Significant Considerations When Matching Foster Families and Children With Migrant Backgrounds: Reflections of Social Workers in Norway and Sweden

ABSTRACT Child welfare services in Norway and Sweden proclaim the importance of considering continuity in the child's upbringing and ethnic, religious, cultural and linguistic background when placed in foster care. Drawing on seven vignette‐based focus group discussions with social workers in Norway (12 participants) and Sweden (14 participants), this paper explores social workers' most significant considerations when matching children with migrant backgrounds and foster families. Our analysis shows that the social workers' matching can be seen as a complex and analytical process, which includes considerations of a variety of aspects related to the child's needs and wishes, the parents' wishes, the foster carers' abilities and the child welfare services organisation. The social workers stressed, for example, that assessments of cultural continuity in matching processes need to be individual for each child. In practice, the social workers' matching processes often include compromises. Continuity in cultural, ethnic, linguistic and religious background was considered important; however, they emphasised other care needs as more pressing and therefore a priority. This was closely linked to a situation with a significant shortage of foster families. We conclude that there is a risk that children's rights and needs in relation to their cultural background are not fulfilled when the social workers lack choices.