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Cultivating Resilience in Families Who Foster: Understanding How Families Cope and Adapt Over Time
Cynthia A Lietz1, Francie J Julien-Chinn1, Jennifer M Geiger2
1School of Social Work, Center for Child Well-Being, Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ.
Family Process
|August 5, 2016
Summary
Foster families provide crucial care amidst challenges. Family resilience in fostering is a dynamic process, strengthened by 10 key family strengths that adapt over time.
Area of Science:
- Family Studies
- Psychology
- Social Work
Background:
- Foster families provide vital care for children unable to live with their biological parents.
- Foster caregivers encounter significant stressors, including increased demands and emotional distress.
- Children in foster care often present with complex health and mental health needs.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine the adaptational process of family resilience in persistent, long-term, and multiple fostering experiences.
- To explore how fostering families sustain their functioning despite numerous challenges.
Main Methods:
- Qualitative study utilizing an adaptational process model of family resilience.
- Analysis of narratives from families with persistent, long-term, and multiple fostering experiences.
Main Results:
- Family resilience in fostering is a transactional process of coping and adaptation that evolves over time.
- Ten distinct family strengths were identified as crucial for sustaining resilience during different phases of fostering.
- The findings align with and corroborate previous research on family resilience.
Conclusions:
- Family resilience in fostering is an ongoing, adaptive process rather than a static trait.
- The activation and utilization of specific family strengths are key to successful long-term fostering.
- Understanding these strengths can inform support systems for foster families.
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