Voices From the System: A Qualitative Study of Foster Children's Stories

Abstract

This project qualitatively analyzed the stories that 23 preadolescent foster children told about their lives. An ecological framework in conjunction with the social constructionist understanding of stories guided the ethnographic semistructured interviews. These stories contained both common and unique features and provided insight into the lives of foster children whose environments involved poverty, drugs, crime, violence, and racism. Research domains included confusion, social ambivalence, anger, loss, and aids to resiliency. This study highlights the importance of these stories for the children who create them and those who will work with them.You have to keep moving, and moving, and moving, until finally someone keeps you. That kind of sucks.-Brian, 11-year-old foster child T hroughout a complex and difficult transition into foster care, already maltreated children are left without a say in what happens to them. Additionally, little is known about how these children make sense out the experience of entering and moving through the foster care system. One of the cruel ironies for children placed in the foster care system is that being removed from one family and moved to another may often be traumatic, resulting in further losses and confusion in the child's life (Folman, 1998). The voices of these children through their stories can be a rich resource of useful information (Johnson, Yoken, & Voss, 1994). Thus, our purpose was to hear how foster children, aged 7-12 years, described their lives and processed the unique and often confusing circumstances that they experienced.Hearing foster children describe their lives while they experience them is important for several reasons. First, we lack understanding of how foster children experience surrogate family care. There is a dearth of reliable, consistent data regarding foster children and foster care institutions (Goerge, Wulczyn, & Hardin, 1999). Second, having a clearer picture of the child's experience in foster care could enhance societal awareness and strengthen foster care policy. Collecting and disseminating their stories provides representation in two ways: description and advocacy (Alldred, 1998). Their stories might help to shape the institutions that serve them. Institutions designed to help foster children often lack clear and consistent policy directives and frequently are overwhelmed as demands outstrip resources (Orme & Buehler, 2001;Wells & Freer, 1994). Hearing from those in foster care is an important step in improving our knowledge of the nature of such care and how family service programs can better serve them.Third, most foster children want to talk about their experiences. Telling life stories is therapeutic for children (Coles, 1989) and can be helpful for the practitioner in providing treatment and case planning. Listening to foster children shows respect for them and acknowledges their individuality (Whiting, 2000). In fact, Festinger (1983) argued that the foster care professionals

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