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Piloting the Mockingbird Family™ in Australia : Experiences of foster carers and agency workers
McLaren, Helen Patmisari, Emi Jones, Michelle Skinner, Chris Mather, Simone
McLaren, Helen
Patmisari, Emi
Jones, Michelle
Skinner, Chris
Mather, Simone
Abstract
Given that the number of children and young people needing care keeps rising and fewer people are becoming foster carers, efforts to support carers and workers in foster caring are essential. This paper considers the experiences of carers and foster care agency workers involved in Australia's piloting of the Mockingbird Family. With a view understanding experience, data were collected via focus groups with carers and agency workers (n = 20) involved in piloting, implementation and evaluation. Deductive analysis applied the theory of experience to generate understanding of experience, as both intrinsic and extrinsic dimensions to capture strengths in the Mockingbird Family's foster caring networks. These dimensions of experience included collective passions of carers and workers; experiential change over time; collective experiences as a moving force; and experiences as transformational. Understanding of experience associated with the perceived strengths of the Mockingbird Family, including strategies to promote strong professional relationships between carers and workers, is an important element in strengthening environments of children and young people in care. Safe and stable environments are crucial for wellbeing.
Keywords
Australia, carer attrition, foster care, Mockingbird Family, placement stability
Date
2024
Type
Journal article
Journal
Child and Family Social Work
Book
Volume
29
Issue
2
Page Range
411-421
Article Number
ACU Department
Faculty of Health Sciences
Collections
Relation URI
Source URL
Event URL
Open Access Status
Published as ‘gold’ (paid) open access
License
CC BY-NC 4.0
File Access
Open
Notes
© 2023 The Authors. Child & Family Social Work published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.