A Personal-Ethical Reflection on the Training for Foster Parents in Austria

ABSTRACT

In Austria, foster parents are screened and selected by local child and youth welfare services, and then they are required to complete several weeks of training. This essay is a personal reflection on this training, which I completed with my wife in early 2022. However, I am also writing this personal reflection from an ethical perspective informed by my work as an ethicist and philosopher at the university. Topics that concern me are the understanding of child and youth welfare, the parental role of foster parents, the focus of the training on practical knowledge from experience, and the relationship between experts and foster parents.

KEYWORDS:

• Foster parenthood
• ethics
• personal reflection
• social work

Introduction

In Austria, as media reports have repeatedly emphasized in recent months and years, foster parents are urgently needed. There is a shortage of both crisis foster parents, who care for children on a short-term basis and for a few months, and long-term foster parents, who want to take in children with the intention of a permanent stay. Of course, this shortage has consequences, namely that children either have to stay longer with their family of origin or be placed in institutional care. Especially for younger children, placement in an institutional care facility is problematic with changing caregivers working shifts and several other children who need to be cared for. Family placement in foster families that build stable bonds is considered the best solution in what is in principle an unwanted situation when the family of origin cannot or is not allowed to care for the child (anymore).

The reasons for the shortage of foster parents – in Austria, both couples (whether married or unmarried, as well as same-sex partnerships) and individuals can now take in foster children – are many and varied, but little research has been done on them, at least in Austria. Most involuntarily childless people wish to have biological children (IVF treatments are financially supported by the state in Austria) or prefer adoption, although the latter is a mostly lengthy process as there are far too few children for adoption in Austria. The option of intercountry adoption is also not open to all, as this usually involves considerable costs and these adoptions have to be organized either independently or with the help of private NGOs, with high legal hurdles to overcome. Foster parenthood always involves the child and youth welfare services, which legally retain custody and only transfer the child-rearing to the foster parents. This means that foster parents are always partly a transparent family that is in regular contact with the authorities and is also constantly monitored by them in order to ensure the best interests of the foster child. In addition, contact with the family of origin – almost always the biological parents, often only the biological mother – is an important part of the foster care concept. If possible, the child should maintain regular contact with the family of origin, approximately every 3–4 weeks, depending on the court's decision, contacts that are accompanied by the foster parents. Also in this respect it is to be stated that one does not only take in a child, but to a certain extent always also the family of origin. Regular visitation contacts have an effect before and after, they influence the child and the family life together. Finally, it should be mentioned that although there is financial support for foster parents, it is – intentionally – not so high that it would be a strong incentive to take in a child. The foster parents are primarily responsible for the maintenance and resources of the child. Therefore, the examination of the financial situation of the foster parents as well as the housing arrangements also play a role in the agency's decision on whether to approve one as a foster parent. The legal regulations are not uniform in Austria, but differ between the federal states due to the federal principle. The entire child and youth welfare system is the responsibility of the individual federal states, while the implementing authorities are located at the district level. This leads to some differences, not only of the legal regulations, the financial support, the design of the training of prospective foster parents, but there are probably also somewhat different normative approaches, for example the weighting of children's rights versus parents’ rights. Differences that are also present at the district level and rooted there in the different moral convictions, experiences and practices of the responsible social workers. This is an insight I learned during the training process through contact with foster parents from other districts.

Foster parents, temporary parents, biological parents

Our own journey began with thinking about foster care and adoption even before our daughter was born, partly out of ethical considerations. As is often the case in life, many things intervened and it was not until shortly after our daughter's 4th birthday that we again seriously considered the question of taking in a foster or adoptive child. Quite soon, we decided to inform ourselves about foster parenthood at the child and youth welfare office responsible for us. Underlying this were also the considerations that we did not want to go through a lengthy adoption process and that we knew that foster parents were urgently needed. We, like many other foster parents (MacGregor et al. 2006), wanted to improve a child's life while also growing our family, i.e. having a positive benefit to our own lives. Even in this initial phase, my professional and personal lives were naturally intermingled, as I had been doing intensive research on ethical issues of childhood, children's rights and especially child poverty for several years. Nevertheless, it was clear to me and to us that we wanted to take in a child and be parents to her/him and not social workers.

