placement, we are able to discover what types of support are most beneficial.

The Lives of Foster Carers analyzes the contradictions, conflicts, and ambiguities experienced by foster carers arising from the inter-penetrations of public bureaucracy and private family life. Topics covered include: social policy pertinent to childcare the history of foster care service available literature on the experience of foster carers public versus private domains in foster care motivations and roles of foster carers how foster carers perceive themselves and their foster children. Based on a wide range of literature and in-depth interviews with forty-six foster carers, this book provides a valuable insight into the concerns, processes and experiences of foster carers in the UK. Jargon free and accessible, it will appeal to foster carers, practitioners, students and academics in social care, youth work and childcare as well as policy makers in children’s services.

First published in 1999, this work draws together a multi-national collection of papers, and aims to stimulate the development of policy and practice in this often neglected area. It aims to offer examples of good social work practice, informed by relevant theoretical insights; to give a voice to kinship foster carers and young people so that practice can be informed by an understanding of their experience; to share the results of current research; to highlight issues for policy makers; and to place the issues in the wider international context of developing social policy, ideology and social change. There are contributions from the UK, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, the US and New Zealand.

All children are dependent on others for their care and well-being, but children in foster care are uniquely dependent upon governments and their agencies and services. These children have complex problems rooted in family, social, and environmental conditions, and often need a broad range of health, mental health, and developmental services to overcome the effects of abuse and neglect. This guide will help purchasers of managed health care understand the complex health care and social service needs of children in foster care.