Grief and Loss: Supporting Foster Carer Families Through Placement Terminations

ABSTRACT

The importance of acknowledging the grief and loss integral to the experiences of foster carers, has long been understood. However, in a complex area of practice and an increasingly pressured out-of-home care sector, there is a need to refocus foster care program and practitioner attention on supporting carers and their families with the difficult experience of placements ending. This article reports on findings from research that aimed to understand current carer experiences of grief and loss, their coping strategies, their support needs, and the implications for a foster care agency’s duty of care towards its workforce. Through a mixed-methods exploratory methodology, data were collected through an online survey and semistructured interviews with carers affiliated with a foster carer provider operating across three Australian jurisdictions. Carers called for acknowledgement of the deep feelings they develop for the children they look after and help for the grieving process, through training, preparation, and tailored support based on authentic relationships with professionals. The need for well-trained and strongly supported agency workers was emphasised.

IMPLICATIONS

• Providing updates to carers about foster children who have left their care can alleviate the pain of grief and loss.

• Training, preparation, and step-by-step support for carers can promote healthy grieving processes.

• Tailored support for grieving carers needs to be founded on authentic relationships with foster care professionals and open and honest communication.

KEYWORDS:

• Foster Care
• Foster Care Families
• Grief and Loss
• Ambiguous Loss
• Disenfranchised Grief
• Carer Support
• Carer Wellbeing
• Coping Strategies
• Duty of Care
• Out-of-home Care
• End of Placements

In June 2022, nearly 16,000 Australian children were living with 8,655 foster care families (about 35% of the out-of-home care population) in placements lasting from one night to a number of years (AIHW, 2023). These foster care families experience many challenges over and above normal parenting pressures, which may lead to higher levels of stress and burnout than for other families (Harding et al., 2020). These include caring for children with histories of trauma, the practical challenges of managing multiple appointments relating to children’s needs and their relationships with their birth families, interaction with an unwieldy child protection and court system, and the emotional impacts of children joining the foster family and then leaving their care (McKeough et al., 2017). While there is considerable research across the world about the emotional impact on foster carers of placements, most of this research has considered carer well-being through the lens of child outcomes (Lynes & Sitoe, 2019). However, the research this article reports on was commissioned by one Australian foster care provider to help them understand how best to support carers themselves, who experience grief and loss when a foster child leaves their care.

Grief and loss have always been integral to the experience of foster carers asked to provide love for a child and then let them go. As recognised decades ago by Burke and Dawson (1987), this grief varies immensely in form, duration, and in how it differs for each individual, and for each child leaving a family’s care. A wide range of feelings associated with grief can occur regardless of the ways in which placements end. The evidence shows that this experience is “real, deeply felt and difficult to manage” (Hebert et al., 2013, p. 264) When the circumstances have been particularly challenging, carers may also feel a sense of relief or even joy when the child leaves (Edelstein et al., 2001; Valentine et al., 2019). Stigma, shame, and guilt occur when carers have chosen, or felt obliged, to terminate a placement, given the expectations placed on carers by themselves or others to not give up on children, to be competent carers, and to manage their feelings as part of their role. The shame at feeling grief and the pressure to appear competent, can get in the way of carers looking after themselves and can be a barrier to healthy grieving (Edelstein et al., 2001; Lynes & Sitoe, 2019; Valentine et al., 2019). Two key concepts from the literature are particularly helpful in understanding the complicated and under-acknowledged grief and loss experienced commonly by foster care families, and the barriers to healthy grieving: ambiguous loss and disenfranchised grief.

Originally conceptualised by Pauline Boss (1999), ambiguous loss refers to a loss that is vague or unclear, such as the continued psychological presence within the foster family of a child after they had left the placement. Foster care families are required to invite children into their own physical and psychological family, especially for long-term placements, while also recognising children’s membership of their birth family. For carers, ambiguous loss is associated with Boss’s concept of family boundary ambiguity—the dissonance between perceived psychological membership of the family and the family physically present. In the out-of-home care context, ambiguous loss may involve not knowing the circumstances of the child, whether they are living or dead, thriving or at further risk, or whether they might be part of the child’s life in the future. Such boundary ambiguity is central to the experience of foster placement endings, and associated unresolved grief can be detrimental to the overall well-being of a family, including symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (Boss, 2007; Hebert et al., 2013; Thomson & McArthur, 2009).

