Publication year: 2011
Source: Children and Youth Services Review, In Press, Accepted Manuscript, Available online 22 July 2011
Gregory, Hollin , Michael, Larkin
Recent debates about the care provided to looked-after children have been characterised by uncertainty about the differing roles and responsibilities of foster-carers, birth parents, and social workers. To explore the assumptions underlying these uncertainties, we drew upon Foucauldian Discourse Analysis and compared the discourses used by professionals (social workers in a group discussion about foster placement breakdown) with those used by policy-makers (in the Governmental green paper ‘Care Matters’). In both cases, a discourse based upon Attachment Theory was used to explain why placements succeed and fail, and to predict the repercussions of failure. However, there was a key difference…
Highlights: ► Discourses used by professionals were compared with those used by policy-makers. ► In both cases, an Attachment discourse was used to explain placement outcomes. ► Social workers constructed birth-parents as parental, and themselves as team-mates. ► ‘Care Matters’ downplayed birth-parents’ role, and saw social workers as parental. ► Neither saw foster-carers as parental. No role included attachment relationships.