ABSTRACT
This preference for expeditious adoption is therefore the result of disillusionment with foster care on two counts. The first is that family reunification is proving to be an unrealistic option for many children in temporary foster care, so these children would be better off finding a permanent home with adoptive parents; or so the argument runs. The second problem, which follows from the first, is that many children now ‘drift’ in foster care in the sense that they remain as temporary family members sometimes for years on end because reunification is unviable and adoption is very difficult under Australian law. The intuitively plausible assumption behind permanency planning is that impermanence is inherently harmful and therefore that foster
children can reach their potential only if they are allowed to settle into a stable home as quickly as possible. Given the strength of this conviction, there is a surprising paucity of research evidence to support it. Among the few studies that have systematically examined the issue is a twenty-year-old study by Lahti (1982) which included children from a demonstration project and children from a ‘regular’ foster care service. After collapsing across programme type, Lahti found that the best predictor of child well-being was a cluster of variables related to the parent’s perception of placement permanence. Irrespective of where the child was placed – with biological parents, adoptive parents or foster carers – the degree to which the child was seen by the carer to be entrenched in the family accounted for more of the variance in child well-being than any other factor. On the face of it, these findings lend support to the emphasis on placement stability, and this is certainly how Lahti interpreted her results. In her discussion, Lahti stressed the need for follow-up services ‘to assure the stability of placement’ (p. 569). It is important to recognize, however, that Lahti’s predictor variables related to attitudes and perceptions, not to placement stability per se. Interestingly, this same study also found no association between number of previous placements and child well-being, or between length of time in temporary foster care and well-being. Taken together, then, Lahti’s results may actually imply that the attitudes and perceptions of care givers are more important than the stability of the placement itself.