The concept of disenfranchised grief was developed by Kenneth Doka to describe “a loss that is not or cannot be openly acknowledged, socially sanctioned or publicly mourned” (1989, p. 4). As noted in the foster care literature over many decades, the grief and loss experienced by foster families have frequently gone unacknowledged and unrecognised, with visible grieving being seen as dysfunctional (Valentine et al., 2019), or people thinking it is easy for carers when foster children leave because this is a normal occurrence (D’Amato & Brownlee, 2022). This type of grief may apply either to sudden, unplanned placement terminations (Riggs & Willsmore, 2012) or to placement endings that are within the carer’s control (Valentine et al., 2019). Disenfranchised grief can be harmful because it does not allow carers options to be supported in their grieving, from a simple recognition of the legitimacy of their grief through to therapeutic support (Lynes & Sitoe, 2019).

Valentine and colleagues (2019) reinforced that meaningful intervention and support for carers cannot be achieved without first forming an understanding of the distress and grief they endure. Strategies such as listening to carers express their feelings and accepting their grief as legitimate are important factors in supporting healthy grieving (Lynes & Sitoe, 2019). Carers need to be able to manage role ambiguity and deal with loss if they are to continue offering foster care. Strategies like farewell rituals, training and professional support, and keeping children present in the foster home through photos have been cited as helpful (Newquist et al., 2020; Thomson & McArthur, 2009; Valentine et al., 2019).

The research literature, though not extensive, provided a wide-ranging overview of foster carer experiences of grief and loss, with some attention paid to support options such as programs formalising training, preparation, and support strategies (Hebert et al., 2013; Lynes & Sitoe, 2019; Newquist et al., 2020; Riggs & Willsmore, 2012); peer support (Edelstein et al., 2001; Newquist et al., 2020; Urquhart, 1989); and worker education (Hebert et al., 2013; Thomson & McArthur, 2009; Urquhart, 1989). However, in such a complex area of practice, grief and loss have not received particular professional attention in recent years. There is a need for foster care programs and practitioners to refocus on these issues, in the context of an increasingly pressured out-of-home care sector, and the agency’s wish to understand its duty of care to its volunteer carer families. Hence the study sought to address the following exploratory research questions:

1. What issues of grief and loss do foster carers and their families experience?

2. What coping strategies are used by foster carers and their families, and what are the implications for their support needs?

Method

A mixed-methods exploratory research methodology was employed to draw together qualitative and quantitative data obtained from an online survey to carers, followed by semistructured carer interviews (Creswell & Creswell, 2023). A third phase involving consultation about findings with organisational staff also was conducted but is beyond the scope of this article. The author’s past experience as a foster care practitioner enabled her to approach the research with an understanding of the out-of-home care system and the differences and similarities between agency and carer experience and priorities. The decision was made to focus primarily on carers’ worlds, with system knowledge utilised only as a means of understanding carer stories.

Survey

The carer survey was conducted in mid-2022, using the Qualtrics online survey platform (Version 2023), with the aim of providing an overview of the placement termination experiences of foster carers registered with the agency. Designed to be completed in 10 minutes, it consisted of literature-derived, multiple-choice questions about the impact of children transitioning from the carer’s home, what made the experience difficult, and how carers coped with any difficult experiences.

Carers were recruited through flyers advertised in internal organisational newsletters in the three Australian jurisdictions where the agency operates; therefore, the sample was self-selected. A total of 138 responses were received, with 103 responses sufficiently complete to be included in the sample—five from Western Australia (WA), 24 from New South Wales (NSW), and 74 from Victoria. Of those respondents who provided information, foster care experience ranged from six months to 33 years, with 49 (50%) having cared for three or fewer children, 34 (35%) for 4–10 children, and 15 (15%) for more than 10 children.

Interviews

Seventeen videoconference interviews with carers were conducted in 2022–2023 by the author and another researcher familiar with the out-of-home care system. Four were from WA, six from NSW, and seven from Victoria. Fourteen women and six men were interviewed, including three heterosexual couples, with experience ranging from a single placement to over 30 placements over 1–12 years (see Supplementary Table). On average, interviews lasted for an hour.

A preliminary analysis of survey data informed the development of broad, semistructured interview questions to explore carer experiences of placement terminations and identify areas of focus for agency support. In order to allow carers to determine the issues they wished to raise, questions were very open (e.g., What has been your experience of children leaving at the end of placements, and the impacts on you and your family? What is the process of grieving or moving on?).

Initial recruitment targeted carers who had indicated in the survey an interest in being interviewed, followed by further recruitment through agency networks to ensure sufficient representation from each jurisdiction. Initial invitations aimed for a balance of interviewees who had responded positively or negatively to the survey impact question and equal numbers from each jurisdiction. Interviewees were remunerated for their participation.

