Family foster care: development or decline?

Abstract

As seen in recent evaluative studies, family foster care is in crisis in Australia, the UK and the USA, as in other Western countries. Although it has the potential to provide children and young people with nurturing substitute families, such a service cannot be expected to serve adequately all youth at risk of abuse, neglect and separation from their birth families. Anthony Maluccio and Frank Ainsworth argue that in order to promote the effectiveness of family foster care, we need to engage in further research, particularly in regard to what fostering can and cannot do, how agencies can reduce stress on foster carers and how to enhance policies and programmes dealing with the consequences of multiple placements, placement disruptions and problematic patterns of parental contact.