Foster Care in the Context of Trends and Changes in the Concept of Parenthood (original) (raw)
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The Journal of Sociology Social Welfare, 2014
The social welfare literature-whether embodied in the ideology of the profession, claimed in its social policy, substantiated through empirical research, or espoused in practice-suggests that children should not be removed from their natural hones as a solution to economic woes or to the unavailability of social support services. This apparent convergence of ideology, policy and practice-buttressed by social values which recognize the importance of family life-would suggest that few children, if any, would enter foster care because of inadequate income or the absence of social services. Yet, in 1977, between one quarter and one half a million children in the United States are in foster care and most of them are children of the poor. While policy statements claim that substitute care should be a last resort, it is more often than not the only resource available to child welfare practitioners.
Sociological Ambivalence: Relationships between Birth Parents and Foster Parents
Sociology, 2020
Inspired by Merton and Barber’s sociological theory on ambivalence, this article analyses ‘co-parenting’ between foster parents and birth parents as prototypes of ambivalent relationships; that is, relationships based on incompatible role requirements. This incompatibility is rooted in the conflicts between (a) the professional role of foster carers and their emotional involvement in the child in their care, and (b) the status of birth parents as ‘failed parents’ (from the perspective of the authorities) and their continuous aspirations to get their child home again. The article is based on qualitative interviews with foster parents and birth parents of children in foster care in Denmark. We show how the structural ambivalence is associated with difficulties, for both foster parents and birth parents, in translating the principle of ‘the best interest of the child’ into concrete practice in out-of-home placements.
From Family Duty to Family Policy: The Evolution of Foster Care
1995
ines the welfare eligibility of these families, emphasizing changes under the Personal Responsibility & Work Opportunity Act of 1996 (PR&WOA). The revolution in public welfare places many care-giving relatives at financial risk. Depending on their states' plans for implementing the PR&WOA, children and their relative caregivers may lose state support. The article presents the social welfare policy responses of a number of states to the problems of kinship care-giving, formal kinship foster care, the PR&WOA, and other social welfare provisions. Unintended consequences of welfare reform are highlighted.
Entering foster care: Foster children's accounts* 1
Children and Youth Services Review, 1981
This paper examines children's accounts of the events leading up to their entry into foster care. Using C. Wright Mills' concept of vocabularies of motives, these accounts are treated as rationales with which informants explain deviant living arrangements to representatives of the dominant culture. The paper distinguishes between accounts which describe how informants were drawn into foster care unwillingly and those in which they reported that they or their parents chose to use foster care to solve family problems. In the latter set of accounts, informants described how family members used foster care to reinforce a traditional family division of labor. Fathers relied on foster care because they co&d not take responsibility for housework and childcare; mothers for help in controlling and disciplining their children, and teenagers for assistance in expanding their opportunities and their freedom from parental control. These accounts reveal more about shared assumptions and understandings surrounding the concept of "normal" family relations than they do about the "real reasons" for the status of foster children.
Journal of GLBT Family Studies
The foster care system in Australia has recently recognised the importance of encouraging lesbians and gay men to become foster carers. Whilst this is an important step towards overcoming social stereotypes that position lesbians and gay men as ‘unfit parents’, I propose that foster care public policy in Australia is shaped by a number of key assumptions that effectively exclude lesbian and gay foster parents. In particular, I focus in this paper on how the logic of developmentalism (where children are assumed to follow a (hetero)normative ‘developmental pathway’) and the rhetoric of ‘best interests of the child’ (within which a particular moral framework is employed to judge who can, and who cannot ‘protect children’) work to recentre a normative understanding of families and parenting that encourages lesbians and gay parents to adopt a heterosexual model of parenting.
Introduction: There Is No Typical Story of Foster Care
2018
In this introductory chapter, Musgrove and Michell provide a critical reflection on the intersections between histories of foster care and contemporary social debates. Why, the chapter asks, has foster care failed children in such similar ways for so many years—not only in Australia but in many parts of the Western World? The chapter locates the study of foster care firmly in the age of apologies and inquiries into past child welfare practices and rising public concern about historical child abuse. It provides an overview of the history of foster care in Australia from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day, and describes the archival and oral history research methodologies underwriting this history of foster care in Australia.
Foster Care from Child Perspective
Systematic improvement of foster care for children in Croatia is one of the important functions of the Ministry of Social Policy and Youth. On this note, it is necessary to link all the factors, every one of which must contribute within their jurisdiction so a child in care does not grow up in a children's home, but a family, if not biological or adoptive, then certainly a foster family. Any stay in a facility should be short, especially for young children, and mainly serve the purpose of determining the child's physical and mental state, family care or previous therapeutic interventions. Foster care should utilize every available resource of the social welfare system. Social welfare centers provide the legal framework for foster care, supervise it, educate and license foster parents, make important decisions for the child. Welfare institutions (children's homes, group homes, rehabilitation centers, etc.) are being deinstitutionalized and transforming in most cases into CENTERS FOR CHILDREN (centers for providing services to children). Valuable expertise and facilities will be used to provide services to children and families in the community: multidisciplinary diagnosis of the child's needs and family circumstances, in-home work in order to prevent institutionalization, early intervention, ongoing professional support for families, as well as assistance and monitoring of foster care. Th e foster parent is our partner and has valuable social tasks. In the near future and as soon as possible, using the specifi ed professional support and monitoring, we plan to improve the status of foster families by ensuring some employment rights and opening the possibility of foster care as a profession. Th e Ministry will continue to support all activities of organizations which provide services in this fi eld and make foster care better for children. UNICEF is a very important partner of the welfare system; its projects are highly valued and have left a strong mark, triggering changes for the better in the area of foster care. Both at the beginning and at the end of our deliberations is his majesty the child: Th e best interests and perspectives of the child must be the guiding principle in all of the above activities. Th ose of us that make decisions for and on behalf of the child and determine his or her life bear a great responsibility. Th e child's participation in these decisions is necessary as much as possible, considering age and maturity. Th is is our duty and their right. Th e UNICEF publication What Children Say about Foster Care is the voice of the foster child. It warns us, suggests, praises, criticizes, and wants to be respected. Let this voice lead us to better solutions in child care and better quality foster care.