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Family relations, adjustment and well-being in a longitudinal study of

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Article  in  Child & Family Social Work · February 2005

DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2206.2005.00337.x

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 Paper 119 Disc

Children in permanent foster care in Sweden

Gunvor Andersson
School of Social Work, Lund University, Sweden

Correspondence: ABSTRACT
Gunvor Andersson,
Associate Professor, The Swedish child welfare system has no permanency planning as
School of Social Work, we know it from, for example, the United States and Great Britain.
Lund University, Regardless of whether the child is placed in foster care with or
Box 23, 221 00 Lund, without the parents' consent, the law requires semi-annual
Sweden reviews and there is no time limit set on reunion. Nevertheless,
there are foster children who remain in the foster home
Keywords: children's perspective, family throughout the whole of childhood, on terms similar to
belonging, foster care, foster parents' views, permanent foster care or adoption. This paper concerns a
permanency, relations
selection of ®ndings from a research project entitled `Is there a
Accepted for publication: October 1998 di€erence in being a foster child?'. Foster children aged 10±11
were interviewed three times and the children's perspective was
focused on, complemented by the perspective of their foster
parent(s). When interviewed about their relationship to their
natural family as well as to the foster family, and about having a
sense of family belonging and expectations for the future, 11 of the
22 children perceived their stay in the foster home as permanent
and regarded themselves as belonging only to the foster family,
although all of the children had contact with their birth parents.
The study concerns the children's views as well as those of the
foster parents. The perception of permanency in the absence of a
legal option of permanency is discussed.

be made permanent and the child cannot be put up

INTRODUCTION
The Swedish child welfare system has no perma-
nency planning programme as we know it from the
United States (Barth 1992) and Great Britain
(Triseliotis et al. 1995). The Swedish system
recommends family maintenance and there is no
®xed time limit on support to families. In cases
where out-of-home care is judged to be necessary,
the ultimate aim is reunion. Whether the child is
placed with (in accordance with the Social Services
Act from 1982) or without the parents' consent (in
accordance with the complementary Care of Young
Persons Act, revised 1990), the law requires semi-
annual reviews of the placement. About 7 per 1000
children between the ages of 0 and 17 years are in
out-of-home care some time during a year, totalling
15 500 children during 1997 (SocialtjaÈnst 1998:10).
If we look at a particular day, 31 December, about
three-quarters of the (11 000) children in out-of-
home care are in foster care and one-quarter in
institutions. Long-term foster care cannot formally
for adoption without the consent of the parents. It is
as Barth (1992) writes: `In Sweden, the underlying
assumption of the law is that ``every parent can be
rehabilitated'' ' (p. 39).
In the law (seen as a framework law) nothing is said
about how a case should be handled if reunion is not
possible or is inappropriate. Nor does the preparatory
work of the law give any instructions regarding time
limits or how to proceed if the severity of the parents'
problems justi®es the consideration of permanent
foster care for the child. These shortcomings of the
law were pointed out in a committee report by the
Swedish government (SOU 1997:116), which also
asserted that the situation of children in long-term
foster care has not been paid sucient attention in
Swedish research. Increasing the possibility of
transferring custody of the child from parents to
foster parents was discussed in a report by the
National Board of Social Welfare (SoS-rapport
1995:8) as a `Swedish model' of permanency in foster
care. The wording of the recently revised law

