State Social Services and Adoptive Parents: Strategies of Interaction

Abstract

This study reflects upon problems in social policy towards orphans, with a focus on interactions between potential and actual foster parents and the staff from state social services. The concepts of policymaking processes and political cycles are used to analyze state policy towards children. The relations between professional social workers and (unprofessional) foster parents are described by referring to the framework of critical theory. State social policy is regarded as a link fulfilling two goals: reinforcing the legitimacy of state power and ensuring the public remains loyal to the authorities. Social policy is analyzed as a series of political conflicts. Public policy as a process includes the following stages: the identification of problems, agenda setting, policy formulation, policy legitimation, policy implementation, and, finally, policy evaluation. Critical theory prefers to see the professional social worker as an agent of public control and a representative of power. Thus, both approaches identify public policy as a tool of power and control rather than help and care. This case study includes policy analysis, a qualitative analysis of the media. ten in-depth interviews with foster mothers from Moscow and the surrounding region, as well as nine expert interviews. According to the results of our study, five strategies can be identified in the interactions between professionals and foster parents: 1) state attempts to control the family, 2) the attempts of parents to control the authorities by blaming them for problems, 3) the cooperation of officials and foster parents as equal partners, 4) a strategy of ignorance where the care authorities claim to be 'just doing their jobs', and 5) genuine care for the children and families from the side of the state.