María Teresa Díaz Tártalo, University San Pablo & Anna Garriga-Alsina, University Pompeu Fabra-Barcelona
Abstract: |
| Although in theory the difference between adoption and foster care is clearly established, the practise is full of deficiences. In Madrid there are few non kinship foster families. In most cases this is due to the lack of promotion and support. So the professionals many times accept foster families that often draw into care for children because they want to be parents but not in the right way that foster caregiving imply. This study reports the results of effects of types of caregiver motivations to become foster parents on the family relationships, in a sample of non kinship foster families from Madrid. We have found that most of them are families that consider fostering moved by the desire of having children and, having tried adoption, have dropped it, for different reasons. For others, adoption is a driver together with other issues. But there are too several families amongst them for whom this motivation has not stopped them from doing a path that has helped them to understand the different nature of adoption and fostering and have allowed the child to experience a double belonging that we will show afterwards with different examples. We have study how these wrong motivations affect to their family relationships and how they look to the relationships with the biological family. Anyway families with right motivations (not adoptive) are able to have better family relationships than the others. Family support and professional training implications are discussed. Keywords: Motivation, Non kinship foster families, Family relationships |