175 Child and Family Social Work 1999, 4, pp 175±186 # 1999 Blackwell Science Ltd

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Children in permanent foster care in Sweden G Andersson
(Government Bill 1996/97:124) shows, however, that
the government declined to take such a step.
Nevertheless, there are foster children in Sweden
who remain in foster homes throughout the whole of
their childhood on terms similar to permanent foster
care or adoption. In an earlier longitudinal research
project (Andersson 1984, 1988, 1990, 1995), I
questioned foster parents about their views on not
knowing how long they could expect their foster child
to be living with them. The majority replied that
there simply are no guarantees, a child is not a
possession, one does not love a child more or less
depending on how long it will stay and if one has a
good relationship with the child and its parents,
contact can be maintained even after reunion. To the
foster parents permanency planning did not seem to
make much di€erence, even if the professional debate
sometimes indicates that it does.
This paper presents some of the ®ndings from a
recent research project called `Is there a di€erence in
being a foster child?' (supported by the Swedish
Council for Social Research, SFR). The aim of the
study was threefold: to arrive at an understanding of
the children's perspective, of how foster children
perceive and cope in everyday life with their status as
a foster child, and of how they relate to their family of
origin as well as to their foster family. Twenty-two
children between the ages of 10 and 11 were
interviewed regarding their relationship to parents
and foster parents and their sense of family belong-
ing. On the basis of the interview data, two subgroups
were identi®ed. Eleven of the children perceived that
they belonged to the foster family as their only family
and 11 that they belonged to their natural family as
well as to their foster family. As the ®rst subgroup
had a sense of permanency in long-term foster care
and expected to remain in the foster family as their
`family for life' (Triseliotis 1991), this paper focuses
on them. It is of special interest to ascertain how these
children could have a sense of permanence in the
absence of a legal permanency option.
Before presenting the research project, I give an
introduction to the debate on foster children's need
for `a sense of permanence' and `a sense of identity'
(Thoburn 1994) followed by a few comments on the
concept `children's perspective'. The results concen-
trate on the subgroup of children who perceive
themselves as permanently placed in the foster home
and on what the children as well as their foster
parents have to say about foster care, relationships
and family belonging. The paper ends with a
discussion on permanency.
176 Child and Family Social Work 1999, 4, pp 175±186
Paper 119 Disc
FOSTER CARE
At the end of the 1970s and during the ®rst half of the
1980s, a controversial issue in Sweden was whether
the emphasis on foster care should be on permanency
and on regarding foster parents as psychological
parents (Goldstein et al. 1978, English version 1973)
or whether it should be on maintaining parental
contact and ultimate reunion (Fanshel & Shinn 1978).
The research group involved in the `Children-in-
Crisis' project (on the model of Fanshel) has
contributed to the legal and professional anchoring
in Sweden of a `relation orientation' in foster care,
implementing object relation theory by stressing the
relationship with the family of origin and working for
reunion (BoÈrjeson 1976; Vinterhed et al. 1981;
LindeÂn 1984; Hessle 1988; CederstroÈm 1990; BoÈrje-
son & HaÊkansson 1990). Where Bohman & Sigvards-
son (1980), in explaining the ®nding that foster
children (compared with adopted and reunited
children) had the least desirable outcome, referred
to the e€ects on the children of the uncertain
situation of foster parents, BoÈrjeson & HaÊkansson
(1990) pointed to a di€erent explanation: the lack of
parental contact.
Even if there is a broad ideological consensus in
Sweden today regarding parental contact in foster
care and reunion as the ultimate aim, local foster care
agencies have been criticized by the National Board
of Social Welfare (SoS-rapport 1990:4), the parlia-
ment (Riksdagens Revisorer 1991/92:4) and the
government (Riksdagsskrivelse 1992/93:16) for not
working hard enough to support and educate foster
parents, for not following up foster children and
giving them personal support, for not maintaining
relationships with the natural family, and for not
rehabilitating the parents and bringing about re-
union. Permanency planning is not a topic much
discussed in Sweden today, even though many foster
children remain in the foster family throughout
childhood. We do not know exactly how many
children remain in long-term foster care because
few studies have addressed this question and because
responsible authorities have di€erent ways of record-
ing their numbers. Judging from Vinnerljung's
(1996a) review, our quali®ed guess is that about 30±
45% of the foster children (children placed in
emergency homes not included) remain in care for
more than three years, particularly if they are placed
as small children rather than as teenagers.
There seems to be no easy way to strike a balance in
assuring that children in child welfare will have a
# 1999 Blackwell Science Ltd