Ethical Considerations

Ethics approval was granted by human research ethics committees at both the author’s university and the agency. As most carers were actively providing care to children with the agency, confidentiality was emphasised when informed consent was obtained prior to each interview. However, interviewees were invited to raise issues they deemed important for the agency to hear.

While the subject matter of the survey and interviews was potentially distressing, carers were a self-selected sample and eager to participate. As carers are usually linked in to supports through the program they volunteer with, all respondents were offered several support options within and outside the agency. For those interviewees who became distressed, the interviewer offered to pause or stop the interview, and discussed what support the interviewee could access.

Analysis

Given the exploratory nature of this study, quantitative survey questions were analysed by the author using simple descriptive statistical techniques, and text responses to open-ended questions were analysed thematically. Carer interviews were transcribed, coded in NVivo 14 software (Lumivero, 2023), and analysed by the author using Braun and Clarke’s (2006, 2019) framework of thematic analysis. The author approached the analysis reflexively, with carer experience foregrounded to neutralise any possible bias due to their experience as a foster care professional. Initial coding of all transcript text resulted in a large number of initial codes, from which broad topics were generated. These were then refined through an iterative review process to themes reflecting the author’s identification of key carer experiences relevant to the research questions.

Findings

The findings from the survey and the interviews are presented together, with four themes identified: carers feel many things when children leave; managing painful feelings; preparing our hearts; and the importance of agency support in managing these difficult experiences.

Survey respondents’ assessments of the social and emotional impact of children transitioning from their care were mixed: 55 (53%) reported the impact to be negative or very negative, while 20 respondents (19%) reported positive or very positive impact. Multiple factors were reported when respondents were asked to think of their most difficult experience of a placement ending, with 73% of the respondents citing the reason for the placement ending as causing distress. Other factors included the situation the child was moving to (47%), the way the placement ended (46%), and the level of professional support received (43%) (see Table 1).

Table 1 Most Difficult Experience—What Made It Difficult? N = 102

The reason for the placement ending	73%
The situation that the child was moving to	47%
The way the placement ended	46%
Level of professional support	43%
Expectations of placement length	25%
Worker’s experience level	23%
The length of the placement	19%
Qualifications / professional background of worker	17%
The age of the child	15%
The quality of contact with child’s family	13%
Age of the worker	10%
Other—Worry about child, sibling separation/carer losing role with child	9%
Other—Grief / Emotional impact of child leaving	6%
Other—Impact on carer family leading to placement ending	4%
Other—Systemic issues	4%
The gender of the child	0%

Carers Feel Many Things When Children Leave

The stories told by carers in their interviews about children leaving placement were set in the context of the loving relationships they had developed with foster children. One carer captured the essence of feelings expressed by all the carers interviewed, regardless of how they coped with placement terminations: “When someone’s in your own home, and you’re sharing your life … you live and breathe together” (P07). The clear message from most carers was that “it hurts” when children move on (P17). Carers’ descriptions of their feelings included a mix of grief, mourning, busyness, emptiness, relief, guilt, and sometimes anger.

Both [my husband] and I have experienced grief and loss, obviously … it was harder than I thought, if I’m honest. I didn’t realise … I knew that I loved her, and I knew that it was going to be hard, but it was a lot harder than I even imagined it could be. You know it was never permanent, because that’s what fostering is … Yeah, the heart-wrenching … Yeah. (P07)

Survey respondents indicated that the reason and the way placements end can create difficult experiences. Sudden placement terminations, with no farewell possible, were described as particularly distressing, as in this vivid account by an experienced carer.

It’s a massive heartbreak because it is instant … you’re like, “Oh, there’s so much to organise” … everyone has cuddles, says goodbye sort of thing but if [my husband] is not there, I have to ring him at work and say, “Baby is going. You’re not going to make it home in time.” That’s the hard part. (P12)

Feelings of relief and guilt were described by many carers: “You forget how tiring toddlers are and it was also a relief because it was a constant battle with the agency” (P06). When carers asked for placements to end, this mix of guilt and sadness remained, even when they were sure that they had done what they could.

