Alicante Needs Foster Families

Situations of abuse, substance use, or family conflict lead public administration to seek accommodation for many minors outside their homes. Most of these children end up in residential facilities like the 'Antonio Fernández Valenzuela' Provincial Home managed by the Alicante Provincial Council. However, for younger children, experts recommend foster families, which are unfortunately scarce.

In light of the International Children's Rights Day celebrated every November 20th, the University of Alicante (UA) has organized an informative session focused on foster care. Ignasi Navarro is in charge of the event, as well as being the director of the UA's Research Group in Developmental Psychology and Criminology.

More than 200 minors in the province of Alicante are currently in foster families. However, this number falls short of the real needs, as many minors "are ideal candidates for family fostering but cannot be due to the lack of volunteer families," explains the lecturer.

Generally, for children under six years old in need of foster care, their destination should be a family rather than an institutional resource. This is because "at early ages, they absorb a series of behavioral patterns necessary for future social relationships," something in which parents play an essential role—even if the bond is not biological. This need clashes with reality, as there are not enough families willing to take on this fostering role. This Wednesday's session, taking place from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the hall of the UA's Faculty of Education, aims to address this situation.

The first part of the event, of a general nature, will explain how foster care programs work and the benefits they bring to both minors and participating families. In the second part, with a more personalized approach, interested individuals will have the opportunity to speak directly with foster families and representatives of collaborating entities, who will share their real experiences and answer specific questions.

Navarro acknowledges that families have many questions about the process, which they often do not dare to share publicly, so it has been arranged for Wednesday's interactions to be conducted individually.

The duration of foster care is one of the frequent questions, so it is explained that these can be permanent or temporary. The latter are usually motivated by some kind of intrafamily conflict and have a maximum duration of six months, during which social services assess the situation to see if the minor can return to their original home. This temporality leads Navarro to advise families "not to try to fulfill their parental desires by joining this program. They must be clear about their fostering role, as this will help them manage the return of minors to their original families."

The foster care program is carried out by the Department of Social Services, Equality, and Housing, although the public body relies on the associative movement to inform and recruit families interested in collaborating. Some of these entities include ZARPAR, GAIA, AVAF, Xiquets, and Diagrama, representatives of which will be present at this Wednesday's session.