sense of permanence and a sense of identity (Thoburn
1990, 1994). The solution arrived at in Norway, for
example, di€ers from that in Sweden (Backe-Hansen
1992). In Great Britain, the Children Act 1989 does
not explicitly encourage permanent placement in
adoptive homes (HMSO 1991). Nevertheless, this
form of permanency planning can be criticized for
going too far (Gilligan 1997). Despite the relatively
low number of adoptions, it is still accorded a key role
in the debate on the provision of child welfare
services (Ryburn 1996). However, in a study by
Gibbons et al. (1995) the hypothesis that children in
adoptive placements would have better outcomes,
compared with children in foster care, was not
supported. In the United States permanency plan-
ning by family maintenance (family preservation
services) has been criticized for not giving the
children enough protection (Wells & Tracy 1996),
and permanency planning by adoption has been
criticized for not giving the children enough family
continuity (McFadden & Whitelaw Downs 1995;
Barth 1996). Fein & Maluccio (1992) consider this
either/or approach too rigid and ®nd that long-term
foster care can be a reasonable alternative in situa-
tions where reuni®cation or adoption is inappropri-
ate. Continued contact with birth parents is not called
into question in any of the out-of-home alternatives:
`The positive value of contact is now generally
recognized, even in adoption' (Triseliotis et al.
1995, p. 176). However, agencies having a more
`inclusive' approach to the child's birth family are
more prepared to identify a child's need for continu-
ing contact and to select families who would accept
contact (Fratter et al. 1991).
When it comes to child welfare research, we are
not alone in Sweden in not knowing enough about
child welfare practices and the process and out-
come of foster care for children (Gambrill & Stein
1994; Goerge et al. 1994; Maluccio et al. 1994; Hill
& Aldgate 1996; Backe-Hansen & Havik 1997;
Egelund 1997).
CHILDREN'S PERSPECTIVE
As a consequence of the United Nations Convention
on the Rights of the Child, the importance of the
children's perspective and of considering children's
views in decisions a€ecting their lives has been
strongly rearmed in recently revised legislation in
Sweden, as it has in many other countries. Increasing
attention is also being paid in research to the
children's perspective. A paradigm shift is underway
177 Child and Family Social Work 1999, 4, pp 175±186
Paper 119 Disc
Children in permanent foster care in Sweden G Andersson
with respect to children, whereby children are seen as
subjects, as active co-creators of and valuable
informants on their world and their relationships ±
and there is greater interest in the everyday circum-
stances of the child's life in the here-and-now (James
& Prout 1990; Tiller 1991; Qvortrup et al. 1994).
What would it really mean to study the world from
the standpoint of children both as knowers and as
actors, Oakley (1994) encouragingly asks. Andenñs
(1991) stresses the importance of letting children be
co-researchers instead of research objects and in that
way letting the researchers take part in the children's
own understanding of themselves, their lives, and the
social context that surrounds them.
The lack of child orientation in social work ± and in
social work research ± is a fact not only in Sweden
(Andersson et al. 1996) but also in other countries, as
Butler & Williamson (1994) show. Much of the
research on children in child welfare is based on the
assessments of professionals, data from social work-
ers, and case records. Much less is known from the
children's own perspective (Hill & Aldgate 1996; Hill
1997): `Only a few studies have interviewed children
or adults who are or have been in foster care'
(Triseliotis et al. 1995, p. 16). In the research project
presented in this paper, the foster children's perspec-
tive is accorded central importance.
As Garbarino & Stott (1992) point out, under-
standing children's thinking is always a complex
business, depending on the child's cognitive capacity
and on a range of contextual and motivational
variables, as well as on adult biases and expectations.
The age of the child is not unimportant; school-age
children are frequently the best informants regarding
their own behaviour and feelings, and the self-reports
of children 10 years and older are more reliable than
those of younger children (Garbarino & Stott 1992).
METHOD
The research group consists of all children from ®ve
local social welfare agencies who, at the time of the
interviews (second part of 1995 and ®rst part of
1996), were 10±11 years old and were living in foster
homes. Children in emergency fostering and severely
mentally retarded children were not included. Of the
31 children in the research group, three were not
allowed by their parents to take part in the project,
three foster parents declined on behalf of their foster
children, and three children declined on their own
behalf. In all, 22 children were interviewed. They
came from four (rural or urban) municipalities but
# 1999 Blackwell Science Ltd

Children in permanent foster care in Sweden G Andersson
lived in foster homes in 14 di€erent municipalities (as
a rule at most an hour's drive from the birth family).
The children were interviewed three times at
intervals of a few weeks (Andersson 1998a). I had
(almost) no information about the children before-
hand and saw them twice before interviewing the
foster parents during my third visit to the foster
home. The interviews were open but focused,
recorded on tape and subsequently transcribed. The
®rst interview with the child focused on the child's
relationship to the members of the family of origin
and the foster family. The second interview focused
on everyday life at home, in the neighbourhood, at
school and among playmates; it also focused on
situations that reminded the child of his or her status
of foster child. The third interview gave scope for
clari®cation, looking back at what had been said and
discussing the future. I also questioned the children
about their experiences of social workers and asked if
there was anything they would like me to convey to
social work students.
How do you ask foster children about their
relationship to members of their family and foster
family and their sense of family belonging? An
interviewer gathers information not only through
answers to direct questions, but also by talking about
events and situations in everyday life and by looking
at the child's favourite gifts and photographs. My
approach was to begin by asking the child to make a
list of the people living in the foster home. This gave
me a starting point for collecting descriptions that
gave an indication of the child's relationships with
di€erent members of the foster family. After intro-
ducing the topic of the reason for the placement and
memories from home, I asked the child to make a list
pertaining to the mother and the people she lived
with ± and a separate list pertaining to the father and
his family (as most of the parents lived apart). We
talked about contacts with di€erent members of the
birth family, about concrete situations during recent
visits, about experiences and activities, and about
what visiting arrangements they preferred. To learn
more about the quality of the child's relationships,
later in the interview and independent of the ®rst lists
I asked the children to make a list of the people most
important to them. The children had no problem
deciding which people to include and in what order of
rank. This list was helpful in our further discussion
on their feelings in relation to signi®cant people.
The interview with the foster parents covered a
number of topics, among them being the reasons for
the child's placement and under what section of the
178 Child and Family Social Work 1999, 4, pp 175±186
Paper 119 Disc
law; the contacts that the foster parents and the child
had had with the family of origin during the period of
foster care; and the foster parents' views on the
child's relationship to members of the foster family as
well as with members of the family of origin. The
foster parents' views on the future and their
experiences of social workers were also topics for
the interview.
FINDINGS
The point of departure for the study was the analysis
of the interviews with the children. As a result of this
analysis the children were divided into two subgroups
according to their sense of family belonging (Anders-
son 1998b). Half of the research group, i.e. 11
children, regarded their foster home as their perma-
nent home and perceived themselves as belonging to
the foster family as their only family, even though they
still had contact with their parents. The results
presented here concern these 11 children, ®ve girls
and six boys. Three had not yet celebrated their 10th
birthday at the time of the ®rst interview, seven were
10 years old and one child had just turned 11. Table 1
summarizes information provided by both the children
and their foster parents (never contradictory and
sometimes complementary) regarding the child's age
when placed in the current foster home, earlier
experiences of out-of-home care, and whether the
child had any sisters or brothers living at home
(Home), in the same foster home (F-same), or in
another foster home (F-another). The interviews show
that the foster children referred to their birth mother's
children as sisters and brothers whether or not the
latter lived at home with the mother, in the same foster
home as my research subject, or in a separate foster
home. They belonged to the child's family of origin
even though they and the foster child may have seen
one another only a few times. This was not the case for
the father's children with another woman.
As is shown in Table 1, ®ve of the children had
been placed in the foster home before they were one
year old, three children when they were between one
and three years old, and three when they were
between three and ®ve years old. None came directly
from his or her family of origin to the present foster
home. It is common practice in Sweden ®rst to place
the child in a children's home for purposes of
investigation and to prepare the child for a foster
home placement. Whenever possible, arrangements
are made for the mother to stay with her child at the
children's home. Several of the children had been in
# 1999 Blackwell Science Ltd
 Paper 119 Disc

