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Kinship foster care in the context of contemporary times
Týnková, Michaela ; Krpálek, Pavel (advisor) ; Nová, Monika (referee)
In my master thesis, I focus on the topic "Kinship foster care in the context of contemporary times", and I concentrate on foster care provided by grandparents. The thesis aimed to explore the impact of recent legislative and economic changes on the quality and well-being of grandparent foster carers. In the theoretical part, I focused on the current legislative framework and financing of foster care, highlighting the specificities of the situation of grandparents as foster parents. The practical part includes semi-structured interviews with foster grandparents, conducted directly in their home environment, which revealed how legislative and financial changes affect their daily life and stability. These findings offer valuable insights into the challenges that foster grandparents face and provide important suggestions for future research and policy decision-making in foster care.
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Experiencing the Transformation of the Caregivers' Role in Foster Care
KÁROVÁ, Ilona
The subject of the presented thesis focuses on foster care exercised by children´s relatives. The target is to ascertain possible different roles in kinship foster care and different attitudes to the aforementioned, record the experience of kinship care givers, their viewing and experiencing of childcare. I wanted to know if fostering had brought any positives into their lives and on the other hand if there are any negatives related to such care. The theoretic part of my thesis describes the history of foster care in different periods, explains the terms like family, social role and attachment. Furthermore, particular forms of foster care are explained and foster care exercised by children´s relatives is described in more details. Attention is also paid to the relationship and contact between a child and his/her parents. The Authority for social and legal protection of children (OSPOD in Czech) has an essential role in foster care together with assisting organizations, which are described in the last chapter of the theoretic part. I used qualitative methodology for research purposes and semi-structured interviews for collection of data. The research file contained eight respondents which were selected based on simple purpuseful sampling. The research file consisted of foster parents caring for children of their relatives. I determined reasons why the children had been placed into foster care, how the foster parents experience such care and how they view it themselves. The results of the interview analysis helped me to uncover and understand the basis of kinship foster care. According to similar signs, they were divided into several areas. The first area focused on the reasons why the child had been placed into kinship foster care. The main reasons included various types of addictions, child neglect, failure to provide suitable housing or lack of interest in the child. The second area related to the feelings of foster mothers when accepting the child. Their decision-making process is described here, including their motivation and fears related to fostering. In most cases, foster mothers had enough time for making their decisions on fostering. Half of the foster mothers found it natural; the other half had ambivalent feelings for it. The third area is dedicated to changes in wider personal relationships and relationships in the family, in particular, to the impact of foster care on relations between partners and the potential influence on the relationship of foster parents with their own children. Relations with biologic children of the foster parents had an important role as well. The fourth area includes basic characteristics of childcare. Most foster mothers noticed significant changes in their lives. Foster care had a negative impact on the quality of their lives but it principally became a source of vitality and optimism for them. Foster mothers faced problem situations related to intergenerational differences, behaviour of children and problems at school. They also worried often about the future of their foster children. Some foster mothers accepted the role of a mother that predominated over their other life roles. Others had no problems in separating their roles and shifting from one role to another. Most conflicts in the role appeared when the child was fostered by his/her grandmother. The last area contains conditions that have helped foster mothers to reduce the burden of foster care. Foster mothers appreciated help of their families, which they preferred, and sufficient financial security. They gladly accepted the help of assisting organizations and the services offered by them. Mandatory education and the possibility to share their experience with other foster parents were of great importance too.
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FOSTER CARE GIVEN BY GRANDPARENTS
VALIHRACHOVÁ, Monika
Foster Care Given by Grandparents Abstract Substitute family care is a form of child care where a child is brought up by foster parents in an environment that is the most similar to living in a natural family. The most frequent forms of substitute family care in the Czech Republic are adoption and foster care. Only 2 % of these children are {\clqq}absolute`` orphans, the remaining 98 % are social orphans. These children have their own families, but the families either can´t or don´t want to take care of them. This thesis is concentrates on the foster care provided by grandparents. This type of foster care has its own specificities, which are introduced in this thesis. Data chosen for this thesis was obtained by qualitative research with the utilization of halfstructured, in-depth interviews. The results are case studies of five women, aged 20 {--} 30, who are or were fostered by grandparents. Statistics from the Vysočina region and the Region of South Bohemia are complementary information. This concrete data was obtained from municipal offices of municipal corporations of the Vysočina region and from the office of substitute family care of the regional authority of the Jihočeský region in České Budějovice. The aim of this bachelor thesis was the appreciation of specific characteristics of foster care provided by grandparents in choice families and the evalutation of the amount of children placed in foster care and tutelage (wardship) in the Jihočeský and Vysočina region per year 2007. Characteristics of foster care provided by grandparents were described. The number of children placed in foster care and tutelage in the South Bohemian and Vysočina region was only partially evaluated. This thesis has used qualitative research; it is not possible to generalize these results. The results of this thesis might be useful for all who are concerned with substitute family care. Special contributions have been made especially from these case studies, which describe the inception, process, positives, negatives and impact of foster care provided by grandparents and from the perspective of children (women), since research in this topic is quite rare.
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