The aim of this guide is to help frontline practitioners, including social workers, support workers, and their managers, as well as policymakers at national level, to understand the issues they might face in developing and delivering foster care in an Islamic context.
Two major challenges are often faced when promoting foster care as a potential alternative care solution in non-western countries, and Islamic contexts in particular. The first is linked to religious beliefs, cultural values and social norms, and the second is more a question of how foster care is conceived of and promoted in practice.
To help address these challenges, this practice guide has been developed. The aim of this guide is to help frontline practitioners, including social workers, support workers, and their managers, as well as policymakers at national level, to understand the issues they might face in developing and delivering foster care in an Islamic context.
There are two key documents attached:
Part A explores how policy and practice differ in certain Islamic contexts. The section is informed by the work of five members of Family for Every Child seeking to develop foster care in five different countries – Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkey – where Islam is the majority religion and thus a major influence on legislation, social policy and social work practice, although to different extents and in different ways. Foster care in these countries is increasingly becoming a service that governments and their partners are looking to develop, or at least explore, as a family-based alternative to care in large institutions, which many now realise cannot meet children’s basic developmental needs and is often harmful to them.
Part B and Part C are published in a second guide.
- Part B provides a summary of the key stages in the foster care process, and, at each stage, key elements of what our members consider to be good practice.
- Part C includes a range of practice techniques to support different aspects of foster care practice, and learning materials which explain further how to implement these aspects.
