This qualitative study examines social workers’ perspectives on how effective role fulfilment among social workers, foster parents, and foster children contributes to positive foster care placements and child well-being. It identifies structural barriers such as high caseloads, workforce shortages, and unclear roles, and recommends an Africentric supervision and monitoring framework to strengthen accountability and role clarity within the foster care system.

This study examines the lived experiences of 20 adults in Botswana who experienced exploitation as children after being placed in informal foster care and becoming malata. It highlights how poverty, family instability, limited agency, and weak protection mechanisms enabled domestic, agricultural, and other forms of exploitation, resulting in long-term educational, health, and socioeconomic consequences.

The article examines kinship violence, arguing that systems such as mass incarceration and child welfare harm not only individuals but also family relationships, particularly within marginalized communities affected by racial and colonial oppression. It argues that while a feminist right to parent can help address these harms, it is limited and should instead be understood as part of a broader framework of kinship justice.

ISS and ISS West Africa, in collaboration with the child protection authorities of Burkina Faso, have been implementing since 2018 a pilot programme of specialised foster families for children living with disabilities. After six years of implementation, ISS has undertaken a capitalisation process to analyse and document this pilot experience and identify the main lessons learned, with a view to strengthening and potentially scaling up the project at a national level.

Over three years, MJF Global partnered with Child’s i Foundation to strengthen foster care and family-based care systems in Uganda. This report explores the impact, challenges and lessons that emerged from the partnership, highlighting Child’s i’s community-led approach to family strengthening, foster care, reunification and collaboration with government systems.

While there is an extensive body of international literature on foster care placement breakdown, little attention has been given to children's lived experience of this common phenomenon. Using a scoping review method, the study collates and synthesizes what is known about care-experienced people's lived realities of breakdown.

This article examines how foster parents perceive the upbringing of Roma children, highlighting that while many report treating Roma and non-Roma children similarly, their views are often shaped by underlying social prejudices and limited cultural understanding. Drawing on interviews with foster parents, the study reveals gaps in knowledge about Roma family backgrounds and customs, underscoring the need for greater cultural awareness in foster care.

This foster care awareness campaign video, developed by Child in Family Focus Kenya (CFFK) in collaboration with Zaidi Ya Dreams and the State Department for Children Services, shines a light on the importance of foster care in Kenya and the urgen

This scoping review examines why individuals and families in Western countries choose to foster or adopt children with disabilities, identifying motivations such as altruism, personal values, commitment to caregiving, and perceived family enrichment. The findings highlight opportunities to strengthen recruitment and support strategies by aligning messaging and services with these motivations to improve care stability and outcomes.

This study of homeless former foster youth in California highlights the complex and often contradictory nature of their foster care experiences, with some reporting belonging and identity support alongside loneliness, unmet needs, discrimination, and abuse. The findings underscore the importance of centering youth perspectives to better inform child welfare services and prevent homelessness among care leavers.