This article explores how a child's psychological family can be affected, challenged, and transformed in the foster care system. When placed into foster care, children are often disconnected from many significant relationships, especially familial relationships (e.g., parents, siblings). Similarly, as children navigate their way through the foster care system, placements can change and relationships are formed and dissolved; as a result, children engage in a dance of family formulation, dissolution, and meaning making. The theory of ambiguous loss is used as a guiding framework to explore the choreography of a child's “dance” with family and meaning making during the acculturation into foster care.
