The social support in kinship foster care: a way to enhance resilience

Nuria Fuentes-Peláez, Ma Àngels Balsells, Josefina Fernández, Eduard Vaquero - Child and Family Social Work

Sixty-two kinship foster families from Spain were studied to determine family resilience in kinship foster families.  The families each participated in an educational programme, wherein data was collected before and after the programme through interviews and focus groups.  These interviews were analyzed through the Atlas.ti content analysis programme.  The results from this analysis found the following factors contribute to family resilience: (i) feeling able to look for solutions when facing problems; (ii) an increase of their network of formal support; (iii) being able to offer support to other foster families; etc.