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Foster care termination prior to child's legal age
SEDLÁČKOVÁ VINKLEROVÁ, Blanka
In the Czech Republic, substitutional family care takes several different forms. The most frequent are adoption and foster care. This thesis concentrates primarily on foster care. The most important preconditions for placing a child into foster care are the child?s interest and the guarantee of a proper upbringing. Children in foster care maintain the ties with their biological family, and the parental responsibility remains with the biological parents. Foster care begins with the decision of a court and ends when the child reaches maturity. However, the court may terminate it sooner if there are relevant reasons. The reasons for terminating foster care before the child reaches maturity can originate either on the children?s or the fosters? side. In any case, the subsequent failure of foster care has a tremendous impact on the future lives of the children involved. This thesis aims on discovering reasons why foster care is terminated before the child becomes an adult. The secondary aim is to determine the influence of foster care on further life of children who were placed into it. The strategy used in reaching these aims was the qualitative analysis. The employed methods included the questioning, partially directed interview and document analysis. The first research sample consisted of a female and several males in the age of 20 to 27 who grew up in foster care which had to be terminated before they could reach maturity. The second research sample consisted of foster couples in whose families the members of the first sample had been growing up for some time. The results indicate that the reasons for premature foster care termination can indeed be found on the child?s as well as the foster?s side. On the part of children, problems are often caused by their age, their capabilities in school, genetic predispositions, and their ability to accept the values of the substitutional family. On the part of fosters, the most important factor of foster care success is their ability to accept the child with his/her specific needs and personal limitations which are given by his/her unfavorable family conditions and personal anamnesis. Due to unrealistic expectations of the foster family the children subsequently fall into undesirable behavior, and the combination of these factors endangers the stability of foster care. The motivation of fosters to conduct foster care is highly relevant as well. This research has also concluded that life of young people who spent some time in foster care is most definitely influenced by their stay in substitutional families. A positive influence can be seen in the experiences, opinions and values acquired in the foster families. These values have formed the children?s own view of life. They became aware of differences between normally functioning families including their foster families, and their biological families? way of life. This realization serves them well when building their own independent life. The author of this thesis is convinced of the severity of this topic because it has a direct impact on the lives of young people. The author believes it is necessary to focus on the selection of future foster parents in terms of their suitability to accept a specific type of child. Also, it is of paramount importance to take into account their moral profile. The results of this thesis may support a better selection of suitable fosters, creation of family ties, and better work with foster families. The thesis will be made available to a regional authorities which make decisions about the suitability of fosters, as well as to social workers from institutions that focus on social and legal protection of children with regard to foster care.
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