“It’s not just a job, it’s my life”: long term foster carers’ experiences of placement endings in Scotland
Creators: name: Sha, Ruibing
Publisher: name: The University of Edinburgh
Year: 2024
Subjects: foster care leavers
foster parents
foster care
semi-structured interviews
placement ending

description: Although foster carers play an important and primary role when looking after children, there is a noticeable dearth in the literature concerning carers’ perspectives on placement endings to understand the nature and impact of endings, whether planned or not. Through exploring what and how foster carers experience a child leaving their care, as well as how the experiences affect foster carers personally and professionally, this research aims to uncover the untold stories of long-term foster carers and their experiences with placement endings. The study adopts a qualitative interpretive method, utilising semi-structured interviews. The participants in the study are foster carers residing in Scotland, who have encountered a minimum of two placement endings (both breakdown and planned moves). Additionally, each of these placements has lasted beyond a duration of two years. Nine foster carers from 2 different local authorities in Scotland were recruited for participation. The recruitment process involved collaboration with social workers and referrals from fellow foster carers. In-depth individual face to face interviews were carried out, with each interview lasting approximately 2 hours on average. Concurrent thematic analysis has been employed. The study finds that foster carers experience hidden weight of emotions when placements come to an end, experiencing a cycle of emotional upheaval and distress during the process of family formation and reformation, as children enter and exit their care. Four dimensions are identified within the analysis: pre-ending—anticipatory grief; during ending—grief and ambivalent emotions; after ending—disenfranchised grief; and beyond ending—hope and continuation of love. The loss and grief have become part of foster carers’ lives because of the nonlinear nature of placement endings. The individuality of placements, types of endings, as well as personal perception of carer or parent identity affect the intensity and diversity of emotions foster carers experienced. The consequences of all the unresolved emotions from different dimensions impact upon the hidden weight of emotions for foster carers. Adding to the burden of emotional weight, foster children who have departed take on a ghostly presence within the foster carers' family, perpetuating an ongoing impact on relationships. For foster carers, though a placement may have ended, it has never ended completely as the child continues to reside in their minds and hearts. Placement ending is not a single procedure but a series of connected and ongoing processes, with the previous loss of former foster children potentially affecting the upcoming one, and the added losses may affect the future loss. Through materialising foster carers' experiences, this research enhances our comprehension of the intricacies of foster caregiving and brings to light the concealed hidden weight of emotions that foster carers invest. This demonstrates the importance of acknowledging and recognising this hidden weight of emotions. It will also raise practitioners’ awareness and help identify emotional and therapeutic supports for foster carers.