I felt immensely guilty that I'd sort of failed … you know, having this child live with me that really just needed some support and that he was going to get moved around … it took me quite a few months of sort of working through it and feeling, you know, tears and upset and sad and talking about it. (P01)

Managing Painful Feelings

Carers in both the survey and the interviews described a number of ways they coped with their feelings of loss (see Table 2 for survey results). Many survey respondents (61%) reported that they just got on with things, focusing on work or physical exercise to distract themselves from their feelings. For many carers (30% of survey respondents) this meant taking on the care of another foster child, to cure what one interviewee described as “empty arms” syndrome.

Table 2 How Have You Coped With the Difficult Experiences of a Placement Ending? N = 94

Talking with a partner	60	64%
Getting on with things	57	61%
Talking with friends	52	55%
Talking with a foster care professional	30	32%
Family activities	30	32%
Taking on the care of another foster child	28	30%
Physical activities (e.g., running)	27	29%
Getting counselling	22	23%
Preparing yourself and your family through farewell rituals	22	23%
Ignoring your difficult feelings	9	10%
Other	9	10%

Keeping the Connection Alive

Although not apparent in the survey due to its design, every interviewed carer spoke about their pain when children vanished from their lives. Interviewed carers coped, not by banishing memories, but by talking about children and by keeping them alive in the family through physical mementos and photos. “They’ve all got a special place. We’ve got photo albums of all of our babies, and we all talk about ‘Remember when such-and-such did this?’” (P12).

Interviewees described the comfort of hearing about children’s welfare and the strategies some used to stay in touch with children who had been in their care and they still felt connected to.

It was like unfinished business and just the not knowing I think is a really crucial noteworthy thing when you have an attachment which is so important for the person, the little human, that it goes both ways. And I think there should be an obligation for the agencies just to give you a little update, whether it’s once every year or something, to go “they’re good”, just so you know, a bit of closure. (P06)

Updates from caseworkers were valued, as were opportunities to see the children. One carer described the ongoing connection one little boy continued to have with him: “When we see him at the [foster care] Christmas party he’ll still come up to me and he’ll still say, ‘Oh, this is my Daddy Ethan,’ [pseudonym used]” (P04).

Numerous carers made their own arrangements to stay in touch with older children, and saw themselves as a source of ongoing support. With younger children, some carers developed relationships with the children’s new carers or family of the children. One carer described independently developing a relationship with parents during transition to reunification, planning to contact the children again after allowing six weeks after the transition for the children to settle into their new home (P17). While carer responses varied from an acceptance that they may never hear any news, to actively making arrangements to stay in touch, this issue of ambiguous loss with carers continuing to worry about a departed child was the single issue that made the experience of a child leaving most difficult for all carers.

Talking and Debriefing

Survey responses indicated that talking to someone was a very common strategy for coping—with a partner, with friends, or less often with a foster care professional or a professional counsellor. A small number of respondents mentioned getting support from other foster carers or from the Foster Care Association of Victoria’s Carer Assistance Program. Many carers talked things through with family and friends, taking time to reflect and to reconnect as a family through special time together, outings, or time away as a family. “It was kind of I guess traumatic in the ending of it. I think I just needed time to reflect before jumping into another placement, and my caseworker was also very supportive of that” (P14).

Debriefing was something that all the carers wanted, and there were many stories of “brilliant caseworkers” who provide the right level of support and “do a debrief kind of session with us after a placement ending and really talk through it with us” (P08). For carers with good relationships with their caseworkers or program managers, these relationships provided an understanding and satisfactory shoulder to cry on. Support and mentoring by other carers “who have gone through similar stuff” (P02) was seen as helpful by most carers, although differing opinions were held about the value of carer support groups either in person or online. None of the carers interviewed had taken up offers of being connected to counselling services such as employee assistance programs (EAP). Several interviewees had paid for their own longer-term counselling, feeling that the offered three sessions were inadequate for their needs and that EAP counsellors did not understand out-of-home care. “I felt like that was just a tick in the box” (P02).

Preparing Our Hearts

“Preparing our hearts” is how one carer (P08) described being prepared for the emotional impact of children leaving. Taking the experiences of interviewed carers together, it would seem that carers suffer most at their first placement ending, and this is when they need most support, particularly if the placement was of some duration. “It’s just a case of always being prepared and focusing more on, ‘When this placement ends, how do you think you’re going to feel?’ … The carer really needs to be baby-stepped through that process” (P12).

Experienced carers described using various strategies to prepare themselves, such as setting emotional boundaries similar to professional boundaries, reminding themselves that the care they offer is only temporary, and that case-planning decisions are outside their control. Carers felt supported by caseworkers who initiated conversations about the placement ending throughout the placement. “Our caseworker at the time was doing regular check-ins with me and with the kids as well and, you know, having those conversations and asking them how they feel about it” (P04).

