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What's life like in foster care?
\"This book shows readers what they might expect when entering foster care. The age-appropriate text provides guidance for dealing with the many emotions that come with a major life event such as meeting a new foster family. The book also touches on what to expect if a foster family situation doesn't work out\"--Provided by publisher.
Book
Improving Parenting Competency and Permanency Awareness for Kinship Foster Parents Through In-Service Licensure Training
Child welfare jurisdictions increasingly place foster children with kinship foster parents as a means of meeting their need for stability, family connection, and behavioral and emotional support. However, the lack of financial and educational assistance provided to kin by child welfare authorities often undermines these caregivers’ ability to provide effective and lasting care for the children in their homes. This study uses a mixed-methods approach to understand how formal training and licensure processes can aid kinship foster parents in facilitating positive outcomes for children and youth in the foster care system. Specifically, we investigated the barriers experienced by kinship foster parents while trying to access existing licensure-based training and supports, as well as the initial outcomes of a kin-tailored licensure training curriculum alternatingly administered in in-person and virtual delivery formats. Participants reported that incomplete or inaccurate communication about licensing processes, practical difficulties in attending training, irrelevant session content, and stringent licensing requirements acted as barriers to accessing these resources. However, participants in the kin-specific licensure training administered in this study reported high levels of learning related to key parenting competencies and increased awareness of kinship permanency supports, although these outcomes appeared to be less pronounced among those receiving the training in a virtual format. These findings suggest that researchers and policymakers should consider developing, implementing, and evaluating further initiatives to provide accessible and tailored supports to kinship foster parents as a means of improving outcomes for the children in their care.
Journal Article
Motivation, expectations, and needs of foster parents
Introduction: In the Czech Republic, there is a lack of research examining the motivations and expectations of foster parents, as well as how foster care fulfils their needs. One of the main reasons why we are addressing this issue is that institutional care for children under the age of 3 was abolished at the end of 2024 and replaced by family care.Objectives: The paper aims to examine the experiences of individuals in the process of providing foster care.Methods: The research was carried out using a qualitative research strategy. The research population was foster parents from the Moravian-Silesian region. The data were collected through a semi-structured interview technique and analysed by a thematic analysis method.Results: The results showed that drug addiction and problems with their offspring or neglect of their own children were important motives for foster care among kinship foster parents. For non-kinship foster parents, the main motivation was an inability to have their own child and the desire to fulfill the parental role.Conclusion: It is important to remember that each foster parent enters this role with different motivations, expectations, and individual needs. Therefore, we need to focus on understanding the motives and needs of foster parents in order to offer them effective support.
Journal Article
Improving Relationships in Child Welfare Practice: Perspectives of Foster Care Providers
Foster parents care for our nation’s most vulnerable children and adolescents. Their ability to provide care is impacted directly and indirectly by their interactions with public child welfare agencies and workers. This study examines the perspectives of 1095 foster parents in a southwestern state in the U.S. regarding what they believe child welfare workers are doing well and their suggestions for ways to improve relationships between foster care providers and child welfare workers. Foster parents commended caseworkers who were responsive to their needs and provided ongoing concrete and emotional support, and believed there was a need for improved communication and enhanced teamwork. Foster parents consistently acknowledged an overwhelmed child welfare system and the impact on child welfare workers and child welfare-involved families. Understanding the perspectives of foster parents can improve relationships between child welfare workers and foster parents, improve recruitment and retention efforts of foster parents, prevent disruption of children from foster homes due to license closure, and improve the overall well-being of child welfare-involved children and families.
Journal Article
“I felt the system didn’t see me”: foster parents’ challenges, with a spotlight on their experiences with the schools
Objective
Filling a notable gap in existing literature, this study aims to explore foster parents’ experiences and challenges in Israel, specifically in the context of schools and educational systems.
Method
This qualitative investigation employed a phenomenological approach. Fifteen parents raising elementary-school-aged foster children (ages 6–11) were interviewed using in-depth, semi-structured methods. Transcriptions of these interviews underwent thematic content analysis.
Results
The following three main themes emerged; (1) foster parents had different perspectives and expectations of their role in the foster care process; (2) foster parents coped with a range of emotional challenges and struggles; and (3) while foster parents emphasized the significance of their relationship with various entities at the schools, the study revealed considerable heterogeneity in the nature and quality of those relationships.
Conclusion
This study underscores the intricate challenges foster parents face in both general caregiving and school integration. It advocates for targeted emotional support, training, and school-staff collaboration to bolster children’s academic and emotional well-being.
Scientific relevance
The study illuminates an area underexplored in research. While its findings are specifically situated in the Israeli fostering and elementary education systems, it offers a valuable contribution to scholarly discourse on foster parent experiences and their interactions with educational systems.
Journal Article
Hidden girl : the true story of a modern-day child slave
\"Shyima Hall was eight years old when her parents sold her into domestic slavery. One of eleven children, Shyima lived with her family in poverty in Egypt. When an older sister was dismissed from her job as a servant for stealing, Shyima's parents made a deal with her sister's employers. In order to repay the debt, Shyima would take her sister's place. This began Shyima's life as a slave. Her captors, a wealthy couple, referred to Shyima only as 'stupid girl' and forced her to wait hand and foot on their family. Any money she was paid for her work went directly to her parents, with whom she had very little contact. Two years into her bondage, Shyima's captors moved to the United States and illegally trafficked Shyima in with them. Modern-day slavery is a painful reality for thousands of adults and children in the world--and in the United States. This is Shyima's harrowing story of life as a child slave, and her long, inspiring road to freedom.\"--Page 4 of cover.
Book
What Mediates the Link Between Foster Parents’ Sensitivity Towards Child Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms and Job Satisfaction? The Role of Compassion Fatigue and Foster Parent-Child Relationship
Purpose:
It is very likely that many children who enter the foster care system have experienced at least one traumatic event, and can develop symptoms of PTSS. Consequently, foster parents’ level of sensitivity towards child symptoms of PTSS plays a significant role in child development, but the link between sensitivity and several professional characteristics is not well understood. The current study aims to explain the effect foster parents’ sensitivity towards child trauma exert on their job satisfaction, via foster parents’ compassion fatigue and the quality of their relationship with the children in care. This study is one of the few to investigate foster parents’ sensitivity towards child trauma, and the direct and indirect effects on other variables.
Methods:
Structural equation modeling was used to test a mediating model on this sample (
N
= 165) after using an online survey to collect the cross-sectional data.
Results:
The model produced good fit (RMSEA = 0.087; CFI = 0.899). The direct effects between variables are significant. The relationship between foster parents’ sensitivity towards trauma and their job satisfaction can be better understood with the contribution of compassion fatigue.
Conclusion:
Findings confirm the mediation effect of compassion fatigue and reveal more aspects of the sensitivity towards trauma concept. These results could be implemented by considering more accurate measurements for the caregiver’s sensitivity towards child trauma. The importance of considering interventions for increasing foster parents’ trauma knowledge and skills is highlighted.
Journal Article