Experience of implementing foster care in some foreign countries

Abstract

It is indicated that child homelessness is a very urgent problem in many countries of the world. Unfortunately, Ukraine is not an exception.The history of the development of patronage in Ukraine has a long history. Foster care sometimes existed as an alternative form of education for orphans and children deprived of parental care, and then disappeared for decades. Perhaps this was the reason for such a low level of legislative regulation.A foster family is a form of temporary placement of children who have found themselves in a difficult life situation, with the aim of rehabilitation, change of situation in the native family, and in case of impossibility - transfer for adoption. The purpose of this form of education is to realize the child’s priority right to life and upbringing in the family, which are enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. A foster family is an alternative form of upbringing, which is used when, due to objective reasons, the application of adoption or guardianship is impossible. A child is transferred to a foster family on the basis of a civil law contract, and in some countries an employment contract is additionally concluded between the foster carer and the child placement service.It is noted that a child under foster care is a child who has not reached the age of sixteen, who is cared for by providing all the necessary conditions for life and development, a person who is not the child’s father, but who is responsible for the child. The appointment of a certain person as a foster carer, as well as the deprivation of this status, is documented. At the same time, social agencies are obliged to provide potential foster carers with information about their rights and the procedure for appealing the decision.The article describes the experience of foster parenting in some foreign countries in which legislative regulation of foster relations characterized by a rather high level (the UK , France, Sweden). Practice shows that patronage in Ukraine has a narrow range of applications due to significant gaps in the law, and certainly not conducive to combat the serious problem of street children as. According to the analysis of legal regulation of foster parenting in some foreign countries and foster care in Ukraine , recommendations indicated the positive elements that could usefully borrow to improve legal regulation of foster relations in Ukraine.