Evaluating foster care projects. From a literature review of researches on foster care to the creation of a success factors scheme in order to evaluate participated foster care projects.

Social workers are often engaged in foster care projects of children or young people. In Italy foster care intervention was set up more then 30 years ago and the approaches of child protection social workers to this topic are... [ view full abstract ]

Social workers are often engaged in foster care projects of children or young people. In Italy foster care intervention was set up more then 30 years ago and the approaches of child protection social workers to this topic are vary.
The aim of the research is to evaluate the successful of participated foster care projects, a model to set up foster care intervention in partnership among social worker, foster care families, parents or relatives and children or young people, taking into account the institutional and legislative mandate.
In order to evaluate this way to manage foster care project it has been done a literature reviews of research on foster care to individuate factors associated to successful foster care project form the point of view of social worker, families and children.
Successful factors of foster care are related to behavior and history of the child, families’ problems, structure and willingness of foster families, typology of the project in term of time of permanence and duration, involvement of the families and children in decision making and manage of the project, network among practitioners and families.
Starting to this review it has been made a table of successful factors of foster care and a survey to investigate the presence of these factors in the participated foster care projects.
The aim of the presentation is to discuss the process and the results of this research.