title: The potential for successful family foster care: conceptualizing competency domains for foster parents.
abstract: The potential to foster successfully starts with developing and supporting competency in 12 domains: providing a safe and secure environment, providing a nurturing environment, promoting educational attainment and success, meeting physical and mental healthcare needs, promoting social and emotional development, supporting diversity and children's cultural needs, supporting permanency planning, managing ambiguity and loss for the foster child and family, growing as a foster parent, managing the demands of fostering on personal and familial well-being, supporting relationships between children and their families, and working as a team member. This article describes each domain and reviews relevant research to help guide the assessment of practicing and future foster parents.
authors.affiliation: University of North Carolina-Greensboro, Greensboro, NC, USA.
authors.forename: Cheryl
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Buehler
authors.forename: Kathryn W
authors.initials: KW
authors.lastname: Rhodes
authors.forename: John G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Orme
authors.forename: Gary
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Cuddeback
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D018864:Cultural Diversity; D004493:Education; D005195:Family Relations / Q000208:ethnology; D005581:Foster Home Care / Q000592:standards*; D006293:Health Promotion; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D006801:Humans; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D010348:Patient Care Team; D011361:Professional Competence; D012449:Safety; D012637:Security Measures; D012931:Social Environment; D012947:Social Work; D014481:United States