The Health and Well-Being of Foster Families
A Special Issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601) belonging to the section "Health Care Sciences".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 March 2027 | Viewed by 367
Editors
Interests: foster care and out-of-home care; foster carer wellbeing; child and family health; trauma-informed care; culturally responsive practice; prenatal substance exposure
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Foster families play a vital role in caring for children and young people who cannot live safely with their birth families. While research has largely focused on outcomes for children in out-of-home care, far less attention has been paid to the health and wellbeing of foster families as a whole. Foster care is inherently relational, with the wellbeing of carers, children in care, carers’ biological children, and extended or kinship networks deeply interconnected.
This Special Issue aims to collate multidisciplinary contributions examining the health and wellbeing of foster families in all their diversity. We welcome contributions focusing on foster carers, children and young people in care, carers’ biological children, kinship and extended family members, and broader caring networks. Submissions may address physical and mental health, emotional wellbeing, resilience, trauma, cultural safety and identity, social connection, and the impacts of policies, services, and systems. Contributions that foreground lived experience, strengths-based approaches, and culturally responsive practice are particularly encouraged.
The aim of this Special Issue is to advance understanding of factors that shape foster family wellbeing and to inform policy, practice, and service design that support sustainable, nurturing foster care environments.
We invite original research articles, reviews, and other scholarly contributions offering empirical, theoretical, or methodological insights from diverse national and cultural contexts.
Prof. Dr. Stacy Blythe
Dr. Nicole Peel
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- foster care
- foster families
- carer wellbeing
- child wellbeing
- out-of-home care
- kinship care
- mental health
- family health
- trauma-informed care
- social determinants of health
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