Foster-Family Care: Has It Fulfilled Its Promise?

Abstract

Foster-family care seems to promise children who must leave their own home for some type of foster care the closest approximation to normal life in their own home. The close and continuing relationship with responsible adults and the opportunities to participate in family and community life should provide a corrective and growth experience for the children in care. Casework services with parents should enable them to re-establish a home for their children or to move ahead on permanent planning for their children. The effectiveness of the use of foster-family care is tested against its promise. Inescap ably the conclusion must be that it has failed to meet the expectations of social agencies and communities. A disappoint ing proportion of children return to parents or are placed for adoption; ever growing numbers of children are remaining for long periods in foster-family care. For the latter children, the prospect seems bleak and unrewarding. Parents are "lost" to many of the children; many children exhibit emotional and social problems. As the conditions under which care has been given are examined, it becomes painfully clear that, for many children, the promise of foster-family care was doomed to fail from the start. But it is also clear that the promise is there if the profession, the social agencies, and the communities pursue a dedicated, thoughtful approach to its fulfillment. In the dis tress over what has happened to many children, it should not be forgotten that, for many others, foster-family care did provide security, love, and opportunity for a new and better life.