Chapter 14: Foster Care:

Specialist foster family care may be the treatment of choice for emotionally disturbed or behaviorally unmanageable children. The child and family often need a break and breathing space from each other. The child and birth parents can be involved in a treatment group, and the foster parents will be seen regularly so they may be involved in supporting the treatment goals. Biological parents will benefit from observing the foster family as role models in parenting, and practitioners are able to examine and reinforce the coping and adapting skills of the children.     

Chapter 4: Social Learning Principals:

No abstract available for this article.     

Chapter 5: Family Preservation in Foster Care:

Treatment foster care is described in repect to the permanency continuum, particularly the importance of family connectedness for children placed out of home. The placement of specialist foster care in the treatment continuum is identified along with the associated advantages and challenges to be met.     

Chapter 13: Group Therapy for Birth Parents of Children in Foster Care

Psychological impairments render many biological parents of children placed in treatment foster care incompetent to meet child-rearing tasks. Service agreements identify and address critical areas of dysfunctioning but do not engage parents in a broader inventory of their parental functioning and dysfuntioning. A group method provides mutual support, exploration, and a positive child-rearing model. A clinical assessment of parenting that highlights ongoing developmental needs of nurturance and empathy, limit setting, structure, role modeling, reality testing, and separation and individuation is used to promote progress. Parents gain insight into their own overall impairments, origin of impairments, and compensatory techniques. Parents recognize broader responsibility for parenthood enhancing reunification efforts.     

Chapter 11: Therapeutic Foster Parent:

Training can help foster parents manage reactions to the foster child, avoid stress and burnout, and cope with the difficult times so that placement is sustained. Training is necessary so foster parents will not take the child's aggressive behavior personally, will avoid becoming embroiled in power struggles, and will be less likely to become hurt or embarrassed by the child's behavior. Training will involve individual consultation by the social worker as well as participation in a foster parent group. Staff will assistn foster parents to develop behavioral management and communication skills as well as their own coping and self-control skills. Foster parents are given permission to take care of their own needs, are assisted in developing stress management skills, learn how to increase their own self-esteem, and learn to use cognitive approaches to handle their own emotions. Foster parents develop an understanding that they cannot change the child's behavior but can only change the way which they respond to the child, which may provide the child opportunities to change his or her own behavior.     

Chapter 6: Northern Ireland as a Case Study of the Development of Treatment Foster Care

Major Developments in the history of fostering in Northern Ireland are described, major problems identified and suggestions made for the current and future development of specialist fostering arrangements.     

Coping Alone: Examining the Prospects of Adolescent Victims of Child Abuse Placed in Foster Care

The ability of a young person to cope effectively with stressful life events appears to be associated with their previous experiences and relationships. Young people in foster care who have histories of child abuse, therefore, may find they cannot cope effectively with the situation they find themselves in. This paper attempts to highlight the problems they face. A group of 21 young people were interviewed and were asked to complete the Frydenberg and Lewis Adolescent Coping Scales. Their social workers provided information on their past history both in care and prior to coming in to care. It emerged that the young people who had experienced physical and/or sexual abuse were significantly (p < 0.02) more likely to be/have been involved in problem, or Crisis, foster placements. Additionally these young people displayed less adaptive coping strategies than the young people who had not been abused. The most significant differences indicated that the victims of abuse were more likely to try and cope with stressful situations by themselves, while the other foster adolescents were significantly (p < 0.004) more likely to find support from their friends. Case studies, with reference to the teenager's own accounts, help to illustrate how a history of abuse can complicate the already difficult fostering processes, and can also affect the long-term coping abilities of the victims. The consequences of these issues are discussed.     

Chapter 8: Foster Parents of Mentally Retarded and Physically Handicapped Children

Two surveys of foster parents find substantial numbers of current foster parents receptive to the idea of offering care to mentally retarded or physically handicapped children although the extent of the child's disability is a factor in the decision. Barriers to providing care to such children include maternal employment outside the home, foster parents' concerns about the demands that would be made on them, and their ability to cope. Foster parents appear to find agency services regarding foster care of disabled children adequate although the level of reimbursement may be too low to cover the costs of care and may negatively affect retention of experienced foster parents.     

