Abstract
M.A. (Counselling Psychology)
Foster care is an increasingly important phenomenon to understand considering the increase in orphaned children and the simultaneous increase in the need for alternative placement. This is especially necessary within the South African context which is estimated to contain 3.7 million orphaned children. While the experience of foster children has been widely researched and is well-represented in the literature, the experience of foster parents is, to my knowledge, sparse. Studies on the impact of foster parents on their foster children have been conducted, but little research as to the experiences of foster parents has been pursued. The current qualitative study is concerned with the experiences of foster parents as well as the retrospective experiences of independent youth that were previously foster children. It is important to note that the experiences of these two stakeholders are interconnected. The experiences of foster parents and youth were discovered by means of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). This approach seeks to understand the experiences of others through discussion and dialogue. A technique known as photovoice was utilised to facilitate discussion among the participants. Recruitment was conducted by means of purposive sampling and participants were encouraged to share their foster care experiences. The results indicated three main themes. These included the fleeting nature of foster care, the...