“Nothing goes as planned”: Practitioners reflect on matching children and foster families

Kirti Zeijlmans,Hans Grietens,Erik J Knorth,Mónica López

doi:10.1111/cfs.12437

Abstract

AbstractMatching children with foster carers is an important step in every nonkinship family foster care placement. Although guidelines for matching are provided in several studies, the case‐specific context of the decision can influence the practitioners' ability to adhere to these guidelines. Therefore, this study answers the following question: “How does the case‐specific context influence the practitioners' decision‐making process regarding matching in family foster care?” Using a qualitative design, 20 semistructured interviews were conducted with practitioners matching children with foster families. Three themes emerged representing different layers of practitioners' everyday decision‐making: matching as planned, matching being tailored, and matching being compromised. The results show that exceptions are part of practitioners' daily work, either due to the belief that it might benefit those involved or because of obstacles presented during the decision‐making process. When the decision is compromised, matching practitioners lower their standards, while at the same time safeguarding the quality of the match. This proves that matching in practice is more than choosing a family, and guidelines are needed to determine what “good‐enough” matching should entail.

Highlights

Nonkinship foster care placements start with a matching decision, in which a practitioner decides which available foster carer will look after the foster child (Strijker & Zandberg, 2001)
Some studies provide guidelines for making matching decisions: Van Dam, Nordkamp, and Robbroeckx (2000) provided practitioners with a comprehensive list of characteristics found to be important in matching decisions; De Maeyer (2016) developed the Assessment Questionnaire Foster care Situations ‐ Revised to assess the willingness and preparedness of foster carers to care for different types of children; Ter Meulen and Vinke (2017) developed a matching manual; and Moore, McDonald, and Cronbaugh‐Auld (2016) created a computer algorithm to assist matchers in their decisions
The existing theory is mainly normative, whereas the practice of matching is more likely to follow the bounded rationality model: practitioners adjust their decision‐making process to deal with the complexity of the matching decision and are likely to use simple but effective heuristics to choose a foster family for a child

Summary

Introduction

Nonkinship foster care placements start with a matching decision, in which a practitioner decides which available foster carer will look after the foster child (Strijker & Zandberg, 2001). Studies on matching, which link together children and family characteristics, have shown a negative predictive value on placement success for the following variables: a narrow age difference between the foster child and other children in the foster family (Boer & Spiering, 1991), a mismatch between child's behaviour and carers' parenting style (Doelling & Johnson, 1990; Green, Braley, & Kisor, 1996; Strijker & Zandberg, 2001), and a discrepancy between carers' expectations and the reality after the child's placement (Doelling & Johnson, 1990). A major finding from the literature review of Zeijlmans, López, Grietens, and Knorth (2017) was the recurrent mention of

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