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There is a big difference between the type of foster care in the West (short term) and the practice we are encouraging in China.
Most children in the west come into care through some form of abuse in the past, and may have contact with their natural families. Children in China, many of who are disabled, come into care through abandonment because of their disability or gender, so their traumas are very different. They have no contact with their natural families so we look for permanent families through long term foster care.
We use long term foster care (permanence) for placing children with disabilities. This is because the foster parents need added support and training to be able to care for the child. We needed to encourage attachment and bonding between the child and it's substitute parents as well as continue to monitor and support the families.
In China there is a great motivation to foster long term, as many couples have had their only child and want to raise another - often a girl if they have had a son. To do this in China with the large amount of numbers we feel that adoption could lead to people working in isolation and a higher breakdown and abuse rate.
Many families after a period of three to five years of foster care have adopted the child placed with them.
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