Traditional Foster Care
Exploring Child Welfare by Joan Shireman

Foster care, as it has been known for a long time, is carried out by families who, for pay, take unrelated children into their homes and care for them on a temporary basis. It involves the foster parents, the child’s own parents, and the child. Moving to a foster home is a major disruption in a child’s life, and can have serious consequences.

Foster parents generally decide to foster because of their enjoyment of children and a wish to be of service. They go through special training programs before they are certified as foster parents, and through the years that they foster children receive additional training. The Child Welfare Partnership provides training to Oregon’s foster parents; the training is similar to that of other foster care programs. Foster parent rates of pay are relatively low, though foster parents receive higher rates for children with special needs. The support of the agency caseworker in resolving the issues that arise with parenting, as well as the complexities of fostering, is vital to foster parents.

The child’s own parents, though they do not have the daily care of the child, remain responsible for major decisions regarding the child, and responsible for carrying out recommended remedial programs so that the child can return to their care. At best, they are involved in the development of the remedial plan and are invested in its completion. Visits to the child while in care are also vital. Visits maintain the child’s attachment to his parents, and enable the parents, as appropriate, to provide information to the foster parents and to learn parenting skills from the foster parents.

Family foster care is temporary care though children can easily remain in a foster home for a long time . In an attempt to remedy this, federal law now mandates that the child move to a permanent home within 15 months of the original placement. The child welfare agency caseworker provides the link between the foster home and the child’s original home, is responsible for the development and implementation of a plan so that the child is established in a permanent home as quickly as possible, and is responsible for overseeing the child’s well-being while in foster care. Prolonged foster care, particularly when there are many moves among foster homes, can produce devastating outcomes for children.

Through late adolescence and young adult years, youth need the support of family as they begin to establish themselves independently. Though many youth find these resources in their former foster families, or in biological relatives, others do not. The difficulties of these youth have been increasingly recognized, and have given rise to a set of programs to prepare youth for independent living

Resources on the web

Child Welfare League of America: A major source of information and data about child welfare services. Lists conferences, publications. The data system allows display of data in varied tables to meet individual needs. Extensive catalog of publications.

Annie E. Casey Foundation: The website of a major child welfare organization with a focus on long term foster care. Focuses on examination of critical issues and examination of practice and policy:

Foster Kids Club: A website for foster children, containing many contributions from foster children, and creating opportunites for foster kids to communicate with each other:

Foster Club for Grownups who Care; A website for foster parents, containing informative resources on many aspects of foster care, news updates, information on issues such as taxes, adopting a foster child, links to other websites providing statistics and research (such as a Time Magazine article, or books about fosteer care).

National Foster Parent Association: The website of the national foster parent association-- contains information of particular interest to foster parents. Not a highly developed site.

National Indian Child Welfare Association: A website which contains material of particular interest to those concerned with child welfare issues among the Native American population, Material about conferences, newsletters, discussions of policy issues, presentation of research. Contains information often difficult to access.

National Resource Center for Foster care and Permanency Planning at Hunter College School of Social Work. Technical assistance and training for agencies with foster care programs. Special projects dealing with techniiques for moving children toward permanent homes.

One Voice. An Oregon organization formed to advocate for foster parents. The site contains interesting material on current issues and links to varied information. A site with a point of view. (search for ONE VOICE page, select ONE VOICE).

State of Oregon Department of Human Services, Department of Adults, Children, and Families, children’s services: Describes services provided, presents current data on Oregon children. (Most states have similar sites.)

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth, and Families, Children’s Bureau: a major source of information and quite easy to use. It contains links to the AFCARS data reporting system, as well as fact sheets reporting recent statistics on all aspects of foster care. Laws and policies are described. Children's Bureau program desccriptions and funding announcements are on this site. Many government publications can be downloaded.

Important books and articles

General

Curtis, P. A., G. Dale Jr., C.K.Joshua, eds. ( 1999) The Foster Care Crisis: Translating Research into Policy and Practice. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press

Martin, J. A. (2000). Foster Family Care; Theory and Practice. Boston, Allyn and Bacon.

Triseliotis, J., C. Sellick, et al. (1995). Foster Care: Theory and Practice. London, B. T. Batsford Ltd.

