Based on findings from their recent study, Ian Sinclair, Kate Wilson and Ian Gibbs discuss the criteria which foster care needs to meet if it is to fulfill the requirements of looked after children. Analysis of 150 postal questionnaires from foster children showed five main preoccupations: the care they received from their foster families; the relationship between their feelings for their foster and their birth families; their contact with and prospects of return to their birth families; the predictability of their care careers and their own say in them; and the ‘ordinariness’ or lack of it of their lives. Despite these common preoccupations, the children varied widely in what they wanted (eg whether they wanted to return home).
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