This paper focuses on FOSTER CARE, and suggests that, in many parts of the world, further efforts are needed to ensure that foster care is an option open to a wider range of children. Foster care leads to better outcomes than harmful forms of residential care, and is a highly flexible form of care than may be a more suitable choice than kinship care or adoption for some girls and boys. However, foster care should not be seen as the only solution for children in need of alternative care, and decisions about whether to place a child in foster care must be made on a case-by-case basis, recognising the value of parental and kinship care.
The paper examines elements that must be in place to ensure that foster care is effective, including legislative frameworks and a trained child welfare workforce. It consider principles for good practice in foster care, with a particular focus on examining how such principles can be applied in resource constrained settings. Throughout the paper, it is argued that locally appropriate models of foster care must be developed that do not blindly follow Western practice.
