Purpose – Out‐of‐home care has been a subject for policy debate since child welfare policies were first developed. Too often the debate is marked by ill‐informed sound‐bites linking “care” with negative descriptors such as “drift” or “languish”. The purpose of this paper is...

Purpose The purpose of this study is to describe the development of the 14-item reflective fostering fidelity rating (RFFR), an observational rating system to evaluate model fidelity of group facilitators in the Reflective Fostering Programme (RFP), a mentalisation-based psychoeducation...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to consider some possible reasons for the relatively high rate in Wales of children looked after by local authorities. Design/methodology/approach Selected potential explanations for Wales having higher rates were tested against aggregate data from published...

Purpose This paper aims to describe how a sense of normalcy for young people in foster care can be critical to their well-being. Design/methodology/approach This paper reports on policy and practice efforts in the USA to promote normalcy for youth in care. The authors review policy that promotes...

Purpose – Many children who are looked after by the state have experienced adverse and traumatic life circumstances prior to being removed from their biological parents. Previous research has highlighted that many of them experience barriers to accessing psychological therapies. The purpose of...

Purpose There is little evidence regarding how to best support the emotional well-being of children in foster care. This paper aims to present the evaluation of an adaptation of the reflective fostering programme, a group-based programme to support foster carers. This study aimed to explore...

Purpose This study aims to explore how local authority child and family practitioners understood and implement the contextual safeguarding approach focusing, in particular, on what practitioners felt supported and hindered implementation. Design/methodology/approach This qualitative study drew...