The purpose of this study was to give a picture of how some adults, who earlier was placed in Foster homecare, experience that their childhood have affected them during their life. I also wanted to see how the relationship to the biological family has been and developed during the placement. The study has also purposed to receive a deeper knowledge of how it could be to grow up in foster care. To make the purpose of this study complete I chose to use qualitative interviews as a research method. Four adults who earlier were placed in Foster homecare have participated in this study.

The purpose of this essay was to examine how professional social workers work with follow up Foster home placements. The study was based on qualitative interviews with ten professional social workers from different municipalities in Skåne in an attempt to answer the following questions:* What routines exist for the follow-up work with foster care?* What factors have an impact on how the follow-up is formed in the particular case?* How can the follow-up affect outcomes of the placement?* In what way could the work with follow-up Foster home placements develop?The theories we chose to analyze our material from was the ecology of human development formed by Urie Bronfenbrenner and the theory of civil courage formed by Lennart Lundquist. The interviews were semi-structural which gave the respondents a chance to talk in a free way about the questions we presented.The result of the study showed that there is a difference in the way social workers form the follow-up work of foster care. The greatest difference is in whom the social workers include in their follow-up.

The purpose of this essay was to examine, from a gender perspective, how biological children in foster families experience the situation of living with foster siblings. The material consists of ten interviews. We searched answers to the questions:1. In what way have the biological childrens relations to parents, biological siblings and foster siblings changed through the placement?2.

New family stuctures are constantly emerging in society. Are these changes mirrored in foster care practice? The aim of this study was to explore to what extent homosexual families are represented when a child is given a Foster home. The nuclear family has throughout history been assured a stable position both in society as well as in the foster care practice. During the last ten years a homosexual relationship has been legaly accepted through different amendents and it has also been more integrated and accepted in society.

The aim of this study is to examine social workers? experiences of how the ADHD-diagnosis affects their work with children and youths living in foster care and how it affects the individuals and families themselves. The study is built upon five qualitative interviews and the results are analyzed through a theoretical framework that constitutes ADHD as not only the symptoms and the medical disorder but also as a social phenomenon where the disorder is socially constructed by the current society, norms, and knowledge. The study shows that the social workers? do not rely on the sole ADHD-diagnosis in the understanding and guidance of the children and their foster parents, but rather see the individual needs of each children.

SammanfattningSyftet med studien var att undersöka hur familjehemsfo?ra?ldrar upplever att deras anknytning samt föräldraroll påverkas utifrån att barnen är familjehemsplacerade. Metoden som användes i studien var kvalitativ och elva familjehemsföräldrar från åtta familjehem intervjuades. Studiens empiri analyserades med hjälp av anknytningsteori samt systemteori. Resultatet visade att samtliga intervjuade familjehem i någon mån påverkades av komplexiteten i familjehemsuppdraget, vilket påverkade deras föräldraroll och anknytning till de placerade barnen.

Focusing of what´s best for the child has been a keyword in social work for a long time. That seems obvious for many people, but sometimes it lacks in the care of the children and the child may be taken in to care. The purpose was to find circumstances of success that can contribute to a successful placement of the child according to social workers and foster families. In which way does the cooperation between social worker, foster family and the origin family affect the placement? The study is based upon a qualitative method in form of interviews intending to get the respondents own knowledge and experience of foster care.

The purpose of this study was to examine how some child welfare case workers say they go about to give children in Foster homes the opportunity to be heard. The idea was also to examine how much weight is given to the children?s views and if the respondents believe that the childrens right to be heard has improved over the time they have been working with foster children and if so, how? The study was conducted by using qualitative research method and the analysis of the results was made using Shier?s model of childrens participation. The results have also been tied to previous research in the area. The conclusions of this study was that according to the respondents it?s important that they get to know the children well so that the children can have confidence enough to speak their minds.

In this essay I analyze the meaning of the concepts home and at home and the feeling of coming home. What is a home and what different interpretations are there regarding the concepts of home and being at home? What kinds of feelings are aroused by coming home? The world we live in offers great opportunities to travel, which in itself creates a perspective on the meanings of the concepts. The world we live in also forces people to move from their homes, families and countries due to various reasons, which creates various problems and a certain urgency concerning the concepts. I describe basic terms concerning the concepts, both regarding concrete definitions and more abstract notions, and then compare them with my own reflections.         Based on my writing project Coming home I discuss these questions in various ways.

The aim of the study is to describe social workers discretion when it comes to the relation between children placed away from home and their biological parents.The study describes how the social worker designs the contacts with the biological parents, for instance the extension for the actual meeting. The results are based on six interviews conducted with social workers who work with foster children. They have responded to questions related to the contact between children and their biological parent. The questions are based on eight vignettes. The contents of the vignettes show different conditions that affect the contact, for example age and foster care attitudes The results of the study have been compared to other previous research in discretion of the social worker and contacts between children and their biological parents.In summary the study shows that there is  high degree of independence for the social workers designing their work and that their level of discretion.

The academic underachievement of looked after children is well known. By involving foster carers in a Paired Reading intervention a Swedish project tried to address this issue, replicating a successful British trial. The aim of my thesis was to study the variations in the foster carers? experiences of this literacy intervention. Reading reports from 100 children were collected and qualitative interviews with 15 foster parents were analyzed using concepts from motivational psychology.

SammanfattningSyftet med studien var att belysa hur familjehemsföräldrar uppfattar sina biologiska barns behov av stöd från socialtjänsten i familjehemsprocessen. De frågeställningar som legat till grund för studien är vilket stöd familjernas egna barn blir erbjudna från socialtjänsten och vilken form av stöd föräldrarna önskar för de egna barnen. Vidare på vilket sätt de egna barnen i ett familjehem är delaktiga i familjehemsprocessen.Metoden som använts i studien är kvalitativ. Via information från familjehemsföräldrar har de biologiska barnens behov av stöd från socialtjänsten undersökts. Det skedde genom att intervjua fem familjehem som hade haft hemmaboende egna barn, under en period av minst tre till fem år, samtidigt som en fosterbarnsplacering.

The educational underachievement of children in foster care has been known for a long time. This study aimed to compile and analyze the current knowledge about interventions, intended to improve foster children?s school achievements. The method used was a systematically undertaken narrative review. Despite a comprehensive searching strategy, only ten relevant studies were found, indicating that little has been done to improve the educational outcomes for children in public care.

Military dogs in Sweden spend their first 18 months after weaning with a foster owner that has volunteered to care for its upbringing. The foster owner is advised by a consultant and offered three opportunities to train the dog together with other foster owners. There is a positive correlation between the number of attended training opportunities with the consultant, or other professional dog trainers, and the results of the dog in the temperament test at the end of the 18 months. The test results are in turn positively correlated with the likelihood of the dog to enter service. This thesis aims to investigate why the number of training opportunities is important for the dog?s chance to enter service by identifying foster owner factors that influence the success of the dog and which temperament test items the factors have the strongest impact on.

The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to examine the different ways thatFamiljehemscentrum use to increase the number of families that show interest in takingcare of foster children. This thesis will examine which families are targeted by Familjehemscentrums present communication, which families they should target in thefuture and also the best way to do that. In order to answer these questions a number of interviews were conducted. The first interview was a group interview with three social workers that all work at Familjehemscentrum. Three more individual interviews were conducted with representatives from foster families to investigate how they were recruitedand what they think about being a foster family.