Perhehoitoa paikantamassa: Ikääntyneiden perhehoito formaalin ja informaalin rajalla

Abstract

This dissertation examines adult foster care for older people in Finland. In particular, the interest is in the long-term, commission agreement based form of adult foster care in which an older person moves permanently into the home of a foster carer who is not related to them. The theoretical background of this dissertation is based on two concepts - domestication and semiformalisation - through which the hybrid nature of adult foster care between public and private is analysed. Adult foster care is examined as care policy but also as everyday life experiences of care work, resilience, time and space. The dataset of article I consists of the Adult Foster Care Act, the Adult Foster Carer Act and official records of the Finnish parliamentary plenary sessions. The dataset of articles II-IV consists of twelve thematic interviews of foster carers. In addition, article III utilises a research diary and a short questionnaire. The policy analysis method called WPR-method and thematic content analysis were used in analysing the data. The results show that the reasoning behind the development of adult foster care is based on the growth of older people’s care needs and the deinstitutionalisation policy. The assumption is that receiving care in a home environment is best for the older people themselves and also for the public economy. However, for foster carers the domestication of care in a semi-public space without being formally employed by the public sector was challenging in several ways. Problems and tensions of foster care work were related to the uncertainty of care fee payment and especially to the lack of information and trust between the foster carer and the municipality. On one hand, foster carers felt they were not treated as equals compared to formal care workers. On the other hand, this was also a liberating factor as foster carers felt they could give high-quality care without haste and act as a ‘good carer’. The results show that the focus of the development of the adult foster care model should shift from cost-effectiveness to the improvement of the whole support system and on the equal treatment of all foster carers.