Testing the Limits of Foster Care: Fostering as an Alternative to Secure Accommodation

A research study into the issue of secure residential care versus foster care, looking specifically at the Community Alternative Placement Scheme, established to offer foster care to a group of young people who had hitherto been placed in residential care because they were thought to present difficulties too great for family placements to be appropriate - and hence were beyond the limits of foster care. The CAPS scheme offered training and a professional salary to foster carers, and proved that foster care can provide added value in the welfare of the child.