Barnen - ett gemensamt ansvar En kvalitativ studie om familjehemsföräldrars motivation och upplevelser av socialt stöd i Paraguay
This qualitative study is about motivation and experience of support among non-kinship fosterparents in a child welfare agency (NGO), in Paraguay. The empirical data where collectedthrough out six semi-structured qualitative interviews, with totally eight foster parentsparticipating. The aim of the study was to describe and analyze what motivates foster parentsand how they experience support from their formal and informal network. Further theobjective was to investigate how support (may) affect motivation and enable good foster care.Theoretical concepts such as solidarity, intrinsic and extrinsic motivations as well as socialsupport where used to analyze the data.The results show that there are many different motives and motivations (intrinsic andextrinsic) that correlate in the decision to become and continue to be a foster parent. Amongthem social involvement, the wish to make a difference in a child?s life, have something tooffer as a family and personal satisfaction seems to be the most frequent reasons. Even thoughthe foster parents have perspectives in common, their motivations are mainly influenced bytheir individual desires, experiences and their particular family situation. It also seems thatstarting with fostering are a coincidence rather then an active choice.The foster parents receive formal and informal support and it seems that both are ofimportance to keep them motivated. It also seems that the different kinds of support cancontribute to a successful placement and prevent breakdowns. The experience of support thatall foster parents seems to have in common and highlight is the reliable access to a formalnetwork, 24 hours a day. The formal support also includes practical help, information,emotional support as well as feedback. All of these types of social supports appear to beimportant, but the importance and the experience of support, vary depending on the family aswell as the foster child and its particular situation, history and age. In general the fosterparents in this study are satisfied with the support promoted by the agency but some fosterparents are asking for more support before the placement and claiming they need moreinformation about the child. The results also show that it?s important to individualize thesupport as a consequence of foster parents and foster children?s different needs.The present study supports much of the existing literature on the experience of fosterparents but there are also some results that are new. For example there are not many studiesfocusing on the informal support in foster care. The results show that informal supportprovided by the foster parents own children as well as the extended family is of great value.The biological children?s attitudes and their participation tend to affect the motivation amongthe foster parents and foster care in Paraguay seems to be a family project and a commonresponsibility.