96

As part of her duties, a foster mother takes care of a child, night and day, so as to provide them with the necessary resources to develop in a safe and welcoming home environment. With her family, she constitutes a foster family. The aim of this study is to show how in this context, the intricacy of family and professional spheres gradually shapes the fostering into a collective endeavor within the family. Two types of experiences support this thinking: one is based on group training and analysis of professional practices with foster mothers, the other on research conducted among forty-five foster families’ birth children. The combination of these types of experiences allows us to highlight how the various roles fit the different actors of the placement but also how the family of the foster mother, beyond “just” being involved in an encounter with a child, takes part in the work related to the fostering process.