“Several times I have asked the judge to get my children back”: 10 years of foster care complaints at the Flemish Office of the Children's Rights Commissioner

Abstract

European societies struggle with the question of how to deal best with, and organize care for, those children who, for various reasons, need to be placed out of their home. In an attempt to protect these children, states organize different forms of care. Under the influence of testimonies of abuse and neglect, the image of residential care has become tainted and the placement of looked-after children in foster families has become increasingly favoured. This evolution towards a manifest choice for foster care is defended as being more in "the interests of the child." However, the "best interests of the child" notion is applicable in decisions concerning substitute care in many different ways. During the last decade, the shift towards a child's perspective away from a family-preservation perspective is noticeable. We argue in this paper that this focus on children's needs is at the expense of the rights and identity of the parents. Based on an analysis of 342 complaints concerning foster care reported to the Flemish Office of the Children's Rights Commissioner, we analysed which "alarming situations" are reported and highlight a number of pressing concerns from the perspective of parents. K E Y W O R D S care, children's rights, family life, foster care, out-of-home care, parents 1 | INTRODUCTION To this day, European societies struggle with the question of how to deal best with, and organize care for, those children who, for various reasons, need to be placed out of their home (Colton &

Parents at war: A positioning analysis of how parents negotiate their loss after experiencing child removal by the state

“…A likely collateral consequence of experiencing a child removal is that parents become disconnected from social arenas, such as kindergartens, schools and activities, which are related to parenthood. Additionally, if inflicted stigma reduces social support, as research has indicated (De Wilde and Vanobbergen, 2020), parents are at risk of further alienation, as they experience both deprivation of the child, social arenas and their parenthood as a whole. To build on Attig's (2004) arguments, understanding disenfranchised grief as a social failure, the inflicted stigma from a child removal seems to limit parents' options in the grieving process and their possibilities of overcoming their suffering and participating in society.…”

Life after an out‐of‐home placement: What biological parents in foster care tell us about parenthood

“…In fact, the situation for birth parents often becomes worse once their child or children have been placed in out-of-home care: due to a lack of support, many parents experience a significant downward spiral (Broadhurst & Mason, 2017;de Wilde & Vanobbergen, 2020).…”

“…Our analysis demonstrates that parents experience mixed feelings when it comes to the placement of their children in foster care, as well T A B L E 1 Themes and citations from the interviews as difficulties in finding a (new) possible way to define their parenthood. Furthermore, they struggle with experiences of loss in which the 'grip' on the life and upbringing of their children feels as if it is slowly slipping away and subsequently find it difficult to give meaning to their parenthood (Broadhurst & Mason, 2017;de Wilde & Vanobbergen, 2020). In this vein, parents commemorate or try to redefine their parental role-notwithstanding that biological parents are not always at peace with the placement decision and do not always see how an out-of-home placement can help them and the situation in which they find themselves.…”

“…However, the ‘best interests of the child’ is a curious argument: broadly, it refers to a concept with which everyone agrees but which not everyone necessarily understands in the same way (CRC, 2013; Bouverne‐De Bie & Roose, 2007; Kruk, 2015). Furthermore, it has been suggested that this empathic focus on the interests of the child in out‐of‐home placement policies neglects the rights and role of a child's biological parents (Broadhurst & Mason, 2017; de Wilde & Vanobbergen, 2020). In the United States, the 1997 Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) has been described as a shift from family preservation to an emphasis on children's health, safety and continuity of care (Whitt‐Woosley & Sprang, 2014).…”

“…In fact, the situation for birth parents often becomes worse once their child or children have been placed in out‐of‐home care: due to a lack of support, many parents experience a significant downward spiral (Broadhurst & Mason, 2017; de Wilde & Vanobbergen, 2020). The complex nature of foster care situations often appears to hamper the parents' search for a new and meaningful role in the upbringing of their child(ren) (Vandenbroeck, 2018).…”