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CLINICAL WORK WITH CHILDREN IN FOSTER CARE SOMETIMES FEELS as difficult as trying to sustain contact through an unreliable Internet network. The network in which the child lives can be disrupted at any time, without warning or explanation. Connections are broken and sometimes reappear with the same unpredictability. In this context it is essential that the therapists have a network of support to contain the anxiety, frustration, and sadness and to share success, for the network can disappear as easily in good times as in bad. A Home Within is an organization that builds those networks for clinicians. It is a non-profit organization that embodies the belief that we must and can provide lasting, caring relationships for children in the foster care system and that providing supportive relationships for clinicians is the key to their success with the children. It is the only national organization devoted exclusively to improving the emotional wellbeing of foster youth. By insisting that children must have a single, experienced therapist to work with them “for as long as it takes,” we begin to create an atmosphere that provides and protects relationships. We ask that therapists across the country volunteer their professional time to provide a continuous relationship for a foster child, thereby underscoring our appreciation of and commitment to helping provide those relationships
to this vulnerable group of children. Even though the therapeutic relationship may be the most stable relationship in a foster child's life, it is not an end in itself—its relational purpose is to help the child build more and better relationships—with adults and other children and eventually with lovers, partners, and their own children.
Leaving the foster care system for a moment, when working with children in relatively stable families the networks to which the family belongs do not always figure prominently in our clinical work, particularly if those networks offer a safe and r