Foster care is one of the crucial child welfare service delivery options that provides appropriate, family-based, temporary nursing facilities for infants, children, and youths, who are removed from their birth parents’ home because of evidence of child abuse, neglect, parents’ substance and/or alcohol abuse, maltreatment, and other strenuous circumstances, while maintaining the legal rights of children and/or family relationships with them. When infants, children, or youths are determined to live separately from their birth parents, social workers or caseworkers arrange a planned, goal-oriented, child welfare service in which an agency-approved, trained foster family takes charge of children’s welfare. Based on the fundamental concept suggesting that the family is the most significant and indispensable institution for rearing children, the United States (U.S.) child welfare service has been centered on foster care. The goal of foster care is to protect and nurture children in a safe...
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Suggested Reading
Silver, J. A., Amster, B. J., & Haecker, T. (1999). Young children and foster care: A guide for professionals. Baltimore: Paul, H. Brookes Publishing.
Sinclair, I., Bakr, C., Wilson, K., & Gibbs, I. (2005). Foster care; Where they go and how they get on. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Schwartz, T. (2005). Parenting for the state: A ethnographic analysis of non-profit foster care. New York: Routledge.
Suggested Resources
Foster Care National Statistics—http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/factsheets/foster.cfm: This website offers various updated statistics that relate to the present condition of foster care. It also provides fundamental information about the foster care service models that are currently in place, the theory or concept behind the model, and additional resources for adoption for parents considering to become foster parents or be potential adaptive parents.
National Foster Parent Association (NFPA)—http://www.nfpainc.org: This association is one of the largest national organizations for foster parents. It provides information for training, assessment, and requirements for being foster parents as well as critical information for social workers and rofessionals in the field.
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Negron, C.A., Hernandez, A. (2010). Foster Care. In: Clauss-Ehlers, C.S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Cross-Cultural School Psychology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-71799-9_176
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