Children in permanent foster care in Sweden G Andersson

Table 1 The foster children, age at placement and from where they came, sisters and brothers living at home, in the same
foster home, or in another foster home

Name of Age when placed in

the child current foster home Previous placement(s) Sister(s) or brother(s)

Bengt 5 weeks Hospital ±

Anna 10 weeks Children's home F-another
Cecilia 5 months Children's home with mother F-another
David 7 months Children's home with mother ±
Eva 10 months At home 6 months, hospital, emergency home ±
Gunnel 1 year 6 months Children's home, foster home, children's home F-another
Hanna 1 year 8 months At home 1 year, with great-grandmother 8 months Home, F-same, F-another
Jakob 2 years 8 months At home 8 months, two emergency homes, a foster home 1 year F-same
Kalle 3 years 6 months At home, with mother in this foster home 6 months F-another
Lasse 4 years 6 months At home with mother, with father 10 months F-same
Nils 5 years 10 months At home, foster home 6 months F-another

an emergency home before being placed in their
current foster home. In only one case were the child's
parents still living together. If the parents were not
living together at the time the child was placed in out-
of-home care, `at home' in the table means at home
with the mother.
According to information supplied by foster
parents and children, the predominant reason for
placing the children in foster care was the parents'
severe addiction to alcohol or drugs (applies to 7 of
the 11 mothers and all the known fathers). For two of
the mothers mental illness was the predominant
reason and for two others learning disability. These
are the most common individual problems of parents
of pre-teen children in out-of-home care in Sweden
(cf. Andersson 1992). Consequently, the reason for
the placement is usually neglect or anticipated neglect
rather than child abuse. As a group, parents of foster
children generally have low income, an unstable
position in the labour market, or they are on extended
sick leave; they have a low level of education, a
destructive relationship with a partner, and no
supportive social network. The parents of the
children in the research group did not di€er from
this general pattern (according to the foster parents).
The children spoke in the interviews about their
parents' alcohol and drug abuse or mental problems.
A few of them also gave poverty as a reason for their
placement. Only one child was unable to give a reason
for the placement.
Children's views on their relationship to parents
and foster parents
For all 11 children, it was the foster parents rather
than their birth parents who were `mummy' and
`daddy'. Even though all the children were clearly
aware that they lived in a foster home, several of them
made a point of saying that they usually referred to
the foster family as their `family' and that they did not
use the word `foster child' in reference to themselves
because they were `ordinary' children living in
`ordinary' families. A few of the children became
annoyed when I repeatedly asked to whom they were
referring when they said `mummy' or `daddy'; they
seemed to regard using these terms of endearment as
self-evident when referring to their foster parents. A
few of the birth mothers wanted their child in foster
care to call them `mummy' instead, `but I don't want
to do that', one girl explained. The children called
their birth parents by their ®rst name, except for two
children who called both foster mother and birth
mother `mummy', or the foster mother `mummy' and
the birth mother `mummy Karin' to distinguish
between them.
The children ranked their foster parents, that is to
say `mummy' and `daddy', as the most important
people on their lists. Most of them seemed to share
the sentiments of the boy who said: `The ones I like
best are my mummy and daddy' (by which he meant
his foster parents). Three girls put their birth mother
in second place on the list behind their foster parents
(`mummy and daddy'). Six children did not include
the birth parents at all on their list of signi®cant
people, and two others (both boys) put one or both
birth parents at the bottom of the list.
Two children have had regular contact with their
birth mothers, that is every two or three weeks,
throughout the years they have been in foster care.
The most common arrangement was for contact on a
once-a-month basis, but often the visits were less
regular. Contact usually meant that the birth mother

