Karleen wrote:

>Hi Heather,
>What I have found is that there is a lot of rhetoric about child-foster
>carer attachment but that there is a large amount of ambivalence about it in
>reality.


I can believe that. The social workers and professionals from related 
disciplines  who I worked with were colleagues on my Masters 
programme, and they certainly 'talked the talk'.  The literature 
takes attachment theory as a given, and I believe some of the 
academic developments in attachment theory come from the field of 
social care, rather than solely child psychology or development.

But maybe' walking the walk' is a different matter.

"In addition, there is a dearth of research on foster parent
>grief- children often move on from foster care and the effect of that on the
>foster carers can be profound- yet there is but 3 or 4 opinion type papers
>and a single PhD thesis that has examined this subject. Why?? IMO it is
>because those within the child protection system really don't want to know
>about it. They don't want to know that the loss of a foster child can be
>just as painful and just as difficult as a child dying. "

Is this (partly) why the three families I have been close to who have 
fostered/adopted find it very difficult to say good things about 
(some) social workers?

(Getting off topic....I know)

Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc, tutor, UK
-- 
http://www.heatherwelford.co.uk

http://heatherwelford.posterous.com

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