Paper
Permanence in foster care: meanings and systems for planning and support
- issue: Issue 3 / 2008
- authors: Gillian Schofield
- keywords: United Kingdom, attachment, foster care, permanence
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abstract
Background. In the United Kingdom, planning for and achieving 'permanence' is seen as central to what children need developmentally and psychosocially from substitute family care. However, there remain particular difficulties both in defining permanence as offered in foster care and in developing appropriate planning and support systems. Our difficulties are reflected around the world, both in countries which have the alternative permanence option of adoption (as the UK, USA and Canada do) and in the many countries who do not. Diverse approaches internationally to the meanings and significance of a sense of permanence for children and for foster carers are reflected in diverse legal and, more commonly, procedural systems designed to achieve stability in a foster family for childhood or, preferably, for life.
Purpose. This paper will bring together two areas of research conducted by the author with colleagues from the University of East Anglia and examine our findings in the context of these international dilemmas. The first area of research focuses on the meanings, experiences and outcomes in two studies exploring long-term foster care. The second area of research focuses on pathways and systems for planning for permanence in foster care.
Method. To explore the experience, meanings and outcomes of long-term foster care, two studies were undertaken; a retrospective, qualitative study of 40 adults who grew up in foster care (1999-2001) and a prospective quantitative and qualitative longitudinal study of 52 children placed in planned long-term foster placements (1997-1999, 2001-2003, 2005-2006 with Mary Beek).
To study the pathways of long-stay children (2002-2004 with June Thoburn and Jonathan Dickens), we worked with 24 local authorities to investigate the UK Government goal for the care system of providing stability and permanence. Administrative data on over 1000 children looked after for 4+ years were complemented by more detailed data from a survey of 300 of these children. This study was followed by a more specific study of care planning for permanence in foster care (2006-7 with BAAF, the Fostering Network and Emma Ward). We undertook a national survey of England and Wales and gathered questionnaire data on 93 local authorities and 57 Independent Fostering Providers. This was followed up by 44 interviews with key social work staff and 3 regional foster carer focus groups.
Key findings. The first group of studies cover practice and placements in long-term foster care from the 1970s to 2006, and demonstrated significant continuities in the way in which carers offer and children value the experience of being part of the family into adulthood. Stability in the longitudinal prospective study was, on the whole, encouraging given their age and histories of abuse. After three years, 76% were in the same placements. After 8-9 years, 30 (57%) were stable in their original placement from 1997-8 or had moved to independence in a relatively planned way. A further 10 (19%) were stable and thriving in more successful placements they had moved to either between Phase 1 and 2 or since Phase 2 - or had moved in a planned way to independence. This yielded 40 (76%) who were stable in the family and functioning reasonably well outside (e.g. in peer networks, in school). Of the remaining 12 young people, four could not be traced, five we had limited information for but were said to be stable at work and in a relationship, had a child, or had gone home and were not apparently known to social services. The remaining three were known to have histories of offending, of whom one was in prison, one was in secure accommodation and the other lived independently. Findings from these studies have enabled us to generate both an attachment and resilience based parenting model (which will be part of core training for foster carers in the UK but is also being developed in practice in Norway) and a better understanding of what helps children and young people in successful long-term foster families to manage continuing membership of foster families as well as birth families.
The pathways study found that the current placements of the 1,002 children in the SSDA903 long-stay sample roughly reflected the national picture in terms of the proportion of foster care placements (66 per cent. An examination of the data showed that 430 (43 per cent) had achieved stability as defined by Government performance indicators i.e. had been looked after for 4 years or more and spent the last 2 years in one foster placement but the range was from 34% - 92%, suggesting that local authorities varied significantly in their capacity to provide stability in foster care.
The care planning for permanence in foster care research found that there was a lack of government guidance on planning for foster care, unlike planning for adoption which is highly regulated. Local authorities (N=93) had developed two different models: 39% had two different routes - permanent and long-term foster care while 61% had a single route called long-term or permanent foster care. Different systems defined 'permanent' and 'long-term' differently and took cases to different panels for matching, but dimensions such as age, the relative role of the foster and birth parents and whether the foster family was planned to last beyond the age of 18 were all important in defining planning systems.
Implications. Findings from these studies suggest there is a need to bridge the gap between permanence as experienced in the family lives of foster carers and children and permanence as it is planned and implemented in systems and procedures. They highlight the need to clarify the concept of permanence in foster care and to find ways of ensuring that family relationships - that are planned and supported by corporate parents - can still feel 'normal' and be 'real families' to children. Practice often appears to be distorted by misunderstandings of attachment theory; for example, suggestions that children who are attached to their birth family cannot also become attached to new foster family caregivers (and vice-versa) or that systems for teenagers need to be focussed on independence when often late placed children can still benefit from close relationships and foster family support into adult life.
Our research, and research across the world, suggests that it is psychologically possible for foster families and children who have no biological or legal ties to each other to feel a sense of mutual commitment and a shared sense of family membership. But we also find that social work systems and practice vary in their capacity to plan these placements and support the children, foster and birth families. This is where we need further research - even though researching complex systems and practice is actually more challenging than researching families.
Key references
Beek, M., & Schofield, G. (2004). Providing a secure base in long-term foster care. London: BAAF.
Schofield, G., & Beek, M. (2005). Risk and resilience in long-term foster care. British Journal of Social Work, 35(8), 1283-1301.
Schofield, G., & Beek, M. (2006). Attachment Handbook for Foster Care and Adoption. London: BAAF.
Schofield, G., Thoburn, J., Howells, D., & Dickens, J. (2007). The search for stability and permanence: modelling the pathways of long-stay looked after children. British Journal of Social Work, 37, 1283-1301.
Contacts: Professor Gillian Schofield, Co-Director of the Centre for Research on the Child and Family, School of Social Work and Psychosocial Sciences, Elizabeth Fry Building, University of East Anglia Norwich NR4 7TJ. E-mail: G.Schofield@uea.ac.uk, Phone 01603 592068, Fax 01603 593552.