Foster care and permanency planning

Bartholet, E. (1999) Nobody's Children: Abuse, Neglect, Foster Drift, and the Adoption Alternative. Boston, MA, Beacon Press

Emlen, A. et. al., (1976) Overcoming Barriers to Planning for Children in Foster Care: Portland, OR, Regional Research Institute for Human Services

Freud, A. J., Goldstein, et al. (1973) Beyond the Best Interest of the Child. New York: The Free Press

Knitzer, J., M. L. Allen, et. al. (1978) Children Without Homes. Washington, D. C.: Children's Defense Fund

Lin dsey, D. (1994) The Welfare of Children. New York: Oxford University Press

Meezan, W. and J. Shireman (1985) Care and Commitment . Albany, N.Y., State University of New York Press

Outcomes of foster care

Fanshel, D., S. J. Finch, et al. (1990) Foster Children in Life Course Perspective. New York: Columbia University Press

Fanshel, D. and e. B. Shinn (1978) Children in Foster Care: A Longitudinal Investigation. New York: Columbia University Press

Festinger, T. (1983) No One Ever Asked Us--A postscript to foster care New York: Columbia University Press

Festinger, T. (1994) Returning to Care. Washington DC, Child Welfare League of America

Lahti, J, K. Green, et.al., (1978) A Follow-up Study of the Oregon Project, Portland OR: Regional Research Institute for Human Services, Portland State University

McAuley, C. (1996) Children in Long Term Foster Care: Emotional and Social Development. Avebuury, Aldershot.

McDonald, T.P., R. I. Allen, et al. (1996) Assessing the Long Term Effects of Foster Care. Washington D.C., Child Welfare League of America

Zimmerman, R. (1982) "Foster Care in Retrospect" Tulane Studies in Social Welfare, V. 14

Children's voices

Folman, R. D. (1998) "'I Was Tooken.' How Children Experience Removal from their Parents Prior to Placement in Foster Care." Adoption Quarterly 2(2): 7-35

Johnson, P. R., C. Yoken, et al. (1995) "Family Foster Care Placement: The Child's Perspective." Child Welfare LXXIV(5) 959-974

Mallon, G. P. (1998) We Don't Exactgly Get the Welcome Wagon: The Experiences of Gay and Lesbian Adolescents in Child Welfare Systems. New York: Columbia University Press

Toth, J. (1997) Orphans of the Living: Stories of America's Children in Foster Care. New York: Simon and Schuster

Weinstein, E. (1961) The Self Image of the Foster Child. New York: Russell Sage Foundation

Wilson, L. and J. Conroy (1999) "Satisfaction of children in Out of Home Care." Child Welfare LXXVIII (January-February 1999) 53-69

Being a Foster Parent

Hampson, R. B. and J. B. Tavormina (1980) "Feedback from the Experts: A Study of Foster Mothers" Social Work 25 March: 108-113

Holman, R. (1980)" Exclusive and Inclusive Concepts of Fostering". New Developments in Foster Care and Adoption. J. Triseliotis. London, Routledge and Kegan Paul

Shireman, J., D. Yatchmenoff, et al. (1999) Strength Needs Based Services Evaluation: Biennial Report, V. II. Portland, OR, Regional Research Institute for Human Services and the Child Welfare Partnership, Portland State University

Parents with Children in Foster Care

Hubbell, R. (1981) Foster Care and Families. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press

P. A. Sinanoghua and Maluccio A. N. (1981) Parents of Children in Placement: Perspectives and Programs. New York, Child Welfare League of America

Independent living programs

Cook, R. (1988). "Trends and Needs in Programming for Independent Living." Child Welfare LXVII(6).

Courtney, M. E. and I. Piliavan et.al. (2001) Foster Youth Transitions to Adulthood: A Longitudinal View of Youth Leaving Care. Child Welfare, V. LXXX, N. 6 (November/December) pp. 685-719

Edmund S. Muskie School of Public Service and the National Child Welfare Resource Center for Organizational Improvement (1998). Opportunities for Foster Care Youth in Transition: Three Views of the Path to Independent Living. Baltimore, MD, The Annie E. Casey Foundation.

General Accounting Office (1999) Effectiveness of Independent Living Services. Washington D.C., U. S. Government Printing Office

U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children, Youth and Families (1999). Title IV-E Independent Living Programs: A Decade in Review. Washington, D. C., U. S. Government Printing Office.