Carers generally did not raise the option of training about grief and loss until asked about it, and only one carer remembered receiving training in this area. However, they felt this was a good idea, to provide a realistic idea of what they might expect, especially from experienced carers. “Our memories of that training is just very much it’s all rainbows and peaches … So I think setting the right expectation with carers around that and actually how hard it can be to go through [it]” (P13).

The Importance of Agency Support

Carers described being most distressed when the connection between foster child and carer family was not recognised by the professionals supporting them, and therefore the impact of a placement termination was overlooked. Postplacement silence from the worker or the agency during or after the termination was distressing and felt to be devaluing. “We actually just heard absolutely nothing from the carer support worker around that and we did find that really frustrating and upsetting” (P13).

However, carers recognised that workers also cared about the foster children and that they faced immense pressures in their work, and were conscious that caseworkers were immediately forced to move their attention to a new child and a new placement, at a time when carers were still grieving. “That case has finished for them; it’s not on their desk anymore; they’ve been given another one; they’ve moved on; but for us it’s still very raw and very real” (P08).

Carers called for authentic and compassionate relationships with their workers: this was about workers building “a good rapport” (P13) and “checking in on things with sort of that genuine care” (P15). After a difficult placement ended, one carer was contacted by their manager who offered a night away and a massage “so that you can feel connected again” (P13).

Several participants suggested personal caring gestures such as flowers, food, or hobby-related gifts. Other suggestions included the following:

• a personal memento, such as a framed drawing done by the child leaving, or a photo (P02)

• practical help with packing up a child’s room and transporting their belongings (P08)

• delayed debriefing for carers who need time or space

• a listening ear that does not interpret tears and anger as dysfunctional

• checking the welfare of all family members affected, including primary carer, spouse, children, grandparents, and possibly other extended family (P09).

Communication was another key theme raised by carers. Many carers acknowledged that while workers do not always know what will happen, open discussion about the possibility of a placement ending was appreciated: “They'd give us what they can” (P13). However, carers expressed their hurt when they felt they had been kept in the dark, without issues being discussed openly.

We were struggling with her at the time, but we weren’t willing to give up on her. But they sort of made the decision that she was going to move from our family … at the time, that really hurt that they were talking behind our backs. They were making these decisions without us being involved and that’s where the frustration came in … Don’t treat us like children. Give us the information we need. (P12)

Where carers reported communication working well, they described workers being open to talking through any issues arising about the placement and its termination. They also praised regular check-ins about their welfare—in placement, during a child’s transition out of the placement, or after a placement had ended.

Discussion and Practice Implications

This study aimed to understand carer experiences of grief and loss, their coping strategies, their support needs, and the implications for a foster care agency’s duty of care. The stories told in carer interviews bore out the predominant themes identified in the survey findings about what made placement termination experiences difficult and how carers coped, as well as providing significantly more detail and depth about carers’ sense of attachment to the children they looked after and their experiences of grief and loss. Survey and interview data echoed many themes already identified in the existing literature, especially the concept of disenfranchised grief (Lynes & Sitoe, 2019; Riggs & Willsmore, 2012). In a culture that often associates grief with death and a narrow range of relationships, the depth and meaning of attachments may go unseen (Doka, 1989). Carer stories provided illustrations of carers’ feelings not being recognised by the agency (or the Children’s Court); assumptions by others that carers’ grief was minimal; failure to provide support to enable placements to continue; forced placement transitions; or open expressions of distress being judged dysfunctional. These experiences led to considerable distress, and sometimes great anger and bitterness, which took time to work through. Some carers ceased fostering or moved to a different agency. In contrast, many carers praised the responsiveness of caseworkers and foster care programs for understanding and helping them through difficult feelings when a placement ended—indeed, the carer survey indicated that one in five carers had positive experiences. The findings highlight the critical importance of system and agency cultures that facilitate practice that nurtures children, carer families, and birth families alike.

The ambiguity of the carer family role in looking after foster children, their own expectations of making a difference to these children’s lives, and the high standards of coping that they held themselves to, were powerfully conveyed by the carer interviews. It was striking that all interviewees wished for postplacement contact, or information, or at least news of the children they had looked after, and some had arranged this themselves. Information about children is important in helping carer families adjust their perceptions of their family boundaries and their role in relation to the foster child, as they see the child in new circumstances (Boss, 2007). To help carer families resolve their grief, out-of-home care providers must acknowledge the validity of the carer–child relationship and the reality of both the loss and its ambiguous nature (Hebert et al., 2013; Thomson & McArthur, 2009).

