Foster Care and Family Support in the Social Security System
– Foster Care
Foster care is an institution that certifies the operation of the family as an institution providing services. Placement allows a child to live with a family, different from their own, which assumes the obligation to ensure the child’s well-being, including providing food, shelter, and a comprehensive education. The Social Security System (SSS) should undertake a rigorous selection and preparation of families receiving children.
Acceptance into foster care may take different forms:
- Permanent: When the chances of the child’s return to their family of origin are considered small.
- Simple: When there is anticipation of return.
- Open or Weekend and Holidays: The child lives with an alternative family during holiday periods.
Placement does not involve the rupture of ties with the child’s family of origin. Visits are considered not only a right of parents, but also a right of minors in relation to their parents.
In both foster care and adoption, the child is integrated into a family different from their family of origin. However, in adoption, bonds of filiation are created between the adopter and the adopted child, and the child’s ties with their natural family are legally severed.
Foster care, as a legal concept, reveals the important role the family plays in dealing with situations of need and problems of other families. Both adoption and the obligation of maintenance between relatives are examples of the many legal mechanisms for the protection and welfare of the family.
The Family as a Target of the SSS
– The Family in the 1978 Constitution
The Spanish Constitution begins its chapter on Directive Principles of Social and Economic Policy by citing the family: “The public authorities shall ensure the social, economic and legal status of the family.”
The following paragraphs similarly mention the integral protection of children and mothers. It adds that parents should assist their children during their minority and where legally appropriate.
The Constitution adds other provisions of a family nature and in relation to youth, the disabled, and the elderly, stating that public authorities shall promote their welfare through a system of Social Security Services and Benefits (SSSS) that provides for their specific health problems, housing, culture, and leisure.
This forms the basic root of the SSSS for the family, based on commitments to social welfare. The content of the Constitution is fully in line with the guidelines of the European Union (EU), which has given strong impetus to the family dimension of Community policies, especially social policy. The European Monitoring Center for Family Policy has helped systematize and disseminate the actions of each State in favor of the family.
In all European countries, the executive branch has dedicated specific government communities to develop policies and actions on the family. In Spain, this falls under the Ministry of State for SSSS, Family and Disability of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs. Its task is, among other things, the analysis, development, coordination, and monitoring of programs for SSSS and the Protection and Promotion of Children and Family.
It should be emphasized that public measures of social protection include Social Security benefits regulated by the Social Security Act of 1994, which provides several types of specific benefits for the family, including benefits for dependent children under their contribution and their non-contributory benefits. Survivor’s benefits, which include pensions for widows and orphans, are also family protection instruments covered by Social Security.
– Family Support Plan
The family is the natural and privileged recipient of the SSSS, if we understand them as one of the public welfare systems in a social state that, through the administration and society, are designed to integrate and compensate citizens and disadvantaged groups and promote social welfare. Universally, all measures in each country may have a family impact.
These measures act on the family in two ways:
- Directly and Explicitly: Making the family, as a group, a recipient of services, tools, and standards.
- Indirectly or Implicitly: When the family group benefits from measures and services available, but not established to provide direct support to the family, but rather to the whole population.
a) Objectives
The possible fields of action affecting the family are many, as can be seen with the list of basic objectives set out in the Comprehensive Plan for Family Support in Spain, approved by the Government in 2001. The global objectives of the multidimensionality of shares involved in family protection include: improving the quality of family life, promoting intergenerational solidarity, supporting the family as a guarantor of social cohesion, and supporting families at social risk and in other special situations.
b) Strategic Lines
The above objectives will be realized in ten strategic lines, including income tax policy (expected to compensate family incomes based on the costs borne and promote the formation of new independent households) and improving Social Security benefits for dependent children (increase, extend the annual income ceiling for entitlement to benefits, or increase the amount of cash benefits solely for the birth of a child).