Adoption &Fostering, Ahead of Print.
Research shows that outsourcing family foster care through independent foster care agencies (IFAs) has become common in several countries, such as the UK and Sweden. In Sweden, a majority of local authorities use IFAs. However, knowledge is limited regarding the experiences of professionals who use these services. Social workers, managers and administrative support staff in five public child welfare authorities were interviewed, and their attitudes towards using IFAs and the rationale for their use were thematically analysed. In short, three main themes were identified: (1) A reluctance towards IFA use due to quality, cost and contracting concerns; (2) Use of IFAs due to in-house organisational failures and the availability of IFAs; and (3) Finding competence and resources. The findings indicate that social work professionals tend to prefer in-house foster care and are reluctant to use IFAs as their use is complicated by market regulations and ‘information asymmetry’. However, as previously shown, IFAs may resolve recruitment issues and in some cases also provide the competence and resources needed in complex cases. This article discusses these findings in relation to the concepts of New Public Management and analyses the foster care market as a quasi-market.Plain Language SummaryIt has become common in several countries to use companies or non-profit organisations to recruit and support foster carers, so it is necessary to understand why and how those working within foster carer services experience this process. Social workers, their managers and other staff working with foster care within five different local authorities were interviewed. The interviews were written out. The researcher read the transcriptions several times and looked for commonalities and differences in statements related to the research questions. These were marked and then ordered into smaller codes, which were in turn sorted into more general themes. Those interviewed were often reluctant to use companies and non-profits to recruit and support foster carers because they could not be sure that they would deliver a good service, and they thought it was expensive and complicated to organise. Participants also often believed the use of companies and non-profit organisations for these purposes was caused by problems within their own organisations and that the companies and non-profits could sometimes provide services and foster carers that their own organisation could not. In some cases, the participants thought the use of the companies or non-profits was a positive way of finding the right competence and resources for children in care. The social work professionals included in this study appeared to prefer to find and support foster carers themselves and to avoid turning to companies and non-profits in most cases because of the problems with quality and costs they experienced. Still, many have found it useful or necessary to use them to solve problems with recruiting foster carers and to provide extra support for children or foster carers in some cases.