The Professionalisation of Foster Care in Norway

Abstract

In Norway, as elsewhere, child welfare services have long prioritised placing children in foster homes over residential care when children cannot live with their parents, to ensure upbringing in family settings. Today, it is also stated in the law that child welfare services must always consider whether anyone in the child's family or close network could be chosen as foster parents. The idea has been that kinship foster care can safeguard the child's cultural identity, continuity in social networks, and family connections. Parallel with the prioritisation of foster care and kinship foster care, foster care has become increasingly professionalised. In the Norwegian context, the possible unintended consequences of increased professionalisation have been minimally addressed. This article aims to contribute to vitalising this discussion about some of the unintended consequences professionalisation may have for safeguarding the values associated with foster care in general, and particularly for kinship foster care. For our discussion, focusing particularly on economic conditions, we draw on both our own and others' research related to foster care. Using concepts from sociological theory on different rationalities or logics as a basis for action, we illustrate and discuss how instrumental rationality and the field logic of child welfare have increasingly influenced the conditions for foster homes.