Matching in Flanders: research with the Assessment Questionnaire Foster care Situations -Revised

Objectives: In the Flemish foster care practice, objective instruments to assist the matching process are lacking. The need for an instrument designed for that purpose is high. Based on the theory of Street and Davies (1999),... [ view full abstract ]

Objectives:
In the Flemish foster care practice, objective instruments to assist the matching process are lacking. The need for an instrument designed for that purpose is high. Based on the theory of Street and Davies (1999), we developed the Assessment Questionnaire Foster care Situations (AQFS-R). Street and Davis (1999) suggest that a matching instrument must assess everyday behaviors, attitudes and/or skills of foster parents and children. This study reports on the preferences of (aspirant) foster parents measured with the AQFS-R.

Method:
With the AQFS-R (aspirant) foster parents behaviors, attitudes and skills are measured using 24 vignettes describing foster children in a foster care situation. Each description contains a unique combination of five foster child and foster care situation factors and is therefore multidimensional. They are based on breakdown research: gender (boy or girl), age (-6 years, 6-12 years or 12-18 years), problem behavior of the child (internalizing or externalizing problems), extra workload (the need for extra care for the child, no extra work or with extra work) and collaboration with the parents (good or bad). For each vignette (aspirant) foster parents are asked, on a Likert scale from 1 to 7, if they are willing to foster the child described in the vignette. The higher the score (max 7) the more they think they are able to foster the child.

Results:
The AQFS-R was completed by 139 aspirant foster parents and 314 foster parents. The (aspirant) foster parents take every factor into consideration when judging the vignettes (main effect for every factor is significant, p<.005). As a group, aspirant foster parents and foster parents prefer foster care situations with a girl, age under 6 years, with internalizing problems, with extra work and with a good collaboration with birth parents. When clustering the answers of the aspirant foster parents as well as of the foster parents, three profiles can be distinguished. A first group, the AFA (able to foster all children) group, scores all vignettes almost similarly. It can be assumed that those foster parents consider themselves able to foster most foster children described in the vignettes. The second group, the PFT (prefer to foster toddlers) group, thinks they are only able to foster children between 0 and 6 years. Finally the third group, the DOS (depending on situations) group, indicates that on one side they are not being able to foster adolescents (older than 12 years) but on the other side this group lacks a clear preference for the other factors.

Conclusions:
The AQFS-R can help Flemish foster care workers in assessing (aspirant) foster parents’ preferences for foster children. Three clear profiles, AFA, DOS and PFT, can be distinguished. The predictive validity of the AQFS-R is currently researched, and results are expected soon.


References:
Street, E., & Davies, M. (1999) Assessing and matching foster care relationships: an international framework. Adoption and Fostering; 23 (2), 31-41.