The first contact with the social worker of the child and youth welfare was very positive. We were visibly welcomed and immediately received a great deal of information about both the legal regulations and the lived practice. Only afterwards it became clear that this lived practice is not uniform throughout Austria and also not in the federal state, but differs in some points depending on the social worker. Our social worker, for example, was very strongly focused on the best interests of the child, whereas the parental rights of the biological parents took a back seat. In any case, we were encouraged in our decision, but given time to think about everything again. Which we did, and only a few weeks later we arranged a second appointment to discuss how to proceed. The path included the following stages: Conversation with the social worker about our motivation, clarification of the requirements, examination of the prerequisites (job, financial security), followed by a home visit by two social workers, where once again open questions were clarified, the equipment of the living space was checked and where above all open questions about us and our family histories were asked. In the course of the home visit, we also talked to our daughter. After that, we had two appointments with a psychologist, who spoke with us for two hours each and then took standardized tests on personality and conflict management. Only on the basis of the psychological assessment did the social worker make a recommendation as to whether we would be admitted to the training program. That was the case. The entire process from the second interview, after which we were admitted, and the admission to the training took four months.

With the social worker and even more so in the conversation with the psychologist, it was emphasized what kind of parenting the agency considers foster parenting to be. Foster parents are not birth parents and not adoptive parents. The foster child always remains a child of the biological parents as well, is supposed to keep contact with them, and the foster parents are something like co-parents or temporary parents who assume responsibility for the upbringing. Of course, it was also said that some biological parents cannot or do not want to keep contact at all, and that the foster child's close bond with the foster parents is essential. Nevertheless, our impression was that parents who have a hidden or open desire to have children of their own – that is, who actually want biological or adoptive children but seek foster parenthood for pragmatic reasons – should be screened out. This concept of foster parents who are supposed to be neither full parents nor professional caregivers, but rather put their heart and soul into it, yet always aware that the child will only be there for a time, was and still is a great challenge. The psychologist in particular also emphasized to us again and again the possibility of reunification of the child with the biological parents – but without calling reunification the primary goal (Sanchirico and Jablonka 2000) – that is, that the child can be returned to the biological parents at any time, even with the perspective of long-term care, if the child and youth services or the court so decides. Reunification has been brought to consciousness as the great challenge, as it has been referred to repeatedly in the literature (Hebert, Kulkin, and McLean 2013). Do you manage as a family when the child suddenly has to leave after a few months or years and contact breaks off? Do you see yourselves as temporary parents, caring for the child only as long as the family of origin cannot or may not, even if that time is until the child reaches adulthood? The point, as I interpret it, was to make us realize that foster parenting is child-centered, not parent-centered; the focus is not on us as foster parents, but on the child who needs us. The focus of child and youth welfare is on the best interests of the child, to which our interests are subordinated in cases of conflict, for example, when it is a question of whether it is better for the child to grow up with its biological parents again.

In this way, the authorities make an implicit ethical assessment, which is understandable but not without alternative. We ourselves have been told that other social workers have clearly communicated that foster parenthood is to be understood in a similar way to adoption, i.e. that the foster parents actually become the ‘real’ parents and that the claims of the biological parents are secondary to this. These different approaches to parenthood of the foster parents are also reflected in the fact that a later adoption of the foster child by us was not brought into play as an option – it was not ruled out, but it was emphasized that this is not actually the goal or purpose – whereas this was in fact the case with other prospective foster parents.

The focus on the child's best interests that we perceived was complemented by an emphasis on the role of the biological parents, but this was equally interpreted, at least in our conversations at the outset, from the perspective of the child's best interests. Contact with the biological parents is to be maintained not primarily because of parental rights, but because it is better for the child. This also expresses an implicit criticism of anonymous adoption, because it was repeatedly emphasized both by our social worker and by the experts during the training (psychologists, social workers, educators) that breaking off contact negatively affects the development of identity and that the children find it difficult to understand themselves and their origins. Knowing where one comes from and who one's biological parents are was seen as central to good development. This assessment is also not viewed uncritically in research (Ruiz-Romero et al. 2022). Thus, the role of the family of origin was understood to be that they should contribute their share to the child's well-being and healthy growing up, and that regular contacts are necessary for this. Contacts that are accompanied by a social worker as far as necessary, and which unfortunately, because the biological parents often have a number of problems (homelessness, mental illness, drug addiction, etc.), do not always succeed well or have to be broken off altogether. The relationship between biological parents and foster parents is, as we were also told, not symmetrical and biological parents often feel overwhelmed and under observation during visitation contacts (Höjer 2009). Thus, in addition to reunification, the impression developed over time that visitation contacts and the relationship with biological parents is the second major challenge. Only later in the training did it become clear that this view of the biological parents is not shared by all institutions and professionals in the care system, indeed that precisely those authorities that can become particularly important, namely the courts, which decide on visitation contacts or reunification, frequently give very strong weight to the rights of the biological parents and also decide against the child welfare-centered recommendations of the child and youth welfare services. For example, cases were told during the training where children were returned by the court after several years, although this involved a traumatic break in attachment and the child actually had no relationship with the biological parents.

