Collaboration in Family Foster Care: Interactions between Adults Who Care for Foster Children

Collaboration between the adults who take care of a foster child is essential. But, is collaboration actually included in the daily practice of parents, foster parents, and caseworkers? In this article, we will present the outcome of a qualitative study who took place in Quebec and in England. It aims at understanding collaboration between the adults in the foster child’s environment by exploring, with the help of the eco-systemic theoretical framework, the perceptions of their interactions. The data analysis allows us to identify different interaction scenarios between the actors. We observe three noncollaboration scenarios that are characterized by either an absence of contacts between the members of the system (EVERYBODY FOR THEMSELVES), an absence of reciprocity in the interactions (ONEWAY) or by power games.(CONFLICT). On the opposite, in the INCLUSIVE scenario, the actors exchange regularly, the interactions are more mutual and the partners influence each another. In the following pages, we will describe the nature of the different interaction scenarios and their incidence on the level of collaboration between the actors.