Changing considerations of matching foster carers and children: A scoping review of the research and evidence

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Highlights

  • This is a Scoping Review on matching children and carers in areas of foster care and adoption.

  • The review reveals matching has been a practice and research interest for over 100 years.

  • The research has however been intermittent and reveals changing foci on matching elements.

  • Further is required in this area.

Abstract

Background and objectives

The ‘fit’ or ‘match’ between foster or adoptive children and their carers may be instrumental in determining the outcomes for children and the sustainability of their placement.

Understanding components most likely to produce a successful match will assist professionals to support carer families and place children optimally. This Scoping Review investigated research relating to matching children needing care and adult carers. It sought to understand the extent of previous research, note key areas of matching interest and theoretical trends and identify gaps.

Method

Four databases, ASSIA, CINAHL, PsychInfo, and SocIndex, were searched for references in March 2020. Eligible studies included those that reported explicit or implicit matching elements, children in need of care and systematic data collection and recording. Research quality was not included in eligibility criteria.

Results

The systematic search returned 2802 results. After removing duplicates, eligibility screening and a close reading, only 31 studies published over a period of 81 years were deemed eligible. These studies demonstrate limited scholarly engagement with the concept of matching and changing foci on matching elements that shift from objective features to subjective features, and then to inter-subjective.

Conclusions

The area of matching carers and children is under-researched, fragmented and lacks consistent or rigorous theoretical frameworks. An increased understanding of matching would assist practitioners in child placement and support for adoptive and foster parents. This would contribute to the broader issue of placement sustainability and improved outcomes for children.

Section snippets

Background

Provision of quality, sustainable foster care or adoptive placements for children who cannot reside with their biological parents or extended family is a priority for child and family welfare professionals. This is important for children in all phases of foster care or adoptive processes regardless of legal status. It includes those in time limited foster care, pre-adoptive foster placements, awaiting adoption and adoptive placements. Stable placements provide an opportunity for children to

Research question and aim

This scoping review was informed by the research question: “How have matching elements been empirically studied?” Specifically, it aimed to ascertain the extent that outcomes of ‘matching’ or ‘fitting’ children to non-related carers have been previously studied. It sought to ‘map’ the existing research; that is identity key themes, areas of interest and theoretical sources and identify potential gaps. Additionally, it aimed to identify which attributes of carer households and children (matching

Method

This Scoping review was undertaken according to the method set out by Arksey and O’Malley (2005). These reviews are commonly understood as means to map academic literature - its themes, key concepts and main sources on a specified topic area (Arksey and O’Malley, 2005, Colquhoun et al., 2014, Daudt et al., 2013). This method is commonly used to inform future research where existing research is not extensive. Scoping reviews are conducted with rigour and typically include empirical studies

Results

This section is divided into two parts. The first part summarises the initial search returns, the screening and exclusion processes and final studies included in the review. It provides a summary of article populations, study origins and research design. The second part outlines the key themes visible within studies. It discusses altering primary and secondary themes regarding matching criterion and the outcomes researchers chose to report as the success or failure of the match.

Discussion

This scoping review reveals a sparsity of research regarding matching elements and their contribution to placement outcomes. The matching elements described in the eligible studies cluster easily into groups reflecting practice priorities and theoretical scholarship foci of that decade. They show evolving interest from supposedly objective features such as ‘race’ and ‘IQ’ (Chapman, 2015, Moffatt and Thoburn, 2001) to subjective concepts such as culture and appearance to inter-subjective

Limitations

This review has several limitations in relation to its search strategy and inclusion criteria. It sought to scope the extent which ‘matching’ and the ‘fit’ between carers and children has been previously empirically researched. For this reason, the search strategy did not include specific searches for grey literature. No eligible grey literature was discovered in the data base searches. All data base searches included terms regarding ‘good fit’, ‘goodness of fit’ or ‘matching’ in the title or

Conclusion

Children living in foster care represent a substantial and vulnerable portion of the child population in countries with Western-style social welfare systems. Most of these children have suffered abuse and/or neglect. Limited research into placement breakdowns suggests ‘matching’ and the effective formation of carer/child relationship is highly pertinent to placement success. Placing these children in care situations that are most likely to succeed better meets the needs of the individual

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Zoë Haysom: Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing - original draft, Data curation, Methodology, Formal analysis. Gemma McKibbin: Writing - review & editing, Methodology. Aron Shlonsky: Writing - review & editing. Bridget Hamilton: Supervision, Conceptualization.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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