Sandra Butler and Marian Charles discuss findings from a small-scale research project examining the dynamics involved in substitute family placements for young people, and assessing the processes demonstrated in fostering breakdowns in terms of the interactions, negotiations and adjustments between the respective parties over time. While briefly exploring carers' expectations of tangible rewards from these experiences, the authors concentrate on the powerful and pervasive effects of intangible rewards. These relate to carers' beliefs that love and care would be reciprocated, that young people would express gratitude, and that they would change sufficiently to fit into their substitute family. Recognising that tangible rewards alone are insufficient to retain carers' valuable services and resources on any long-term basis, the article concludes with suggestions for attending to intangible rewards as a means of maintaining carers' role satisfaction through a crucial sense of a ‘job well done’.
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