REUNIFICATION – ‘A REALITY OR AN IMPOSSIBLE DREAM?’: THE PERSPECTIVES OF SWEDISH CHILD CARE AND FOSTER FAMILY SOCIAL WORKERS

The aim of this qualitative study was to reflect upon the perspectives of Swedish childcare and foster family social workers about current reunification services rendered to the biological parents of children placed in foster care. The study examined how service delivery and environmental factors could actually affect the outcome of reunifying foster children with their biological parents. Eight semi-structured interviews were conducted over the duration of one month among four childcare social workers, rendering services to the child and their biological parents and four foster family social workers rendering services to the foster parents. These social workers where employed in 4 out of 7 foster care agencies in the Gothenburg region. An additional interview was conducted with one biological parent who’s children were previously removed and placed in foster care and after a duration of 1 years were reunified back into her care. The data obtained from the interview with the biological parent were used for illustration purposes only as we could not draw any conclusions as this was an unrepresentative sample but provides insights for both the researchers and the readers. Data obtained from th