Chapter 15: Therapeutic Foster Homes for Teenage Mothers and Their Babies

The Children's Aid and Adoption Society of New Jersey developed therapeutic foster homes for young mothers and their babies in response to the complex problem of teenage out-of-wedlock childbearing. The program assesses parenting capabilities and help the mother make an early and informed decision regarding permanency for her baby. A full range of support services are offered the mother to test her decision to keep her baby under favorable conditions.     

Child Abuse and Neglect Reports in Foster Care:

This chapter discusses "false" allegations of child maltreatment in family foster care. What is a "false" report and who reports "falsely" is considered. Foster parent beliefs, experiences and needs are reviewed in relation to how agencies respond when abuse is alleged. Areas of needed change are proposed.     

Providing Foster Care for Adolescents: Barriers and Opportunities

This study used quantitative and qualitative data from a larger research project regarding foster parent experiences to examine the characteristics that predict a parent’s willingness to foster an adolescent. Data collected from closed- and open-ended items related to reasons for not fostering a teen were also analyzed. Findings suggest parents who are older and were a foster child themselves, increased the likelihood they would foster a teen. When discussing reasons for not fostering an adolescent, parents identified fears of problem behaviors and concerns about negative impact on other children; findings that were corroborated in responses to the open-ended comments.     

Chapter X: The Child Care Worker

No abstract available for this article.     

Loring Paul Jones: Life After Foster Care: Improving Outcomes for Former Foster Youth

Journal of Youth and Adolescence -     

Chapter IX: Child Care Within an Organizational Context:

No abstract available for this article.     

Chapter XII: Emerging Issues in Children and Youth Care Education:

No abstract available for this article.     

Permanency for Children in Foster Care: Issues and Barriers for Adoption

The desired outcome for children in foster care is to be reunited with their parents or to be permanently placed in a stable home. Federal and state legislation directs increased efforts by the social welfare and judicial systems in the United States to act in the best interests of the child and to identify and reduce barriers to permanency. Records from two county dependency courts in Florida were examined and caregivers surveyed to identify issues that prevented them from adopting the child in their care, and to identify services that would have enhanced the likelihood of adoption. The findings and their implications suggest that more integration of the two systems and support for concrete assistance to caregivers are paramount to facilitating adoption of children in foster care.     

Chapter I: Children and Youth Grow and Develop in Group Care

No abstract available for this article.     

Re-examining Social Work Roles and Tasks with Foster Care

In order to promote developmental outcomes with children and young people and to nurture their positive health and well-being in foster care, social workers and case managers are required to direct professional attention toward both the child or young person and her/his daily living environment(s)—at home, at school, and in the local neighborhoods in which they live. When viewed from an ecological perspective, foster care environments are represented conceptually as a nested cluster of settings ranging from immediate life spaces and networks of relationships in a foster home, at school, and in a neighborhood, to organizational contexts holding a statutory duty of care for children and young people assigned looked after status, along with national policies and statutes which frame foster-care environments. This article explores how social-work roles and tasks with children and young people in foster care change as Social Workers transition from case management roles within state, provincial, or local authority departments to become Supervising Social Workers, or Team Managers of Foster Carers, or Directors of foster care services.     

Chapter II: Essential Components in Care and Treatment Environments for Children

No abstract available for this article.     

Chapter 4: Adult Descriptions of Public Achievement

SUMMARY

Adult volunteers who work as experiential educators in Public Achievement (PA) told us about their experiences, and we contrasted these with the stated aims of Public Achievement, young peoples' experiences, and what it is like to be an adult volunteer. PA coaches reflected that there was a significant disjuncture between the official aims of PA and their lived experiences working with youth. Even though this was a source of frustration, PA coaches did come to have personally meaningful experiences working with youth, and this provoked reflection on their own understanding of citizenship, democracy, and public work.