Experiences of former foster carers in the ACT

1
Experiences of former foster carers in the ACT

• Lorraine Thomson and Morag McArthur,
• Institute of Child Protection Studies
• ACWA Conference August 2008

2
The presentation outline

• Overview of the findings of research which aimed
  to better understand the reasons why ACT foster
  carers cease foster caring.
• Experiences of former carers
• Implications of the research

3
Issues in current context

• Increased numbers of children in out of home care
  with increasing complexity of need
• Need to identify strategies that may impact on
  the retention or recruitment of fosters

4
What are the issues?

• Although there been research on retaining foster
  carers less focus on why carers leave
• Studies in Australia
• Mainly relying on UK and US studies

5
Themes from literature

• Normal life events account 20-65
• Support- from professionals and others
• Red tape, agency behaviour, role delineation

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Themes from literature

• Financial
• Childrens complex needs
• Lack of voice in decision making
• Impact on family
• Allegations of abuse
• Combination of factors

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Methodology

• Aim was to highlight the perspectives of former
  foster carers rather than the facts of the
  situation
• Mixed method ie mail out survey and interviews
  with 12 former carers
• Ethics application

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Methodology

• Semi structured interviews with 12 former
  carers
• Semi structured interviews with key stakeholders
  including non government and government
  organisations including Create

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Limitations

• Low response to the questionnaire leads to
  limited generalisability of the findings
• Self selection of those involved we dont know
  the reasons for non participation

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Findings -demographics

• 16 respondents female
• 8 were part of couples- 1 single male
• 6 were in 26-39 age range,
• 6 in 40-49,
• 4 were over 60
• None identified as ATSI, 1 NESB

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Caring profile- survey

• 8 had been carers 3-5 years
• 9 had their own children at home for part of the
  caring time
• Care type spread across categories
• Respite most common category with crisis and
  emergency next most common
• Majority had fostered 5-10 children,
• range was 1-48 children

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Ceasing fostering

• 13 out of 17 considered departure voluntary.

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Changes in personal circumstances

• Featured in 59 (9) questionnaire respondents
• Interacted with other factors in most situations

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Impact on own family

• 8 out of 17 of survey
• Also featured in interviews
• I decided to leave, because my daughter, a
  teenager, was getting upset. She felt she
  couldnt bring friends around and a few of her
  things went missing.

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Relationship with agency/statutory body

• Issues included
• information about child
• disagreement with decisions
• lack of respite
• lack of advice re behaviour
• undermining of foster parents
• slow payment

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Emotional impact of caring

• Strain, exhaustion, feeling used
• Childrens experiences of trauma
• Attachment and loss

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• It is an incredibly extreme experience- you cry
  tears that you never thought you would cry, but
  you also share elation at moments when a child
  who has not set foot in a school gets up at
  assembly to perform, you know it is pretty
  special

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• It is hard to describe the lack of rights you
  have as a human being as a foster carer and the
  reason I tell the stories is to give a glimpse of
  what is so you can understand that when all of a
  sudden you are cut off, how confusing it is.

19

• I dont know if we would be able to foster again.
  It feels unfinished. We would like to know what
  is in the files about us. We would like to know
  how the childis doing.. They employed us, why
  arent they helping us? .. We are in limbo.

20

• I felt she (the child) was blaming me (for the
  separation) I was hysterical, I said I have
  bonded with her and I love her.

21

• In the end it got too much, we gave the child
  back to the department.. I was in tears when
  they said it wasnt our fault. We had dedicated
  our lives to looking after and loving these kids
  we had. For all of a sudden for it to be stopped
  because we couldnt handle these kids that we had
  was awful. It was a terrible day for us.

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• I would like to see follow-up with kids- they are
  part of your life, but they wont tell you
  anything after they leave.

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Discussion

• Emotional impact of caring vicarious trauma
  loss and grief.

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Loss and grief in foster care

• Attachment and loss to birth and foster parents
  well considered in literature and practice
• Less attention, but some attention in literature,
  to the loss and grief experienced by foster
  families as children move in and out of lives.

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• I offered to have the child for one term. I was
  assuming they were looking for another placement,
  but the child was still there after a year.

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• There is a difference between what you can
  legally do and social norm. You are trying to
  bring up children with your hands tied behind
  your back you are not a parent, you are a
  carer. You dont have legal standing, ie in
  emergency you cant sign a consent form for
  anaesthetic. You cant give a child normalcy if
  you cant do that. As a foster carer I had all
  the care and responsibility, but no power.

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• We had to get our heads very quickly around the
  fact that its not our child and the parents have
  a lot of say even though the child is raised in
  your foster carers home. Really the child is
  never going to belong to us, its never going to
  be our child.

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Discussion

• Wanting to make a difference- different views
  about what is good for children

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Implications for practice

• The parenting partnership-promoting respectful
  relationships conflict management processes
• Adequate recompense
• Processes for finishing-exit discussions

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• Understanding of the ambiguous nature of the
  losses involved in foster care-potentially
  traumatic

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• The strains that arise from fostering reflect the
  difficult events that occur and the amount of
  supportparticularly informal supportprovided.
• Views of fostering reflect these strains and the
  supportparticularly from family and social
  workers-that is available.

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• Views of fostering, family circumstances, and the
  degree to which a carer received a professional
  package involving training, support from other
  carers and enhanced finance, all influence
  whether or not a carer thinks of leaving, with
  different weights probably being given to those
  factors, depending on the carers situation.
• (Sinclair, Gibbs, Wilson, 2004)

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• Whose responsibility after carers cease fostering?

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Ambiguous loss references

• Boss, P. (2006). Loss, Trauma and Resilience
  Therapeutic work with ambiguous loss. New York
  WW Norton Company.
• Carroll, J. S., Olson, C. D., Buckmiller, N.
  (2007). Family Boundary Ambiguity A 30-Year
  Review of Theory, Research, and Measurement.
  Family Relations, 56(2), 210-230.

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Report

• Institute of Child Protection Studies. (2007).
  Experiences of Former Foster Carers.
  http//www.acu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/
  84555/Final_Foster_Carers_Report_December_07.pdf.