Support services and recruitment of foster families: a systematic literature search with categorization
Mapping review
|Updated
The Division of Health Services in the Norwegian Institute of Public Health was commissioned by the Norwegian Directorate for Children, Youth and Family Affairs to conduct a systematic literature search with categorization of empirical research about support services and recruitment of foster families, including guidance and supervision of foster homes.
Key message
The Division of Health Services in the Norwegian Institute of Public Health was commissioned by the Norwegian Directorate for Children, Youth and Family Affairs to conduct a systematic literature search with categorization of empirical research about support services and recruitment of foster families, including guidance and supervision of foster homes.
Methods
We conducted a systematic review (of the format ‘systematic literature search with categorization’). In October 2019 a research librarian searched in major databases for empirical research published 2013-2019. We also undertook searches in reference lists and grey literature (i.e. not published in formal, commercial channels). Two independent reviewers screened all retrieved records and considered relevance relative to the inclusion criteria. The main inclusion criterion was that the publication regarded support services and recruitment of foster families.
Results
We identified 4370 unique references. Of these, 110 studies met the inclusion criteria. We grouped these studies in five main categories:
- Follow up (24 studies)
- Guidance (17 studies)
- Supervision (6 studies)
- Recruitment (12 studies)
- Other relevant studies (51 studies)
Among the 110 included studies, there were 20 literature reviews. We also identified three potentially relevant ongoing studies.
In this systematic literature search with categorization we have not read the publications in full text and hence not critically evaluated the studies. We have only categorized the references by type, based on the abstracts.
