The Lives of Foster Carers: Private Sacrifices, Public Restrictions PDF
Preview The Lives of Foster Carers: Private Sacrifices, Public Restrictions
The Lives of Foster Carers There are approximately 37,000 foster families currently living in the UK, yet while there has been a substantial amount of social research about fostered children, little is known about the adults who look after them. By focusing on the carer, not the child or the social worker, The Lives of Foster Carers offers the reader a new perspective on foster care. It explores the contradictions, conflicts and ambiguities faced by foster carers every day and looks at how public bureaucracy and private family life intertwine. The issues it discusses include: • a history of the foster care service • professionalising foster care and the shift away from foster parenting • public and private domains in foster care • motivations and roles of foster carers • how foster carers perceive themselves and their foster children. Based on a wide range of literature and in-depth interviews with 46 foster carers, this book provides valuable insight into the concerns, processes and experiences of foster carers. Jargon free and accessible, it will appeal to foster carers, practitioners, students and academics in social care, youth work and child care as well as policy makers in children’s services. Linda Nutt is a foster care and child-care consultant. The Lives of Foster Carers Private sacrifices, public restrictions Linda Nutt LONDON AND NEW YORK First published 2006 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to http://www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk/.” © 2006 Linda Nutt All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN 0-203-00412-4 Master e-book ISBN ISBN10:0-415-35811-6 (hbk) ISBN10:0-415-35812-4 (pbk) ISBN10:0-203-00412-4 (Print Edition) (ebk) ISBN13:978-0-415-35811-8 (hbk) ISBN13:978-0-415-35812-5 (pbk) ISBN13:978-0-203-00412-8 (Print Edition) (ebk) To Mark and Susie who looked after me for two whole years and showed me new hope in ways of the world. With love from Bryan Dictated by Bryan, aged 12 years, who was in foster care from two until he was four years old. Contents Introduction 1 1 What do we know about foster carers? The applied social research 3 2 Towards a theorising of foster care 16 3 Dealing with dilemmas: private and personal 31 4 How foster carers position themselves 48 5 Having a presence through children 64 6 Conclusion 82 Appendix A Pen pictures of the foster carers 95 Appendix B Vignettes 99 Notes 102 Bibliography 105 Index 113 Introduction At any given time in the UK over 70,000 children are in public care, the majority of them 1 living with foster families. Despite the importance of this service, qualitative research focusing on the foster carers is scant. We know little about their day-to-day lives and how they manage its bureaucratic context; how they cope with the problems and the challenges that they face. 2 The Fostering Network’s annual review for 2004 states that 74 per cent of the children in public care are living with some 37,000 foster families, which they estimate to be about 10,000 too few. The majority of foster families are registered with local authorities. There are also a number of independent fostering providers (IFPs) in the UK but they are outside the scope of this book. This book explores the world of local authority foster carers; at how they construct themselves and their lives. It does not include other perspectives: those of the fostered children, their families or of the social services. Clearly these alternative frames of reference and important dimensions would help to more fully appreciate the foster carers’ position, but this research is solely concerned with foster care from the perception of the adult carers, in contemporary society, with a particular focus on the UK context. Using the available research together with new material from in-depth interviews with foster carers, this study focuses on their little-known and changing world in order to give a broader understanding of their family lives. The 46 carers (see Appendix A) represent different nationalities, cultures and class whilst including all types of local authority fostering from emergency placements to ‘quasi-adoption’. They include a full range of ages, lifestyles, geographical areas, own family constitutions and single carers of both genders. The interviews concentrate upon their lives and their understandings and not upon the foster children as there already exists an extensive body of research work about them. Nonetheless, analysis of the scripts finds that life-as-foster-carer is centred on and around the children. It is known that not all carers provide a quality service; there are many where the social services’ perception is that the children’s care is substandard. Official reports identify the potential for negligent care and actual abuse (Waterhouse, 2000; Utting, 1997; Berridge and Cleaver, 1987). Ward and colleagues’ interviews of children in foster care (2005) give examples of children who were discriminated against and felt excluded. Virtually nothing of this is evident in this examination. A different analysis of the study carers might have uncovered hints and generally this study would have been more complete had it included some foster families where a disparate commitment had produced contrasting data. It is not possible to tell whether there are any such carers in this study, only to note that generally in interview respondents manage self-presentation, and research shows that parents wish to appear competent and adequate (Baruch, 1981). The study carers are no different. The study foster carers portray themselves as dedicated to the children that they look after. They present a preferred, possibly over-positive version which may read as
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