179 Child and Family Social Work 1999, 4, pp 175±186 # 1999 Blackwell Science Ltd

Children in permanent foster care in Sweden G Andersson
spent the day or part of the day at the foster home, in
two cases always together with the child's grand-
mother and in two cases always with a social worker.
Two of the children visited their birth mothers at
home, but under supervision (as I understood it)
from either the grandmother or the foster parents.
Most of the children liked to visit or be visited by
their birth mother. Only one girl said that she did not
like her mother and did not want to meet her. All the
other children regarded the current arrangement as
agreeable and wanted neither more nor less contact.
Although the children generally approved of the
current arrangements, most of them had experienced
disappointments in connection with visits by the
birth mother. Visits had been planned, the children
had waited expectantly, but the mother never showed
up. For some of them, this did not seem to cause
much concern: `Only once I felt really unhappy . . .
she called and said she couldn't come . . . no she did it
twice'. Other children seemed more upset, particu-
larly if the missed opportunity for a visit happened on
a birthday and most particularly if the child was not
given a reasonable explanation afterwards: `She's just
lying' or `She says nothing and pretends it never
happened'. It can be very distressing for children to
believe that their mothers do not care for them. That
the mother may have been drunk at the time is no
explanation, rather it is a sign that she `doesn't care'
and `It's stupid and mean'. One child had recently
had her ®rst opportunity to spend a few days with her
birth mother, but the child soon rang up her
`mummy' and asked to come `home'. She refused to
tell me why she was so disappointed in her birth
mother, but her disappointment seemed to run very
deep. One boy had been placed in the foster home a
few years before his mother died and could barely
remember her, but he still believed that she may have
died of grief at not being allowed to visit him. The
birth mothers were quite clearly not indi€erent to
their children, rather they had strong feelings for
them, even though the children had a `new' mother, a
new home, and a sense of family belonging that
centred on the foster home.
Only a few of the children in this group had any
contact with the birth father (usually referred to by
his ®rst name). Five children knew nothing about the
father and ®ve met him only now and then. One girl
visited her birth father and grandparents every third
weekend, after many years of no contact at all. The
children who had irregular contacts with the birth
father talked about the visits in a di€erent way from
the way they talked about their visits with the birth
180 Child and Family Social Work 1999, 4, pp 175±186
Paper 119 Disc
mother. Two of them seemed rather unconcerned.
One of them, for example, said that two visits a year
from his father was more than enough and that he
could do without those visits, too, but reasoned: `He's
still my father'. For three of the boys, the father
seemed to be more of an adult companion than a
father. It was nice when he came to visit or took the
child on an outing, but if the visit had to be
postponed or called o€, the child did not seem to be
greatly disappointed (as they were if the mother
missed a visit). The father was excused for not
coming to a birthday celebration because `He had a
sore stomach' or `He didn't have time'. Moreover, the
children found it easier to describe how they spent
the time on their father's visit than on their mother's
visit. One boy, for example, explained: `Then we go
to my room and play with my lego set, then we have a
snack, and then we play with my lego set again and
then he goes home'. Another boy had just recently
had a visit from his father: `Yesterday I asked him to
throw me a few corners so I could practise some head
shots, and then we went in for co€ee and I drank
cider'. A third boy described the go-cart he and his
father had built together and how clever his father
was mending things.
Not only were placement at a rather early age and
comparatively sparse contact with birth parents
characteristic for this group, but so also was the
children's conviction that they would live in the foster
home until they were grown up and ready to move
away from home. When talking about the future they
said, for example: `I'll live here until I ®nish school
and then I'll get a job', or `I'll live here until I'm more
grown up and maybe get a home of my own'.
Referring to what their (birth) mother had said
about their living in a foster home, some of the
children remarked: `She's glad I can live here'. Some
mothers had not told the child what they felt about
the child being in foster care, nor had they said that
they wanted the child to come back home. One girl
thought that `maybe she doesn't think it's so nice my
living here', but if her mother wanted her to move
back home `then I think I wouldn't have said
anything, I would have pretended I hadn't heard
anything'. Evidently, this girl, like the other children
in the group, wanted to `live here'. All the children
seemed to want to live permanently in the foster
home and were convinced that they would be allowed
to do so.
The children were also asked to re¯ect over
whether it was di€erent to be a foster child and live
in a foster home and if so to give some examples of the
# 1999 Blackwell Science Ltd

