Selecting Foster Carers: Could Personnel Psychology Improve Outcomes?

Abstract

Foster care services are struggling in a context of decreasing community interest in providing care and increases in the demand for placements, the proportion of children with special needs requiring care and placement breakdowns. As Sinclair's recent (2005) overview emphasises, improving carer selection could reduce pressure on services by selecting those applicants best suited to the demands of the task.

Research and practice from personnel psychology has long been used by employers seeking to identify the most suitable employees for a particular job, but this approach appears not to have been applied to selecting foster carers. In recent years, in personnel psychology, there has been increased recognition of the impact of personal characteristics on work performance satisfaction and retention. Barbara Kennedy and Rosamund Thorpe explore the utility of one such test, the Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI), in predicting foster carer suitability and subsequent retention among Australian carers. Both group and case-study analysis suggests potential worthy of further investigation.