Care as Regulated and Care in the Obdurate World of Intimate Relations: Foster Care Divided?

Abstract

This paper outlines briefly care as a formal construct of a highly regulatory approach to being looked after in the setting of foster care. It then moves on to consider care and its expression within the interdependencies and everyday moral ‘workings out’ between people in caring relationships. These relationships are informed partly by exterior regulation, but also emerge predominantly from care as a social process and daily human activity in which the self exists through and with others. Drawing from an in-depth qualitative study of 10 foster families supported by local authorities or independent agencies in Wales, the paper examines the meaning of care in what is often a nebulous mix of paid and unpaid fostering. The moral texture of the foster family is revealed in regard to three areas of everyday domestic life that are often taken for granted and rarely researched: the symbolism of food, issues of the body, and aspects of touch. The paper concludes with a brief reprise of foster care as relational, constitutive and contextual in contrast with care as a professional and regulatory discipline.

Keywords:

• Foster Care
• Fostering
• Wales
• Food
• Body
• Touch
• Family

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andrew Pithouse

Andrew Pithouse is Director of Research at the School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University and has researched and published extensively in children's social work services. Alyson Rees is a lecturer in social work at the School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, teaching on the MA in Social Work. She was a practising social worker and probation officer for many years. She has undertaken research in the areas of domestic violence, foster care, neglect and working with complex families