Organisation of child’s custody in foster families: preparation of foster parents to assume custody of children

Abstract

Child’s custody and guardianship facilitate implementation of child’s rights to protection, provision and involvement, when his/her parents are incapable or unwilling to assume this duty. One of the priority forms of child’s custody includes foster families, where an attempt is made to ensure such conditions which are needed for his/her physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development (Vaiko gerovės valstybės politikos koncepcija, Official Gazette, 30 05 2003, No. 52-2316). The goal of this article is to discuss peculiarities of child’s custody in a foster family. The first part deals with preconditions for foster family emergence, mechanisms of its establishment and financing; the second part of the article presents data of the empirical research, which reveal expression of foster parents’ competences fostering children.