The theoretical part outlines the basic concepts of family, social work with families and foster care, all together as part of social work theory. Besides that, the theoretical part contains an overview of the existing literature on family, attachment theory and foster care. The main point of interest was how foster care is regulated in Slovenia through legislation, in addition to investigating the foster care regulation I have given attention also to the analysis, of the theoretical orientations in the field of social work with families in general and work with families involved in foster care specifically. The analytical part, contains an interpretation of the results of qualitative research obtained by conducting 9 semi-structured interviews with foster mothers who live in the area of jurisdiction of the Centre for Social Work Ljubljana and interviews of 2 social workers who, at that time, had been employed at the said center for social work and had been responsible for the foster care area. The conducted study has shown that the foster care system in Slovenia experiences some systemic shortcomings, such as a low foster parents’ compensation and a lack of financial support for material costs deriving from child care, as well as overworked social workers employed at social work centers, which negatively impcts on social worker-foster parent collaboration. However, the research also showed that good practice exists and is implemented in our country, where there exists a possibility for carrying out the social work services professionally and there is a well-designed strategy for helping out foster parents in place. It is evident, though, that foster parents need to understand what responsibilities they have and have the confidence to execute them at the same time. In essence, foster care is a work project with the aim of providing help.
|