Learning processes and experiences

The training as foster parents took place on several evenings and compressed weekend courses in a group of about 20 people and stretched over two months. What immediately stood out as a disadvantage, and was also confirmed in conversations with other participants, was the lack of on-site childcare. All participants who already had younger children were thus forced to arrange for childcare, which, since the courses included an overnight stay at the weekend and the individual courses also lasted until 9:30pm, also had to be able to put the children to bed. Not everyone has these resources and it requires an organizational effort. The training itself is free of charge, only the 2 overnight stays at the weekend courses and the meals have to be paid by the prospective foster parents themselves. Here, too, there would probably be reasons for the authorities to reduce the financial and organizational costs – after all, foster parents take on a task after their training that the state cannot refuse, namely to care for children for whom no one else can provide. Compared to all other forms of placement, foster parents are by far the most cost-effective; care in a residential facility by social workers and educators costs many times more.

Specifically, the training includes units on the legal regulations (and their possible interpretation by the authorities and the courts), on visitation contacts with the biological parents, on the child's own biography and motivation, and above all on the development of foster children and the possible challenges that arise, depending on what the child has experienced before, how old he or she is, or what developmental steps he or she has already taken. The training was no doubt designed not to overwhelm the participants. Such a training is not an academic education and is not supposed to be one. For me, it was always interesting to see what was taught and how it was taught, especially subjects about which I had already informed myself in advance or which I have to deal with in my own research and teaching. Nevertheless, my goal was exactly not to observe the training in a neutral way but I and we as a couple wanted to learn what it means to become foster parents, especially what it means to be good foster parents. It was precisely here that I became aware again and again of the tension between ethics and philosophy as theoretical disciplines and concrete practice and giving concrete and applicable advice, also the difficulty of applying ethical concepts and theories to what is a very private part of life, which is also very much shaped by feelings, hopes and anxieties. The worry of not becoming a good foster father, especially as an expert on ‘ethics of childhood’, was definitely present.

Throughout the training, special attention was given to learning through exchange between participants and the group was presented from the beginning as a resource that can be maintained even after the training. Regular exchange between foster parents in facilitated groups as well as informally was repeatedly emphasized as very important for coping with foster parenting and conflicts and uncertainties that arise. As far as I could research, there is no evidence-based evaluation of foster parent training, a deficiency that is not unique to Austria (Dorsey et al. 2008).

Particularly impressive and also sought after in the group were the reports on the experiences of foster parents who have already had foster children for a longer period of time or whose children are already adults. It was clearly recognizable that the focus was on practical knowledge, while theoretical concepts, scientific explanations or figures and data were presented little and were not asked for (except by myself now and then). Participants wanted to know what to expect and how to resolve specific potential challenges in their daily lives (Hebert and Kulkin 2018). What do I do when there is a conflict with the biological parents? How do I manage the first few days when the child moves in with me? How do I handle it when the child is unhappy because of the attachment breakdown with the biological parents or the crisis foster family? How do the visits of the social workers, which should take place at least once a year at home, work out concretely? In addition, there were many questions to clear up uncertainties: How likely is it that foster children are taken away from foster parents and reunified with their biological parents? How often are there conflicts with the biological parents and what are they about? How many foster children are traumatized? There is still a lack of research and evidence on very many of these questions – an impression that was not only conveyed in the course but confirmed by my own research – but mostly personal reports and anecdotal evidence, which accordingly can diverge. A Google Scholar search for the corresponding German terms ‘foster care’, ‘foster parents’ and ‘Austria’ yields mainly student theses in social work or social pedagogy and not many academic studies.

However, the basic tenor in the training was a constant reassurance to the participants that they were doing the right thing and that they would do well. It was also conveyed that all those who were recommended for the training by their social workers had already been sufficiently checked anyway and that the course was now about strengthening their competencies and also showing once again what help was available in the event of conflicts or unresolved issues. Here it is perhaps relevant that the training does not take place by the authority of the child and youth welfare service, but by a private NGO, which is assigned and paid for it by the federal state. This NGO takes on an important role in the entire foster child system of the state. It is not only responsible for training, but also for the ongoing supervision of crisis foster parents and the organization of foster parent groups, the supervision of visitation contacts of the biological parents, legal advice for foster parents and much more. Thus, this NGO and the social workers working there have both a role outside the authority, which is also emphasized again and again, but at the same time the NGO is of course dependent on the commissioning by the state.

