Group Work for Foster Carers Caring for Children with Complex Problems

Group work provides foster carers with an important means of receiving support and psycho-education. It gives them opportunities to explore different ways of understanding and managing foster children. Kim Golding and Wendy Picken describe the use of two different types of groups developed by the Primary Care and Support Team in Worcestershire. The first is based on a parent-training programme. Group facilitators help carers to consider different management techniques and think about their use with the complex children they are looking after. Within these groups considerable interest was shown in attachment theory as a way of understanding the often perplexing behaviour displayed by the children. This led to the development of a second group focused specifically on their attachment needs. Routine, practice-based evaluation has been carried out and is reported here. The limited evaluation suggests that group interventions can help carers to increase their understanding of the needs of foster children and their skill in managing these children on a day-to-day basis.