Each child is entitled to a caregiver who can support the family’s efforts toward a successful reunification. The child welfare team acknowledges the child and parent as members of a family unit and helps the parent to remain in the parent role while the children are in foster care. Out of respect for the continuing nature of the parent-child relationship, it is important to continue to refer to the child’s parents as parents rather than “birth parents” or “biological parents.”
The modifiers “birth” and “biological” may be used later if parental rights are terminated to distinguish the parents of origin from the pre-adoptive or adoptive parents. In the same vein, the families who offer care for the children are known as “foster caregivers” or “relative caregivers” rather than “foster parents.”

Foster caregivers, like other members of the child welfare team, need to maintain an attitude toward the child’s family that shows:

• respect as a person;
• nonjudgmental support;
• respect for, and attention to, their feelings;
• a genuine interest;
• understanding; and
• respect for culture.

Intervention with most families will be most successful when the child welfare team maintains this attitude and shares the belief that most parents want to meet the needs of their children and have the capacity to change and grow.