| Foster care is often perceived as if it were a monolith, thus discussions of its merits often employ simplistic categories, such as good or bad, for or against and foster versus residential care. But in reality, foster care takes many forms: short-stay, long-stay, respite, therapeutic, specialist, open, closed, quasi-adoption, guardianship, kinship etc. In recent years, the range of styles and arrangements have expanded to the extent that most children in care in post-industrial countries now live in some kind of foster care. But how can we plan for this? Should we wait to see what comes in through the door and struggle to find something suitable or should we try to prepare in advance for what is likely? The paper will describe a method developed by the Dartington Social Research Unit in England of designing services using data on children's needs. As it would prove overwhelming to plan services by looking at every case, a methodology has been developed to group cases into needs clusters and interrogate the data with a sequence of questions that eventually shows what is required to provide a comprehensive foster care service that is well managed and effective in terms of producing optimal outcomes for children. The paper will be illustrated with data and case studies. |
