ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to develop an analysis of the experience of parents of very young children who are placed in residential care. It explores the character of the co-operation between parents and professionals. Based on the agreement of the parents with regard to the legitimation of the intervention and to the competence of the professionals, one can identify principally three different strategies of handling the respite foster care relationship: opposition, delegation, and collaboration. The relationship of parents with the foster carers follows what the parents have experienced previously with other professionals, and it will be in accordance to mental representations and experiences they have had themselves in foster environments. The respite foster care relation is the social relation included in all respite foster systems like boarding schools, family foster care or residential foster systems. This relation puts parents, professional foster carers and the children residing in care into contact with each other.