di€erences. I had expected them to compare their
current life with living at home with their birth
parents, but all of them compared being a foster child
with how children `normally' live. `No, it's not any
di€erent, not compared with what it's like for other
children'; `It's like living in an ordinary family';
`Actually, I don't feel any di€erence'; `Others
probably think there's a di€erence, but I'm just
ordinary. Anyhow, I have a good time here'. A few of
the children remarked further: `It's better to live
here, because it was hard living at home'; or `It's
better to live here than out there, because they drink
and stu€ like that'. When I asked for examples of
di€erences, the children could ®nd only advantages to
living in the foster home and disadvantages to living
with their parents (usually the single mother).
Still another way of approaching the subject was to
ask: `If you met a child of your own age who was about
to move to a foster home, and that child asked you
``What's it like to live in a foster home?'', what would
you say?'. The children's answers were all of the type
`I think it's just about as usual. It's OK. If you come to
a good home, of course you want to stay there'.
Foster parents' views on their relationship to
children and parents
When analysing the interviews with the foster parents
of these 11 children, I was surprised at the answers
they gave to my question about the section of the law
regulating the children's stay in the foster home
(ocially called `family home' in the `new' 1980
legislation). From the point of view of the Social
Services, there are two legal alternatives:
1 Social Services Act. With entitlement to assis-
tance it is also called a `voluntary' law, according to
which children are cared for away from their own
homes by consent of the parents. It is the consent
that matters and not the severity of the problems
at home.
2 Care of Young Persons Act (complementary to the
Social Services Act). This is used if `the necessary
care cannot be given to the child with the consent of
the parents'. The law is referred to as a com-
pulsory law.
Out-of-home care of a child, `voluntary' as well as
`compulsory', is to be reviewed by the social welfare
committee every six months to determine if the
placement is still necessary, if `compulsion' is still
needed, or if the parent(s) is willing or able to have
the child move back home. The content of care shall
181 Child and Family Social Work 1999, 4, pp 175±186
Paper 119 Disc
Children in permanent foster care in Sweden G Andersson
in both cases be subject to the provisions of the Social
Services Act and there should be no di€erence in
quality of care depending on which section of the law
is applied. I had been under the impression that
`compulsory' care was preferred in long-term foster
care and that it was seen as more `secure' by the foster
parents, because the social services committee has the
right to dispose of the care of the child. However, the
foster parents of the 11 children in the study did not
seem to be very concerned about the legal options.
Four foster parents believed that the placement was
in accordance with the `voluntary' paragraph, three or
four believed that it was in accordance with the
`compulsory' paragraph, and in three cases the foster
parents did not know which paragraph pertained. Yet
all of them regarded the placement as permanent and
gave as reasons that they had a sort of tacit agreement
with the parent(s) and that they had developed a good
form of cooperation with the parent(s) through the
years, and in some cases also had the support of the
child's relatives. At the time of the interview, the
children had been living in the foster home for 5±10
years. There were some con¯icts, at ®rst; some
threats had been made against the foster parents,
but now the foster parents generally felt that they had
won the appreciation of the child's parent(s) and
grandparents. For some of the children (those with
addicted parents), plans for reunion had been made
from time to time in the past, but now the foster
parents regarded the placement as permanent. The
following excerpts are representative of the replies of
foster parents concerning this topic:
. `It's been a voluntary paragraph all the time, even if
it's not a voluntary situation. We trusted in Anna's
mother wanting her to live here. But we've put a lot
of e€ort into gaining their [the mother's, father's
and grandmother's] con®dence . . . Every time her
mother comes here she says how happy she is that
Anna is living here . . . But it wasn't easy . . . it was
pretty tough in the beginning, a lot of threats were
made [particularly from her father] . . . I think you
can in¯uence most of the birth parents to let the
child stay, if that's what is best for the child, if they
[the parents] don't feel threatened or outmanoeuv-
ered by the foster home or made to feel inferior by
the social services [as was the case when Anna's
brother was placed in another foster home].'
. `It started voluntarily but I think it's compulsory
now [because Cecilia's father applied for cus-
tody . . . but now he's happy enough to see her
every third weekend] . . . Cecilia has lived here for a
# 1999 Blackwell Science Ltd

