Foster Care: Fraught with dilemmas requiring wise judgement | Daniella Zerafa

Dr Daniella Zerafa, Department of Social Policy and Social Work

All countries, even those which invest a large expenditure on child and family services aimed at preventing the separation of children and adolescents from their biological parents, still develop and invest in a system of alternative care for those children and adolescents, who, despite all efforts made by those supporting them through prevention and intervention services in the community, require removal from parental care.

The first decision tied to foster care which presents an ethical dilemma to whether it is absolutely necessary to have a child removed from their parents’ care. Removing a child from parental care presents a dilemma especially in situations where the child may not be subject to severe physical or sexual abuse but where their emotional needs or physical needs may be severely neglected. This dilemma arises because separating children from their biological family impacts their emotional and psychological wellbeing and development. Therefore when deciding to separate children from their biological families, social workers and other professionals involved in this decision carry the responsibility of ensuring that the children are provided with opportunities for physical and emotional development which they would not have had had they stayed on to live with their biological family, but that this is provided for to the extent that the opportunities would also make up for the trauma caused when the ties with the biological family would have been somewhat severed through removal.

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Another dilemma arises when siblings may be required to be separated from parental care since there is a consensus amongst research studies that siblings benefit much from being placed together. However identifying foster families who are in a position to commit themselves to taking on the responsibility of more than one child at a go is not an easy feat, especially in situations where the sibling group consists of more than two siblings, of very young children or of children with particular needs. So whilst attempting to adhere to the principle of keeping the sibling group intact, social workers may struggle with identifying families who can actually meet the needs of a sibling group, rather than those of an individual child.

Ethical dilemmas continue along the foster care journey as decisions are called for as soon as children are placed in foster care. These decisions centre around the contact which the child will have with the biological parents. Parents’ usually push for extensive contact through their lawyers, whilst social workers and other professionals struggle to respect parental rights whilst also ensuring that the child’s wellbeing is not jeopardised by the type and extent of contact they have with their parents, whose behaviour and lifestyle would have usually caused trauma to the children. Whilst the children’s views about this should be considered, a number of children who are separated from their parents would not be of an age where they can express their views with a number of them being newborn babies and toddlers.

A dilemma which then faces social workers arises in those situations where the parents make a degree of progress and work towards the goals which would have been established in terms of the care plan of the child, but where the child would have settled down exceptionally well in the foster family and is hesitant about being reunited with the biological parents. A newborn baby placed in foster care would have built a strong attachment relationship with their primary caregivers and removing that baby after two or three years in foster care can have very serious repercussions on their emotional well-being and development. Additionally, during the reunification process, it is not rare for social workers to find themselves questioning whether the level of care and opportunity which the child is predicted to have upon returning to the biological family, will match the level of care and opportunity which they had in foster care.

Chapter 602 of the Laws of Malta, namely the Child Protection (Alternative Care) Act, was a very important step forward in ensuring the foundations for good practice realted to the protection of children. It enshrined in our legislation a commitment to children in vulnerable situations and this is a very important step.

However the foster care process is so complex, that we cannot put our minds at rest because we now have this law. Focusing on the dilemmas which the foster care process is fraught with, brings to light the responsibility which social agencies and Court professionals making decisions in this process are burdened with. It brings to light the importance of sound professional training at graduate and postgraduate level but also the importance of promoting a culture across agencies and institutions employing professionals responsible for making decisions, which allows space for reflection, for open discussion, for staff support and supervision, as well as for continuous staff training and development, staff retention and the development of expertise. This process also calls for a clear commitment to putting the child first. It calls out to professionals to keep the child as their priority even if they are not the child’s social worker, but possibly the biological parent’s social worker or a foster carer’s social worker. Foster care will not champion the child unless all professionals and others involved in it, consider the child as the primary person they are accountable to. It involves a rethink of how children have been viewed throughout history, challenging us to truly begin to consider them as individuals with full rights, as they after all, most definitely are.