Bulgarian Foster Parents and Money: Strategies, Identity Work, and Relations With the Child

Abstract

Recent research indicates that the cost of residential care per child in Central and Eastern Europe is three to five times higher than that of foster care (UNICEF, 2024). Short‐term foster care requires an intensive initial investment, but it reduces the number of children staying for longer periods in state care and prevents longer‐term family separation. In Bulgaria, where foster care is a relatively new and loosely institutionalised phenomenon, foster parents face not only considerable structural difficulties (insecure financing, low state support, etc.) but also public accusations of using foster care children for their financial benefit. Media and popular opinion frequently describe foster parents as "treating children as ATMs." The negative cultural image of foster parents is reinforced by the widespread distrust in child protection services, which leads to accusations that children are taken away from their biological parents so that they can provide "material" and legitimacy for the existence of foster care. The present article has two interrelated aims: first, to examine the strategies by which foster parents navigate their precarious social situation. Based on in‐depth interviews with foster parents, we observe the "identity work" of foster parents, i.e., how they reconstruct their identities in response to negative public messages and institutional constraints. Second, we aim to examine the obstacles foster parents encounter in establishing and sustaining focused, meaningful relationships with the child, and how financial issues may impede this process.