What are the ethical considerations in fostering?

Some of the ethical considerations before and after fostering include:

Caring for someone else’s child

Some parents may have been able to offer good enough care to their child if they had better support from social care or from other community organisations. In face, many parents suffered abuse when they were children and never had the opportunity to learn how to parent or maintain healthy relationships. In many cases, it can be argued that the failure of the parent to provide good enough parent was due to the failure of society to support the most vulnerable members of our communities.

That said, regardless of the moral position, children are indeed removed from their parents and in some instances the parents request that their children are placed into care. So in this situation homes are needed for these children.

Delegated authority

Legally the fostering family cannot make certain decisions without authority being delegated to the carers. If delegated authority isn’t arranged soon into the fostering arrangements, the foster carers may not be able to provide adequate care to the child, for example, the carers may not (legally) be able to give the child over the counter medication, or attend school meetings. If there are significant delays the child may not be able to join the fostering family on trips abroad, or the child may not be able to have overnight stays with friends. Delegated authority is expected to be arranged within 5 days of the child joining the fostering home.

Supporting the child to return to their family

Foster carers can grow very attached to the children, as they should. However, when the foster carers feel that the child’s parents don’t offer good care, the foster carers struggle when plans are made for the child to return to live with their family. Ideally, we need foster carers to support reunification; however, this is difficult for foster carers who are worried for the child, or have become very attached to the child.

In fact, some children return home only to return to foster care later on when the family struggles again. The child usually can’t return to the same fostering home because they most likely have taken in another child.

Oftentimes it can be difficult to assess or predict what is in the best interests of the child and sometimes the decisions made (whether the child returns home or not) is, in hindsight, not the best outcome for the child.

Placing children with strangers

Mainstream foster carers are usually not known to the child’s family. Also, the fostering service usually only knows the foster carers in a professional capacity; despite rigorous checks and robust legislation, there have been some incidents whereby carers have caused harm to the children.

Consent and views of the child

Children aren’t usually involved in the decision about whether they will be moved to a fostering home, let alone choosing a family. Children are often moved against their will and it takes time for them to build trusting relationships with the fostering family.

Also, children’s views and wishes may be restricted in the fostering home; for example, children do not decide how often they can see their birth family.

Maintaining confidentiality

Sometimes children in care aren’t given full access to their records, or aren’t supported to understand the information that’s held on their record. Some information may be intentionally withheld from children because it’s deemed to be harmful to them.

Being paid to foster

Foster carers aren’t parents to the children, they’re partly professional and partly parents. Some people (including many children who join the home) struggle with the notion that foster carers are provided a fee to care for the children.

Sparks Fostering clarifies that the allowance part of the payment is to cover the costs for caring for the children and the fees part of the payment is for the professional aspect of the role (such as attending meetings, completing training and daily record keeping). Unfortunately, there are few people who can afford to care for more children, let alone reduce working hours to do so.

Working for a profit-making organisation

Most independent fostering providers are profit-making, whereas local authorities and a few independent fostering providers are not-for-profit.

Some people are opposed to being part of a profit-making childcare provision, even if it provides better care for children. There is an ethical dilemma in whether to prioritise the care provided to children, or to boycott profit-making organisations. Some believe that if profit-making organisations were to close, the service provided in local authorities would improve; however, there is no evidence to suggest that this is true and in fact many local authority services are struggling even though they aren’t connected to private organisations.

Other considerations when considering profit-making or not-for-profit is efficiencies, overheads and pay scales of managers. Currently there is no way to make these comparisons.

Being selective about which children to foster

Foster carers can state which children they feel able to care for. The majority of foster carers are White British and there are disproportionately low numbers of carers from other ethnic backgrounds; this can mean that it can be harder to find good matches for children of ethnic minority groups.

It is also harder to find homes for children who have additional needs such as health needs or behavioural challenges.

Splitting up siblings

Sometimes it’s not possible to find foster homes for sibling groups, so siblings live in different foster homes.

Treating the child the same as your own children

All children deserve to be treated with love and compassion and often foster carers still state that they treat the children who are fostered in the same way as their own children; however, this isn’t always the case and some carers love their own children more than they love the children who are fostered.

Discipline and boundaries

Foster carers aren’t allowed to shout at the children who are fostered, say derogatory things to them or to smack/hit them. Many people would say that if a parent does any of those things on a rare occasion, either due to extreme stress or because the child needs to be disciplined, that it doesn’t make the parent a ‘bad’ parent. In fact, some people support physical discipline of children.

However, this is not permissible in foster care and a carer who smacks the fostered child is very likely to have the children removed and they would be deregistered.

Disagreements with other members of the team around the child

Foster carers may disagree with the birth parents and/or the team around the child around what is in the best interests of the child. Carers are expected to follow the decisions made by the child’s social worker.

Respecting the child’s identity

Carers may be asked to care for children who have different religious identities or cultural practices. The views of the child’s family may not align with the views and lifestyle of the foster carers; however, foster carers must make all reasonable efforts to respect the child’s heritage.

Terminating fostering arrangements

If foster carers struggle to care for a child and do not feel that they can resolve differences, they can give notice and ask for the child to be moved. This can be distressing for the child.

Staying Put and supporting the child into adulthood

Foster carers are encouraged to care for children up to the age of 21; however, the fees typically reduce after age 18. This may be problematic for some foster carers.

Furthermore, carers who support children into adulthood are expected to maintain some sort of relationship with the child; however, the relationship may be strained and the lack of financial support may limit what the foster carers can do to support the child.