Growing up in care: how foster fathers figure
23rd June 2005
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Australia’s first five-year longitudinal study of children in a long-term foster care program has found good relationships with foster fathers are important to a child’s developmental progress in his or her new home.
The study, by UNSW’s Dr Elizabeth Fernandez, involved staggered interviews with 60 children aged 8 to 18 years from the Barnardo’s Find a Family program, as well as with their foster parents, birth parents and caseworkers, and assessments by the children’s teachers. It is the first study to interview the children themselves and other stakeholders in order to understand children’s experience in out-of-home care.
While cohesion with foster mothers and siblings was generally good, children in out-of-home care tended to perceive less closeness with foster fathers. This was especially the case for older children and those who had more negative feelings about going into care.
“Over the course of the interviews, there was a significant connection between the child’s ability to develop relationship skills and helpful social behaviours and cohesion with his or her foster father,” says Dr Fernandez. “However, many of these children are from homes with a single mother and, in 39 per cent of cases, the birth father had abandoned the child or his whereabouts was unknown. It’s probable that they experience difficulties in developing a model for thinking about relationships with their current foster fathers. It poses particular difficulties for foster fathers.”
Ongoing relationships with birth parents also supported these findings, with 52 per cent of children in foster care having no contact with their birth fathers at all. In contrast children saw their birth mothers on average every 2-3 months.
The study, by UNSW’s Dr Elizabeth Fernandez, involved staggered interviews with 60 children aged 8 to 18 years from the Barnardo’s Find a Family program, as well as with their foster parents, birth parents and caseworkers, and assessments by the children’s teachers. It is the first study to interview the children themselves and other stakeholders in order to understand children’s experience in out-of-home care.
While cohesion with foster mothers and siblings was generally good, children in out-of-home care tended to perceive less closeness with foster fathers. This was especially the case for older children and those who had more negative feelings about going into care.
“Over the course of the interviews, there was a significant connection between the child’s ability to develop relationship skills and helpful social behaviours and cohesion with his or her foster father,” says Dr Fernandez. “However, many of these children are from homes with a single mother and, in 39 per cent of cases, the birth father had abandoned the child or his whereabouts was unknown. It’s probable that they experience difficulties in developing a model for thinking about relationships with their current foster fathers. It poses particular difficulties for foster fathers.”
Ongoing relationships with birth parents also supported these findings, with 52 per cent of children in foster care having no contact with their birth fathers at all. In contrast children saw their birth mothers on average every 2-3 months.
Other key findings:
- Entering care - Children most commonly experienced multiple emotions including sadness, fear and loneliness as they entered care.
- Reunification – While valuing their attachment to foster parents, better education and stability in foster homes; and despite ongoing assistance; many children had a sense of longing to be reunited with their birth families.
- Education – School teachers assessed the children as having fewer problems than carers reported and noted higher levels of improvement over the study period. Some children had access to good educational opportunities (private or selective schooling) that facilitated some positive educational outcomes and active participation in school activities.
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