Article | Open Access
Supporting the Ordinary Family: Finding the Organisational Space for Foster Care Support
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Abstract: Communicating with foster carers and providing them with adequate financial support and assistance has been identified as important in the recruitment of new foster carers. In Sweden, such support can be provided by local authorities, private agencies, or public intermediary organisations formed through inter‐municipal cooperation. Through interviews with inter‐municipal organisations, local authorities, and foster carers, this article examines the costs associated with fostering and the types of support foster carers value. It also explores how the involvement of a third actor—an inter‐municipal organisation—impacts these costs and the support provided. The findings show that foster carers seek to avoid financial loss due to fostering and attribute different meanings to various forms of financial support, which may help them to negotiate additional compensation. Moreover, some relationships linked to the fostering role are perceived as burdens or costs, requiring support to manage. As a third actor, inter‐municipal organisations provide foster carers with assistance in managing the costs associated with the fostering role.
Keywords: foster care; inter‐municipal cooperation; triadic relationships; support; costs; money; Sweden
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© Veronica Hällqvist, Johanna Sköld. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction of the work without further permission provided the original author(s) and source are credited.