The foster care act and related public policies : a particular focus to their relevance to attract more individuals to foster

Abstract

Foster Care in Malta has been in existence since 1996 and since then it has continued to evolve through various state initiatives. In 2007 the foster care act came into force with the aim of promoting and regulating this service. However, in spite of this development, there is still an irnbalance between the number of children that need foster care and available foster care placements. In this perspective, this long essay sets out to discuss the milestones relating to policy and legislation that have had the most impact on foster care. It discusses how these milestones can facilitate more individuals to foster and what hinders individuals from fostering. However, the main focus is how these policies and legislation can be improved to help bridge the present lacuna of a shortfall in sufficient foster carers. This study suggests that foster carers decide to foster for various reasons relating to their goodwill. Unfortunately, there are factors that include the children's biological parents, finance, lack of awareness and lack of permanency that hinder people from volunteering to foster. It transpires that Government can do a lot to improve the current situation, especially in relation to financial assistance provided to foster carers, improvement in the current legislation, extending family friendly policies to foster carers, investing further in the foster care sector to enable constant campaigning, enabling permanency when it is in the best interest of the child and the enactment of a comprehensive child care act that is fully compliant to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The long essay concludes that knowing the benefits of foster care, Government should constantly keep it on the national agenda and should strive to facilitate the life of foster carers by supporting them where necessary. By adopting these suggestions Government will help bridge the present lacuna of a shortfall in sufficient candidates for foster care, as more people will be willing to become foster carers.