Kinship Foster Care From the Point of View of a Social Worker, an Employee of the Social - Legal Child Protection Autority.

Foster care is being discussed nowadays mainly in connection with conception of planned closing down of children´s homes due to which its enforcement rises. One form is kinship foster care. Relatives of the child become its foster carers. It is beneficial for the child to grow up in a wider family, at the same time some drawbacks of this form of foster care arise. The aim of the thesis was to look into the area of foster care from the point of view of a social worker of the social and legal child protection municipal office with extended autority of the South Bohemia Region. Two partial goals were set. The first one was to find out what the trend in relative foster care is, based on the records of the municipal offices with extended autority of the South Bohemia Region in the years 2005-2010 and the Czech Republic in the same period of time. The second one was to find out what the opinions on kinship foster care of the social workers of the social and legal child protection offices are, those who are in charge of foster care in the South-Bohemia Region. Strategy of qualitative research was chosen. To achieve the first goal, method of secondary data analysis and technique of content data anylysis were applied. To achieve the second goal, questioning method and semi-controlled dialogue technique were used. The first research data file consisted of foster care families registered in the years 2005-2010 with the social and legal child protection municipal offices with extended autority of the Czech Republic. The second one consisted of social workers of the social and legal child protection municipal offices with extended autority of the South Bohemia Region. Three research issues, which were gradually answered in the debate, were defined. Based on the research, two assumptions were determined at the end of the thesis. No.1 ´Social workers consider kinship foster care a suitable solution for social orphans.´ No.2 ´Social workers have critical attitude towards kinship foster care.´ At the end of the thesis, it is proposed to use it in training for social workers as well as in education of students of health and social care courses. The study could be also used in dispute over creation and expansion of professional services for foster carers and relatives