The shared experiences, which do not quite correspond to our own, were also characterized by the fact that the authority and the social workers employed there are often overburdened. The impression arose among some participants that the child and youth welfare services are interested in a quick placement of children and do not take much time for the individual case or the foster parents. This impression was also confirmed by the experts speaking during the training. There would be both time pressure to act quickly and place children in a short time, cost pressure because placement in long-term foster care with a family is cheaper, and also pressure due to an excessive number of cases to be handled. In contrast, the private provider was able to position itself as more independent, freer, less subject to pressures, and more interested in the well-being of foster parents. This was also readily accepted by the participants, who often felt that they were not equal partners vis-à-vis the authority, but perceived an asymmetrical power imbalance. It was also put this way: you have to behave the way you think the authorities want you to behave so that you don't lose the chance to become a foster parent.

Expert knowledge

Foster parent training, like all training, is characterized by a hierarchy of knowledge and experience. To be sure, there is a component of shared learning among the group of prospective foster parents, and depending on knowledge, prior experience, and character, there are those in the group of learners who at times assume the role of teachers. Nevertheless, the social workers, educators, psychologists and lawyers who act as teachers in the training have an expert status. They know more than the others. This is also true of the agency and the social workers who work there. They, too, know more than the prospective foster parents. Above all, however, the experts have a certain kind of knowledge that is also particularly sought after by the participants (Kaasbøll et al. 2019), namely experiential and practical knowledge. My impression, which has been reinforced in the course of the training, is that the foster care system is particularly shaped by the experiential knowledge of the people who work there, rather than by research-based knowledge. The challenges parents face, how they can be solved, as well as the question of how foster children can develop well, were answered throughout the course and also in discussions with the authority, primarily with reference to their own experiences and the experiences of other social workers, psychologists, educators, etc. Scientific theories from psychology or pedagogy were certainly presented, especially with regard to the attachment of children, but these were also strongly related to the experiences of the teachers who presented these theories. This also conveyed, implicitly, that solutions to foster parents’ questions tended not to be found in theory but in the practice of experienced experts, which included experienced foster parents and adult foster children themselves, some of whom brought their experiences to the course (Cooley and Petren 2011). One might assume that this is also for didactic and practical reasons: for prospective foster parents, the training is designed as a hands-on course, not as advanced training on scientific knowledge about foster children. The addressees of these courses are people who want to become foster parents, which includes a measure of knowledge acquisition, but for whom practical experience and practical knowledge are more important. In addition, one of the purposes of the course is probably to convey who to turn to when problems arise during foster parenting: namely, the authorities and the experts of the NGO that conducts the training and continues to be responsible for many aspects of caring for foster parents and foster children afterward. Nevertheless, it suggests itself to me that the focus on practical knowledge is not only due to the target group of the course, but says something about the foster care system and social work in the triad of authority, social worker and science in general. Out of personal interest, and of course motivated by my professional background at the university, I tried to do my own research beyond the practical knowledge that was taught in the course, and also sought to talk to social workers and researchers in social pedagogy that I knew. The results were rather sobering. Empirical research – and also ethical reflection – is scarce, at least in Austria; much of what is published in scientific and semi-scientific publications aimed at foster parents, but also social workers, is based primarily on such knowledge of action and experience.