Children in permanent foster care in Sweden G Andersson
long time now, so we count her as belonging to the
family, she is ours . . . Yes, we take it for granted
that she'll stay . . . I think her mother thinks it's
good for her to live here.'
. `Hanna came here under a compulsory paragraph,
but actually I don't know how it is now, I haven't
looked into it. But she and her sister are going to
stay here until they are grown up, their mother is
prepared for that, she has diculty taking care of
the child she has at home . . . We've always got
along very well, when she is here she prefers
sitting in the kitchen talking with me to being with
the girls.'
. `Jakob's placement is by compulsion, but now and
then the parents have been rehabilitated from drug
abuse and there have been plans for the children to
return home. But then they [the parents] have
relapsed and the last two or three years they have
begun to realize that it's better for the children to
stay here and that it's good for the brothers to be
together . . . and, to be sure, we have a ®ne contact
with the parents, a natural contact, o€ and on,
through all these years.'
. `For Kalle it's always been a voluntary placement,
as far as I know. At ®rst the social worker said it
was for a few months . . . but nobody can say how
long it takes to get free from drug abuse . . . Two
years ago the social worker [on advice from the
child guidance clinic] promised Kalle to live here
until he has grown up . . . His mother thinks it's
good for him to live here . . . and now we have a
good contact with his father, too.'
. `It's a compulsory placement and they [the social
workers] said from the beginning that it would be
for a long time. Nils' mother ®rst intended to appeal
against it [the compulsion], but when she stepped
inside the door, she felt immediately that we were a
good family for Nils, not like in the former
unpleasant foster home . . . His mother has been
so nice . . . she sees that Nils feels at home here and
she has the courage to tell me when she has
problems and can't manage to come to visit . . .
She is our best support.'
The foster parents (four interviews with both foster
parents and seven with the foster mother alone)
stressed the importance of satisfactory contacts with
the child's birth mother and often with the grand-
mother, too, as well as with the birth father, if known.
`If the parents feel happy with the placement, it saves
a lot of trouble' was a typical reply. The foster
parents believed that if the birth parents were
182 Child and Family Social Work 1999, 4, pp 175±186
Paper 119 Disc
satis®ed with the child's foster home and got on well
with the foster parents, they would let the child reside
permanently in the foster home.
The replies to questions concerning the actual
amount of contact the children have with their
parent(s) and extended (birth) family can be roughly
divided into two groups:
1 Six children (Anna, Cecilia, Eva, Hanna, Jakob and
Lasse) have regular contact (once or twice a month)
with their mother and/or father and/or grandpar-
ent(s) and, in one case, with great-grandparents. The
contacts have not always been as regular as they are
now, but usually the grandparent(s) kept in contact
even if the parent(s) did not.
2 Five children (Bengt, David, Gunnel, Kalle, Nils)
have irregular contact with their mother and/or father;
the contact can be frequent during some periods and
then no contact at all for several months at a time. In
most cases these children had infrequent or no contacts
at all with their grandparents.
There has been some discussion in ocial quarters
in Sweden about the risk of foster parents' giving love
sparingly because they have no guarantee of perma-
nency. When I asked the foster parents about this,
their replies were quite similar:
. ` . . . feelings have nothing to do with paragraphs,
you just get attached to a child . . . '
. ` . . . you can never have guarantees and you can't
work with a child if you don't become attached to
it. At least, I can't . . . '
. ` . . . one thing you have to be clear about: it's not
your own child and you have to realize that,
psychologically and morally; but we don't hold
back our feelings for the children just because we
know that they might return home some day . . . '
. ` . . . you can't own a child, not your natural child
either . . . '.
In those cases where reunion had been discussed
earlier, the general view of the foster parents was:
`We can only hope that our contact with the parents is
good enough so that we can stay in touch even after
the child returns home'. Judging by the replies of the
foster parents, most of the children felt safe and
secure living in the foster home. If the child felt
worried at some point, the foster parents were quick
to assure the child that he/she was a part of the family
and that `You are our child' because this is how they
felt. In some cases the foster parents put their trust in
the e€orts of the child's grandparents to make the
mother realize that it was in the child's best interest to
# 1999 Blackwell Science Ltd

