ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to compare the state support of foster children in fifteen countries. One way of collecting statistics on foster care payments and numbers is through national accounts. The foster payment survey was designed to be answered quickly by a telephone call to a fostering agency in the respective countries. The reason for undertaking a cross-national comparative study of foster care allowances was to evaluate the adequacy of foster care allowances in the United Kingdom. The nature of residential and foster care provision was outlined with the historical antecedents of the service, the legal and administrative framework of services, recent trends, and research on residential and foster care. There were a number of possible indicators that could be used to convert the value of foster care support into a common monetary denominator: exchange rates; purchasing power parities; or as a proportion of average earnings.