Carers associated the impact of placement terminations, whether positive or negative, with the quality of their relationships with the foster care program and caseworkers, and called for tailored responses to their support needs, based on authentic relationships. Four areas of attention for programs can be drawn from carers’ reflections. These are preparing carers for feelings of grief, knowing the families, tailored support for families, and professionals’ increased understanding of grief and loss.

Preparing carers for the feelings most common at times of placement termination is crucial, through carer education about grief and loss, both before their first placement and in refresher sessions. In particular, naming and explaining disenfranchised grief may assist carers in preparing themselves for these feelings (Riggs et al., 2022). Interviewees particularly valued the insights of more experienced carers. However, as with much of the foster care experience, training is not as influential as experience. Effective support for carer families in their first placement may involve stepping them through the process closely, before, during, and after the transition. Conversations that remind carers that the placement will end, and help them “prepare their hearts” for the loss of the child, are important for carers to process what has been called anticipatory grief, facilitating healthy grieving (Hebert et al., 2013).

Knowing the carer family members, how they cope with stress and the pressures of the placement, and what their support needs are is important. Carer responses bore out existing evidence that each loss experience is highly individual, depending on the situation, and the relationships between foster child, carer family members, and caseworker, but also that each person has their own style of grieving. Different support strategies may be appropriate for carers who take a professional approach to foster care, compared with families who fit fostering around work and other commitments. However, the foundation for all carers is an authentic relationship and honest and open communication with the caseworker.

Appropriate support for each individual placement termination is a sign of authentic relationships between caseworkers and carer families—this will depend on the length of the placement, the nature of the placement termination, and the child’s future living circumstances, as well as how individual carer family members are coping. Sometimes a text or a phone message is adequate (e.g., when short-term placements end in a planned way, for carers who need some space before talking, or with experienced carers). However, appropriate support may require a structured debriefing process similar to critical incident debriefing or peer support such as the group evaluated by Riggs and colleagues (2022).

Similarly, every carer interviewed had a different perspective on whether it helped to talk to family, friends, the caseworker, someone independent from the placement such as an agency therapist, or an out-of-home care specialist independent from the agency for short-term counselling or longer-term specialist counselling. Foster care professionals face a challenging task when carers “keep busy” to deflect their feelings of grief, a strategy that may work in the short-term but creates the danger of cumulative trauma and burnout. In addition, some carers reported being offered treats such as presents, a massage, or a weekend away. Given the perceived inconsistency of support offered between different placements and programs, a menu of support options could promote consistent and appropriate support.

The experience of carers highlights that foster care professionals’ understanding of grief and loss, including the concepts of anticipatory grief, disenfranchised grief, and ambiguous loss, is key to providing effective support for carer families to process their grief. This may be achieved through training, coaching, or good supervision practice. Carers’ stories demonstrated that their most distressing experiences were caused or exacerbated by problems in the caseworker–carer relationship through staff turnover or workers not having the capacity or understanding to provide the necessary support or communication. Distress also was caused when inadequate documentation resulted in decisions and information relevant to carers being lost when responsibility moved between workers, programs, or organisations. Given the demands and complexity of the out-of-home care sector on all involved, a nurturing work culture and environment is essential if foster care professionals are to provide appropriate and authentic support to carer families that really responds to their individual needs and circumstances.

Limitations

The findings reported here are part of a larger dataset, which included interviews with a small number of biological children of foster carers, and consultations with agency professionals. These aspects of the research, though significant, are beyond the scope of this article and will be reported elsewhere. Given the exploratory nature of the study, kinship care was deemed outside the scope of the research. Similarly, no specific attention was given to the experiences of carers of different gender and sexual orientations, of carers from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander or culturally and linguistically diverse communities, or the experiences of carers affiliated with other out-of-home care providers. All these groups are a critical focus for future research.

Conclusion

The ambiguous nature of relationships between carers and the children they look after has long been understood by foster care experts, as has the importance of acknowledging the grief and loss experienced by foster family members when children transition from placement. In a sector both pressured and complex, it is hard for professionals and service providers to maintain attention to many competing areas of practice knowledge. The message from carers is clear: education, preparation, and support for carers and professionals alike should be structured into program policy and caseworker roles.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data Availability

The participants of this study did not give written consent for their data to be shared publicly, so due to the sensitive nature of the research, supporting data is not available.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by MacKillop Family Services.