The Concept of Family: Perceptions of Children in Family Foster Care

Abstract

Forty-three children in family foster care and 42 matched controls completed the Kvebaek Family Sculpture Technique, choosing figures to represent family members and placing these on a board to indicate how close they felt to each. Each child's ideal family representation was also obtained. The children in care consistently related to their foster family, rather than their biological kin, as "family." There was no evidence that these children in care preferred to live with their biological family. These findings are limited to children in long-term care, and may be further restricted because the family foster care sample consisted of children aged eight to 15 who had no disabilities. Nevertheless, the results have implications for family foster care policy.