FOSTER CARE: YES OR NO? THE DECISION-MAKING PROCESSES OF SOCIAL WORKERS RENDERING FOSTER CARE SERVICES

Decisions made by social workers play a crucial role in foster care. Despite the challenging conditions under which social workers work in South Africa, they continue to make decisions to place children in foster care. There is a lack of research on the decision-making processes of social workers rendering foster care services. A need to understand what decisions are made and how these decisions are made prompted this study. A qualitative approach was applied using the multiple case study design, with explorative, descriptive and contextual designs. Most social workers make decisions using a mix of intuition and empirical evidence, justifying the child's best interest as the basis for their decisions. This study contributes to the knowledge of the decision-making processes of social workers rendering foster care services. This knowledge can enable social workers to be consciously aware of their own decision-making processes during all the phases of rendering foster care services, facilitating transparent decision-making, with the best outcome for the foster child and his/her biological and foster family.