Carers and Professionals' Perspectives on Foster Care Outcomes: The Role of Contact

Abstract

This study investigates the association between the contact of children or young people in care with their family, and the foster care placement evaluation (positive or negative) in Portugal. According to the perspectives of foster carers and service professionals' perceptions regarding children and young people's reactions, during and after the visits, are measured. Utilizing a quantitative approach, two fostering services teams and 140 foster carers completed questionnaires, which had 212 children in common. Results indicated that despite the importance of continued contact, especially for children and their parents, it was not determined to be essential to long-term placement. On one hand, there was the perception that a high percentage of children expressed positive reactions during and after the visit, while on the other hand, this didn't influence the perception of placement success. This study also showed significant differences between foster carers' and the professionals' perceptions on several dimensions of foster care, especially the children's reactions during visits. These differences need to be further analyzed in future research and the outcomes used to help improve contact management.

Young Teenagers’ Views Regarding Residential Care in Portugal and Spain: A Qualitative Study

“…Having said that, contact with birth families was very important for children in this study: in general terms, even when living in alternative care, it made them feel good, although at the same time many of them were able to identify the negative impact of family related issues or bad experiences in the past, and some of them preferred to avoid contact entirely. Positive and negative consequences of contact have been studied, namely concerning children in foster care (e.g., Carvalho and Delgado 2014;Delgado et al 2017). To put this result into context, in the centres in Catalonia and Portugal, by law all children have a visiting agreement with their family authorised by the protection team.…”

“…Within recent research focused on children's subjective well-being (SWB), several studies have concluded that the subjective well-being of children in residential care is significantly lower than that of children living with their families (Heastbaek 2016;Lausten and Fredriksen 2016;Delgado et al 2017Delgado et al , 2019. Additionally, those studies concluded that children in residential care presented a higher rate of school failure and have fewer opportunities to decide on the use they make of their spare time, especially with regard to family relationships or leisure activities.…”

What criteria do foster care workers take into account when recommending foster children's visiting arrangements with their birth parents

“…Finally, the following characteristics of the placement have to be taken into account: the objectives of the placement (e.g., creating permanency or reunification) and the objectives of the parent-child visits related to the aforementioned (e.g., maintaining the parentchild-relationship, contributing to the identity development of the child, helping the child to develop a realistic image of the parents, helping to understand their own past, assessing the ability of parents to care for their child and teaching and practising parenting skills), the reason of placement (e.g., the nature of neglect or abuse) and the history and the effects of professional interventions already undertaken within the family (Bastiaensen & de Koning, 2015;Delgado et al, 2017;Haight et al, 2003;McWey & Cui, 2017;Nesmith, 2015;Sen, 2010;Sen & Broadhurst, 2011;Smariga, 2007). Boyle (2017) concludes that decisions should be made on a caseby-case basis as the impact of contact depends on a number of variables that should be taken into account.…”

Indicators of contact visit quality in non‐kinship foster care: An observational checklist

“…There is now a considerable body of research documenting both the benefits and disadvantages of contact visits for children in foster care (Boyle, 2017; Delgado et al, 2017; Prasad, 2011; Sen & Broadhurst, 2011; Zhan et al, 2019). One potential disadvantage stems from the limited parenting skills that is characteristic of at‐risk families or families whose children have already been taken into care (Fernandez, 2007; Máiquez et al, 2000; Menéndez et al, 2013; Rodrigo et al, 2008), as this may undermine the quality of interaction between child and parent during the visit (e.g.…”