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J Child Fam Stud (2016) 25:3771–3779
DOI 10.1007/s10826-016-0529-z
ORIGINAL PAPER
Empathy as an Essential Foundation to Successful Foster Parenting
Jennifer M. Geiger
1
●Megan Hayes Piel
2
●Cynthia A. Lietz
3
●Francie J. Julien-Chinn
3
Published online: 2 September 2016
© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016
Abstract Foster parents play a crucial role in providing
safe and stable homes to maltreated children placed in out-
of-home care and in doing so are tasked with many chal-
lenges. Understanding how foster parents are able to over-
come the challenges inherent to fostering, to continue to
foster children long term, and to maintain a healthy level of
family functioning provides insight into key retention and
recruitment efforts. Twenty foster families, all of whom had
fostered over 5 years and rated as healthy functioning on the
Family Assessment Device, participated in in-depth inter-
views to discuss the strengths their families relied on that
allowed them to demonstrate resiliency. Empathy emerged
as an essential foundation in the resiliency process. Foster
families demonstrated empathy in three specific ways. First,
was with the children they fostered, second was with the
biological families of the children, and third was with the
child welfare workers. Foster parents also attributed the
empathy their children (fostered, adopted, and biological)
demonstrated to the experience of being a foster family. The
findings from this study have implications for both the child
welfare workforce and foster families.
Keywords Empathy ●Foster parents ●Foster care ●
Resilience ●Fostering
Introduction
Despite the benefits of fostering, families who care for
children in out-of-home care acknowledge the stress asso-
ciated with this role. Several studies exploring the chal-
lenges faced by foster parents have found that families
report that they experience difficulties navigating the child
welfare system, lack needed services and supports, and at
times report feeling undermined or undervalued (Brown and
Calder 1999; Chipungu and Bent-Goodley 2004; Heller
et al. 2002; Swartz 2004). Many studies describe difficulties
related to fostering children with high levels of trauma
(Brown 2015; Ko et al. 2008; Pecora et al. 2009), children
experiencing mental health problems (Stahmer et al. 2005),
and children with disabilities (Brown and Rodger 2009).
Moreover, foster parents often have to manage difficult
relationships with biological families, and at times struggle
with conflicted emotions of wanting reunification, but
feeling at odds based on their views on what is best for the
child (Hudson and Levasseur 2002).
Brown and Calder (1999) studied the challenges that
foster parents perceive. In qualitative telephone interviews,
49 individuals from 30 foster families were asked to
describe their challenges in response to the question, “What
would make you consider stopping foster parenting?”
(p. 482). The following four clusters were identified: (1)
problems with the child welfare department, (2) perception
of low importance, (3) safety, and (4) stress and health.
Geiger et al. (2013) reported similar findings in their mixed
method study examining the factors impacting foster par-
ents’decision to continue fostering. From a sample of 649
foster parents, the authors identified challenges such as
difficultly navigating the child welfare system, decreases in
the reimbursement rates and in the number of quality
*Jennifer M. Geiger
geigerj@uic.edu
1
Jane Adams College of Social Work, University of Illinois at
Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
2
School of Social Work, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA
3
School of Social Work, Center for Child Well-Being, Arizona
State University, Phoenix, AZ, USA
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