article from Mobiel 3, june/july 2001

Trillium, future perspective on foster care

Trillium Project: Innovation and Quality improvement Foster care

In the late nineties the report ‘Spearheads Improvement Foster Care’ was written. It described the outlines of the project: Innovation and Quality improvement Foster care 1998-2001. In this report five parts were mentioned for which a coherent quality policy had to be developed: a view of foster care, the placement and counselling, working methods and the development of various forms of foster care, training and education and organisation.

The project is called Trillium. That name was derived from the wood plant Trillium which blossoms in the spring with white leaves and sometimes a hint of purple and pink. The green leaf and the flower each consist of three leaves. The plant is rare, needs attention in order to blossom and grows slowly. When the Trillium is planted it takes a while before it catches on. When that happens, the plant does well. The name was chosen because the three leaves symbolise the three parties that are involved in foster care: children, parents and foster parents.

Trillium is not unrelated to current developments in youth care. That is why linking up with the innovating projects in youth care is important. The project strives for foster care organisations, social workers, foster parents, foster children, parents and other people involved with foster care to give shape to the future of foster care together.

The Foster Care project wants to realise four aims in three years time:

1. In 2001 there has to be professional foster care;
2. This form of professional youth care has to be well integrated in the total volume of youth care;
3. For all important tasks and work in foster care quality requirements, methods or protocols will have to be developed and tested in practice;
4. These quality requirements, methods and protocols need to be described and recorded in documents, making the work of foster care visible, testable and concrete.

In order to make this comprehensive project manageable, a plan of approach has been written based on the report "Spearheads Improvement foster care". In this report the project is divided into seven project sections: View, Education, Methods and differentiations, Quality, Access, Care programmes and Policy information.

It is carried out according to the ‘increasing insight’ method. Knowledge and insights that were gained in a certain phase or in one of the project sections, are used in a subsequent phase or in another project section. By not recording everything beforehand, an active process is strived for where current developments and growing insights are co-determining the final outcome of the project. It is also assumed that with this way of working there is space for input from the various parties involved in foster care.