Re-examining Social Work Roles and Tasks with Foster Care

Abstract

In order to promote developmental outcomes with children and young people and to nurture their positive health and well-being in foster care, social workers and case managers are required to direct professional attention toward both the child or young person and her/his daily living environment(s)—at home, at school, and in the local neighborhoods in which they live. When viewed from an ecological perspective, foster care environments are represented conceptually as a nested cluster of settings ranging from immediate life spaces and networks of relationships in a foster home, at school, and in a neighborhood, to organizational contexts holding a statutory duty of care for children and young people assigned looked after status, along with national policies and statutes which frame foster-care environments. This article explores how social-work roles and tasks with children and young people in foster care change as Social Workers transition from case management roles within state, provincial, or local authority departments to become Supervising Social Workers, or Team Managers of Foster Carers, or Directors of foster care services.

KEYWORDS:

• child and youth services
• foster care
• out-of-home care
• social work

Notes

The term “looked-after care” has special meaning throughout the United Kingdom by legislation. Out-of-home care or perhaps “in care” are the parallel terms used in the United States and Canada.

The occupational titles Social Worker, Supervising Social Worker, Team Manager, Director, and Foster Carer are assigned formal status in this article with capital letters. References to social working, supervising social working, team managing, directing, and foster caring without capital letters emphasize doing the work.

The term “Foster Carer,” more commonly used in Europe, is employed throughout this manuscript instead of “Foster Parent” which is more commonly used in North America. We think it is important to maintain clarity around roles and tasks that societies commonly associate with parenting.

After one year of monitoring of NI 58, results were returned for only two thirds of the children in foster care.

Focusing attention on family systems and care systems which operate for children.

This trend builds from the Public Health Orientation or Medical Model noted in Trend 1.

Corporate Parenting is a term with special meaning within the UK context. It is used to highlight the collective responsibility of Local Councils, their elected members and commissioned partners for all children and young people in their care. Corporate parenting involves the formal and local partnerships negotiated between local authority departments and services, and contracted agencies responsible for working together to meet the needs of children and young people in “looked after care,” under the supervision of a delegated local authority.

Influenced by Trend 2—Normalization and Strengths-Based Approaches.

Not all child welfare employees with the title of “social worker” have professional qualification in social work. Minimum qualifications are required in some places and by some agencies or departments.

Linked with a public-health orientation (medical model) that views children in isolation from their environment.

The authors are here using the legislated UK language for out-of-home care placements by the state.

The authors are mindful of how technical jargon is readily dismissed by some social workers and even more foster carers, especially those more interested in the practicalities of “social working” than they are with social work practice theory. For that reason, Bronfenbrenner's (1979) words are used sparingly, and appear in italics.

For example, a child presenting with autistic spectrum behaviors will demonstrate very personalized styles of engagement and their rhythms of daily living interactions require very personalized Carer responses.

Farmer and Moyers (2008) offer important feedback from young people about their looked-after care.

In their investigations into why foster care placements succeed or fail, Sinclair et al. (2005) concluded that “foster care is certainly seen as benign. Its carers are commonly seen as ‘the salt of the earth’. However, they are neither acknowledged as responsible parents nor treated as responsible professionals” (p. 233).

A child welfare case worker is frequently required to assess parenting skills of birth parents and consider their suitability for home supervision. This is rarely as detailed as the assessment used to determine whether foster carers can be licensed to provide life space care for looked after children and young people.

LAC Reviews are a statutory requirement for all UK children and young people in out-of-home care.