Paper
Child-Parent contact in foster care situations
- issue: Issue 3 / 2008
- authors: Peter M. van den Bergh, Tonny (A.M.) Weterings
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abstract
Background. A child in foster care usually maintains contact with its biological parents. The nature of this contact profoundly influences both the development of the foster care situation and of the child itself. Such contact repeatedly causes problems for all parties - the child, the biological parents and foster parents.
Stressful contact between a child and its biological parents can lead to disturbed patterns of child behavior. Such contact, and returning a child 'home' under such circumstances, can be construed as not in the developmental interests of the child.
Purpose. Our research seeks to find ways of positively influencing this relationship. First, it distinguishes between the various elements of the parent-child relationship: the existential, attachment and legal relation. Thereafter, it looks at how biological parents can give adequate form to this bond, in the best interests of the child.
Methods. Quantitative and qualitative data analyses of semi-structured interviews with parents, children and fosterparents.
Key finding. Among 70 % (of 58 children) of foster children have behavior problems before, during and after contact with their parents. The fosterparents reported als 70 % problems mostly with the mother, but much less than the father. Problems in contact with the biological parents appear to be inherent in the emotional bond between a child and its parents. A parent seems naturally to want to be with its child, but it brings the child in agitation and evokes fear. This resistance of the child can arouse considerable feelings of negativity and stress in a parent. Problems in the relationship between a child in foster care and its biological parents appear to be fundamental to the nature of the relationship between a child and its parents. Yet rarely is the core nature of the child's negative reaction to its natural parents acknowledged. Returning a child 'home' call up fears of insecurity, while in the meantime the child has become attached to the foster parents.
Recommendations. Often the parents, but also the social worker, see the attitude of the foster parents as the 'cause' for the child's negative reaction. Although understandable this situation is undesirable for a child.
Key references
Van den Bergh, P. M., & Weterings, A. M. (2007). Pleegzorg, jeugdzorg voor het kind. Pedagogische besluitvorming bij uithuisplaatsing. [Foster Care, Youthcare for the child. Pedagogical Decisionmaking in out of home placement]. Utrecht: A-giel.
Weterings, A. M., & Bergh, P. M. van den (2005). Het trauma van de vroege verwaarlozing en de pleegzorg. [The Trauma of early Neglect and Foster Care]. Tijdschrift voor orthopedagogiek, 2, 72-83.
Contacts: Peter M. van den Bergh, Leiden University, The Netherlands, E-mail: vdbergh@fsw.leidenuniv.nl.