Ethical challenges

The foster care system involves a whole set of ethical challenges that authorities, social workers, foster parents and biological parents have to solve. These include parental rights and children's rights, which all involved must uphold, as well as questions of professional ethics in social work and social pedagogy, or the challenge of determining what foster care means for foster parents in the first place and what moral demands are associated with it. In the course of foster parent education, some of these challenges came up, but for the most part they were not framed as ethical questions, nor were they framed as questions to which there may be different ethical responses. Ethical reflection was not taught, nor was it tested (Gray and Gibbons 2007). While values such as the best interests of the child, respect, trust, and privacy were mentioned, their deeper meaning was not clarified. Instead of ethics in the sense of guided reflection, reference was made to law and legislation on the one hand, and to practical knowledge, experience, and expertise of experts on the other. Ethics as a philosophical discipline found no place, which I find not only personally regrettable, but also a missed opportunity. Very many topics that are also existentially and practically significant for foster parents ultimately refer to ethical conflicts. Of course, it should be emphasized that many of these conflicts are legally regulated or resolved – for example, the balancing of the best interests of the child and parental rights in the clarification of custody by the court. The other instance that provides clarity is the authority, which has a relatively large leeway in interpreting the legal requirements and where decisions are made according to professional standards, but nevertheless always with reference to experience and expertise. Thus, as far as I have been able to find out, there are also no uniform standards in the foster care system in Austria, but rather different cultures depending on the federal state and district, all of which are oriented to the legal requirements – especially the best interests of the child – but always interpret it in practice. Ethics as a professional discipline is not perceived as a resource here and therefore not taught as a resource for foster parents in the course. This can be stated for both the institutional and the individual-private level: on the institutional level, the legal mandate, professional training (social work, pedagogy, psychology, etc.) but above all experience play a major role; on the individual-private level of the foster parents, on the other hand, the focus is on the legal guidelines, but especially strongly on one's own feelings, intuition as well as guidance by the experts. The course is designed above all to provide practical knowledge of how others have dealt with conflicts and challenges. The law is the framework, but of course it must also be interpreted by the foster parents in many situations. To give an example: how often the visitation contact takes place is regulated by the court (among other things on the recommendation of the social workers of the authority and other expert opinions), but how challenging situations related to the visitation contacts are then dealt with is left to the foster parents themselves. If the visitation contacts are accompanied by a social worker, the latter moderates and intervenes in case of problems, but also not along fixed norms or standards. It is up to the parents to consult experts in order to find solutions together or to find them for themselves within the framework of vague guidelines – for example: the best interests of the child – or their own moral intuitions.

Conclusion

Of course, ethical reflection on one's own experience, especially one that is personally up close, is a delicate undertaking. It is not qualitative research like participant observation, since one is directly involved. Nevertheless, interesting insights can be gained through it, from the closeness and the density. This is especially relevant when, as in the case of foster parent education in Austria, there is actually no research literature and certainly no ethical research. The aim is, of course, also not to be generalizable in terms of the underlying experiences, no comparisons to other practices and regulations are possible, but nevertheless, from an ethical perspective, generalizable insights can be gained into what ethical challenges are raised in the course of such training and how they might be overcome.

Systematic ethical reflection on foster parenting and training for it would have several intertwined goals. Some of these involve clarifying underlying ethical values and goals. Why does the state have a responsibility for the best interests of the child, and what form of placement is best here? This requires not only an ethical and at the same time empirically verifiable concept of the best interests of the child, but also appropriate studies, which by their very nature are difficult to conduct in the field of out-of-home placement. Nevertheless, ethics also needs evidence in concrete practice, so that it does not just make assumptions based on intuitions or personal experience. This has also been shown by my personal reflection on the training as a foster parent. In some cases, I have different ethical convictions than social workers or psychologists, but these must remain theoretical in the absence of evidence. However, the many conflicts and trade-offs associated with the specific situation of foster parenting, i.e. the shared responsibility for the child in the triangle of biological parents, foster parents, and authority (social worker) (judges and evaluators are other actors who can play an important role and potentially have a lot of power), should then be clarified. Dealing with the foster child also requires ethical reflection – child-centered ethics will focus on the child's rights and best interests, but also on the child's (evolving) autonomy. The potentials of ethics and especially of philosophy are far from exhausted here, instead legal regulations are often taken for granted (instead of critically reflecting on them as well) or ethics is replaced by psychology, pedagogy or social work. Of course, this does not mean that ethics should detach itself from these disciplines, but neither can it be replaced by empirical research and even less by personal experiences of social workers or foster parents. At the very least, it would be desirable if ethical conflicts were made clear in the specific case of training to become foster parents, and also how deliberations can take place here. Ethics is not normative in the sense that it makes regulations like law, but it is also not completely arbitrary, but requires argumentation and the weighing of reasons. Especially when it comes to protecting the best interests of the child and to whom the state entrusts this responsible task, such considerations are indispensable; they also guide the interpretation of legal regulations and well-established routines. Foster parents become ethical agents of a special kind, distinct from both professional ethics and private morality.

Our own training is over, but the institutional practices behind it can and should be reflected upon so that it can evolve and improve. We look forward to see what the future holds for us now that we are registered as potential and trained foster parents with Child and Youth Services.

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

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Notes on contributors

Gottfried Schweiger

Gottfried Schweiger works as Senior Scientist at the Center for Ethics and Poverty Research at the University of Salzburg. He teaches and researches in the field of poverty research and political philosophy, especially on childhood and youth, migration and social work.