Balancing the high personal costs and rewards in providing foster care: Experiences of non-related foster carers in Australia

• Individuals are motivated to become foster carers for reasons of altruism and desires for family. • Foster carers however also experience contradictory expectations from the State and significant personal costs. • The findings from this study suggest that foster carers are delicately balancing high stakes risks and rewards. • This suggests an alternate way to understand foster carer recruitment, retention and placement stability. • It questions the sustainability of the Australian foster model, suggesting revisiting parenting or professional foci. Foster care is the preferred care option in nations such as Australia for children who cannot safely reside with their parents or within their family or community networks. Concerningly, all Western jurisdictions face chronic foster carer shortages and challenges in providing stable placements. This study explores why foster carers are motivated to care and how they experience their caring role with the intention of understanding how these experiences impact placement and carer recruitment and retention. Foster carers (N = 16) were interviewed in-depth regarding their expectations and experiences of foster caring and their narratives were analysed thematically, using interpretative content analysis. Results revealed consistent themes of foster carers motivations around altruism and desires for family however foster carers also experienced contradictory expectations from the State, significant personal costs arising from lack of voice, disrespect from paid professionals and fear the child in their care may be suddenly removed. These findings suggest commitment to foster carer are requires balancing substantial risks and rewards. The analysis provides an alternative narrative for understanding foster carer recruitment, retention, and placement stability and invites renewed consideration of foster care in terms of parenting and professionalism.