remain in the foster family or to have continued
contact with the foster family after reunion.
Most of the foster parents (all but two or three of
them) seemed to have little con®dence in the social
workers assigned to their case. Some remarked that
the social workers were changed too often to be able
to get to know the child and the family ± and a new
social worker who was unfamiliar with the case could
have unrealistic ambitions for the rehabilitation of the
mother. Other foster parents were dissatis®ed that the
social worker seldom visited them, only once or twice
a year, and regretted the infrequent contacts when
things were going well because they (the foster
parents) needed the support and appreciation. Most
of the foster parents thought that the social workers
generally exercised too little control. They too had
seen or heard about unsuitable foster families and felt
that a way to counteract this would be for the social
workers to pay frequent and unannounced visits.
None of the foster parents indicated that they
believed that the placement of the child was
permanent because the social worker had said so or
because a legal contract was in force.
DISCUSSION
The most preferable outcome for children in child
welfare is to be cared for at home or, if in out-of-
home care, to be returned to their birth family as soon
as possible. If family maintenance is not possible and
short-term residential care or emergency home is not
considered sucient, the child is placed in a foster
home. In Sweden there is no explicit time limit after
which foster care is regarded as permanent and
adoption is not an option in child welfare. The aim
of the law ± and of child welfare practice ± is reunion,
even though it is not unusual for a child to remain in
foster care for several years at a time or until he or she
reaches adulthood.
Laws, child welfare practice, and the perceptions of
children and foster parents regarding foster care are
far from congruent (cf. Thoburn 1990, 1994; Gam-
brill & Stein 1994; Hill & Aldgate 1996; Gilligan
1997). The failure to ful®l the basic intentions of this
area of child welfare legislation in some countries
means failing to make provisions for permanent care
whereas in Sweden it means failing to make provi-
sions for the child's return to the family of origin.
Children may have a sense of permanency despite the
lack of a legal option. It is the sense of permanence
which is crucial rather than the existence of a speci®c
legal permanence option, asserts Thoburn (1994) (cf.
183 Child and Family Social Work 1999, 4, pp 175±186
Paper 119 Disc
Children in permanent foster care in Sweden G Andersson
expectations of permanence, Aldgate 1990). If the
children ± and foster parents ± in my study, even the
children in `compulsory' care, are to develop a sense
of permanency, it seems that they must be able to rely
on the birth parent(s) or the mother and grandmother
accepting the arrangement, and on there being some
kind of mutual agreement between the foster mother
and the birth mother. As Thoburn also found in her
study, a few of the children and foster parents seemed
to feel more anxious about social workers removing
the child than about the birth parents doing so, even
in those cases where the child was in `voluntary' care.
Many researchers have found that the foster child's
contact with the birth parents is the key to reunion
(cf. Fanshel 1975), but I would say that ± for some
children ± visiting parents are the key to permanent
placement in that it indicates that the parent(s)
accepts the foster family ± or that both sides accept
each other. How else can we explain that there is
permanent foster care in Sweden although permanent
foster care is not a legal concept? Is the explanation
that too little social work is done with neglectful
parents or does it have more to do with the
observation of Weightman & Weightman (1995) that
the Swedish culture provides far higher levels of
legitimation for state intervention than exist in, for
example, England?
It should be pointed out that the children in
question comprised only half of the total number of
foster children in the study. Perhaps the children in
this subgroup perceived their situation to be perma-
nent because they were being cared for in foster
homes which they and their birth parent(s) regarded
as `suitable', and were thus spared unnecessary
problems and the breakdown of foster care. Some-
times a foster home is unable to take care of a child for
as long as the child is in need of care (SoS-rapport
1995:9). In the subgroup under study, although 3 of
the 11 sets of foster parents were recently divorced,
the child remained in the care of the foster mother.
Under other circumstances a divorce may be the
reason for the breakdown of foster care. It should be
noted, too, that the children were 10±11 years old at
the time of the study, and even if they had lived in the
foster home for 5±10 years they still could not be sure
of permanency because adolescence is a time when
breakdowns of care are more frequent. The age of the
children could be important in another way as well in
that the children in this subgroup were on the whole
younger when they were placed in the foster home
than were the children in the other subgroup in the
study. In the aspects investigated, no systematic
# 1999 Blackwell Science Ltd

Children in permanent foster care in Sweden G Andersson
di€erence could be found between boys and girls and
neither sex was over-represented in the group.
In comparison with earlier experiences and studies
of foster care (Andersson 1995), the children in this
study had more frequent contacts with the extended
birth family. Child welfare practice as well as the
attitudes and actions of the foster parents seem to
have been in¯uenced by the theoretical and ideolo-
gical belief that it is advantageous for children to
remain in contact with their birth parents. However,
we cannot take for granted that the children will be
better adjusted as a result of continued parental
contact (Vinnerljung 1996b; Cantos et al. 1997).
Although this study is not concerned with behaviour-
al problems or problems in school, it should be
pointed out that according to some foster parents, the
children's adjustment, especially that of the boys, has
not always been unproblematic. In other studies it
was found that kinship foster care makes parental
contact easier, but for the subgroup of children in the
present study none of their relatives served as foster
parents (although some did in the second subgroup).
I ask myself why none of the children came from
immigrant families, as they are statistically over-
represented in foster care (SoS-rapport 1995:7). One
explanation may be the age of the children, because
the over-representation of foster children applies
above all to adolescents.
Perhaps it could be questioned why the foster
children were so willing to inform me that they felt
con®dent that they belonged to the foster family and
that they were satis®ed with the foster home.
However, in studies where the informants are foster
children, especially those in long-term foster care, the
children commonly report satisfaction with foster
care and refer to the foster family as their `family'
(Fletcher 1993; Johnson et al. 1995; Gardner 1996;
Midjo 1997). The views of foster children add a
further dimension to the complex question of out-of-
home care. The children in my study, for example,
are convinced that it is in their best interest to have
contact with their family of origin but remain in their
foster family for the duration of their childhood.
What we must ask ourselves is how should the
children's views in this matter be weighed against
other interests?
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