Fostering and the Adult Offender
| DOI | 10.1177/026455058403100203 |
| Date | 01 June 1984 |
| Author | Ruth Forrester |
| Published date | 01 June 1984 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
48
Fostering
and
the
Adult
Offender
Ruth
Forrester
Probation
Officer,
Aldershot
Can
the
success
of
the
Kent
Professional
Fostering
Scheme
in
providing
alternatives
to
institutional
life
for
delinquent
adolescents
be
repeated
in
Probation
practice?
’It
is
bad
enough
hvmg
with
one’s
own
adolescent
children,
who
ever
would
conceivably
want
extra
ones’
Nancy
Hazel
My
own
preoccupation
with
fostenng
began
six
years
ago
when
a
man
on
probation
committed
suicide.
He
was
a
lone
parent
and
his
young
daughter
was
placed
by
a
social
worker
with
a
family
who
lived
on
a
local
‘sink’ estate.
I
had
never
met
any
foster
parents
before,
and
this
family
did
not
conform
to
my
notions
of
fostering.
They
lived
in
the
centre
of
a
’difficult’
council
estate,
and
the
husband
had
a
manual
job,
yet
they
were
able
to
cope
with
the
entire
range
of
difficult
children
and
delinquent
adolescents,
not
from
any
specialist
training,
but
simply
from
their
experience
as
parents.
These
foster
parents
became
close
friends,
and
as
the
years
passed,
I
watched
with
amazement
the
variety
of children
that
they
were
able
to
contam
and
improve
at
little
cost
to
the
local
authority
who
paid
only
subsistence
allowances.
In
common
with
most
probation
officers,
the
Aldershot
team
deals
with
homeless
offenders,
for
whom
the
choices
are
bleak
and
placements
are
often
those
of the
last
resort.
In
the
last
two
years,
the
team
has
placed
several
young
offenders
with
these
foster
parents
with
so
much
success
that
I
have
felt
considerable
enthusiasm
to
see
the
beginnings
of
a
properly
orgamsed
and
funded
scheme.
Despite
these
feelings,
I
realised
that
theoretical
and
practical
problems
existed.
The
major
difficulty
in
utilising
the
concept
of
family
placement
is
that
the
imagery
of
traditional
fostenng,
that
of a
quasi
parent/child
relationship,
mtrudes
everywhere,
and
this
is
an
inappropriate
and
dangerous
concept
for
an
adult
scheme.
The
major
practical
consideration
is
that
of
attracting
and
retaining
sufficient
people
to
take
on
the
task.
Both
these
problems
are
dealt
with
by
the
new
literature
of professional
or
reward
fostenng
which
has
appeared
in
the
last
two
years.’
I
In
early
1983,
1 obtained
a
small research
award
which
gave
me
the
opportunity
to
consider
the
literature
of
reward
fostermg,
to
visit
existing
projects,
and
to
discuss
the
possibility
of
a
fostering
scheme
for the
Probation
Service
with
experts
in
the
field,
and
now
I
have
completed
the
study,
I
feel
that
there
is
sufficient
evidence
to
attempt
a
pilot
demonstration
project
for
adult
offenders
using
the
experience
of
pioneering
schemes
run
by
social
services
departments
and
voluntary
bodies.
The
Kent
Experiment
One
of the
major
concerns
of the
1970’s
in
social
work
practice
has
been
the
development
of
community-based
alternatives
to
institutional
care
for
delinquent
adolescents,
and
the
most
radical
innovation
has
been reward
or
professional
fostermg,
pioneered
by
Kent
Social
Services
Department.
This
development
was
informed
by
research
and
practice
in
Sweden
and
the
USA,
and
marks
not
only
a
fundamental
change
in
the
care
of young
offenders,
but
also
a break
with
traditional
fostering
methods.
The
notion
of
financial
reward
had
been
specifically
condemned
by
the
Curtis
Committee
in
1948;
fostering
was
seen
as
a
resource
for
young
children
needing
substitute
homes.
The
Kent
Family
Placement
Scheme
was
started
m
1975
and
sought
to
act
as
a
demonstration
project
to
show
that
almost
any
adolescent
could
live
in
the
community.
The
project
has
the
following
major
features.
1.
The
assumption
is
made
that
ordinary
people
in
their
own
homes
can
offer
more
effective
and
cheaper
service
to
adolescents
than
the
ti amed
’expert’
in
the
institution
2.
The
foster
parent
is
not
a
quasi
parent
to
the
adolescent,
but
a
supporter
and
helper.
The
breakdown
of
a
placement
is
less
catastrophic
than
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