Children in foster care

by James G. Barber

"Researchers, practitioners, journalists and politicians increasingly complain that foster care throughout the world is in a state of crisis. There are more and more children needing care and, as residential alternatives dry up, more of these children are being assigned to foster families. This book reports the major findings of a two-year longitudinal study of 235 such children who entered the foster care system in South Australia between 1998 and 1999. As well as examining the changing policy context of children's services, the book documents the psychosocial outcomes for these children, their feedback on their experiences of care, and the views of their social workers and carers. In the process, the book examines some cherished beliefs about foster care policy and sheds new light on them." "The research reveals that, while most children do quite well in foster care up to the two-year point, there is a worrying amount of placement instability at a time when the concentration of emoti