Foster Parents' Understanding of the Foster Child's Perspective

Socio-emotional outcomes for children placed in care are more positive when foster

parents have a secure state of mind regarding attachment and are able to think about the

child's unique psychological perspective (Dozier, Stovall, Albus & Bates, 2001; Schofield &

Beek, 2005a). One aspect of parents' thinking about the child has been conceptualised as

mind-mindedness (Meins, 1998) and is measured by the proportion of mind-related

comments made when a parent is asked to describe their child. The first study examines

whether foster parent's mind-mindedness and attachment perceptions, amongst other child

and foster parent characteristics, are positively associated with the foster parent-child

relationship and the child's emotional and behavioural outcomes.

The study found that foster parents with higher mind-mindedness had foster children

with fewer behaviour problems and this relationship was enhanced by foster parents having

positive attachment perceptions. Moreover, foster parent mind-mindedness was not related to

the quality of the parent-child relationship, except when parents had positive attachment

perceptions. Regarding the child's placement characteristics, the number of previous

placements the child had experienced predicted the child's emotional and behaviour problems

and the age at which the child was placed predicted the quality of the foster parent-child

relationship. The best placement predictors of both outcome variables considered together

were the age at which the child was placed and short term placements.