Foster care breakdown: The role of attachment, behavior difficulties and violence

Foster care breakdown is typically the consequence of a combination of circumstances in which the foster family, the fostered children and the professional intervention each make their own specific contribution. Although no... [ view full abstract ]

Foster care breakdown is typically the consequence of a combination of circumstances in which the foster family, the fostered children and the professional intervention each make their own specific contribution. Although no single factor sufficiently explains adoption breakdown, this presentation focuses on one of the most significant factors in the process leading to a definitive separation, namely the children involved, their problems and difficulties.

In the two-year period between 2012 to 2013 there were 4078 children in foster care in Andalusia, a region of southern Spain, of which 3036 (74.5%) were in kinship foster care and 1042 (25.5%) in non-kinship foster families. In all of the 116 cases analysed the foster-care breakdown occurred in this time period. According to their relative weight, the majority of the breakdown cases happened in kinship (62.1%) and the rest (37.9%) in non-kinship care; 55.7% were girls and 44.3% were boys. The average age of the children was approximately 7 years old when the placement began to fail, being similar for kinship and non-kinship cases.

The data show that the children’s problems involved attachment difficulties, behavioural problems and violence towards the foster family. There were no statistically significant differences between kinship and non-kinship families with respect to these factors. In general, some of these circumstances (i.e., attachment difficulties and behavioural problems) were present since the beginning of placement, although in many cases they were interpreted as transient problems of mutual adaptation typical of an initial stage, and therefore no professional action was taken. Problems escalated at the onset of adolescence, when most unwanted separations took place. Some of these difficulties were of a more relational than personal nature, as in many cases attachment problems and violence were also observed in the caregivers. The implications for professional intervention in foster care derived from this combination of problems will be discussed as part of this presentation.