Summary of results

Topic
Placing a child or an adolescent in a residential care facility or in a foster family affects the target family fundamentally. Professionals in charge of planning and executing extra familial placements bear high responsibility, whatever the reasons for these measures may be. Some children are in need of specialised education, others have to be protected from neglect or abuse by family members. The placement may also result from a criminal offence.

In Switzerland there are no regulations on how to initiate an extra familial placement, on the professional qualifications of the executing staff or the instruments that are to be used in planning the helping process. According to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the opinion of a child has to be taken into account in any important matter affecting the child. It is unclear, however, what that means in case of a placement in a foster family or a residential home. Parents’ and children’s participation in the decision and implementation of extra familial placements improve the chance of finding sustainable solutions that promote the development of children, scientific research has documented. So far we know little of how families and professionals cooperate in executing a placement. Therefore the study aimed to clarify the thought processes and actions of the people involved. It wanted to show how decisions between foster families and residential homes were taken, to what degree parents and children were content with their opportunity to participate and the effects, on the family members, of the measures taken.

Method used
This longitudinal study involved the placement of 43 children and adolescents living mainly in the cantons of Zurich, St.Gallen and Thurgau. 14 girls and 29 boys were concerned, 9 of whom were transferred to foster families and 34 to residential homes. The persons involved were interviewed three times, where possible: shortly before placement, approximately 6 and 13 months thereafter. The total included 83 interviews with parents, 91 with children or adolescents, 87 with social workers (or other professionals performing similar tasks), 60 with employees of residential homes and 16 with foster parents. All 337 taped interviews were transcribed and evaluated together with data gathered from tests and questionnaires.

Main Results
Although the social workers, parents, sometimes the children and other specialists discussed the impending placements intensely they still disagreed on many important points. Two thirds of the parents mentioned child related problems as the main reason for the placement while only about half of the professionals held the same opinion. The parents also estimated the strain the young people were exposed to before placement to be considerably smaller than did the professionals. This could have caused conflicts, and yet parents were rarely dissatisfied with the professionals.

Most social workers were very keen to involve the parents in their reasoning about the importance of the placement. They tried to gain the parents’ approval for a specific residential home or a foster family. The participation of children was of far less concern to the social workers. The positive experiences of parents with professionals at most times should not hide the fact that some placements of children were administered against fierce opposition of parents and children and resulted in anger and great distress.

The most serious problems experienced day-to-day by the social worker were the complexity of family problems, the limited availability of places in foster families and homes, time constraints and problems of cooperation with family members. To bear responsibility for the well-being of the child and to decide between the sometimes irreconcilable interests of the stakeholders was a major challenge for the professionals.

After a year in extra familial care children and adolescents judged their placements to be considerably less successful than did their parents, the social workers and the employees of residential homes and the foster parents. In contrast, the interviewed persons considered the placement equally successful whether it took place in a residential home or in a foster family, whether the placement was initiated by a juvenile court or took place for other reasons. Contrary to former research, the placements in this study were not more effective when parents and children participated more in the process nor when they were more satisfied with their opportunities to participate.

Recommendations
- Government agencies should provide a mandatory framework for the planning of an extra familial placement and guarantee the quality assurance. In each case (at least) two professionals are to be involved.

- The responsibility for placing children in residential homes and foster families should be assigned to trained social workers only. Their further education and professional support should be enhanced by competence centres, interpreter services and approved instruments.

- There has to be a sufficient number of part-time and full-time places in residential homes and foster families available to comply with the differing needs of children and adolescents.

- The public and professional understanding of the children’s rights of participation must be enhanced.

- A statistical database of the extra familial placements in Switzerland has to be generated as a prerequisite to the planning and control of residential provision for young people.