Abstract
This paper describes the quality of the support practices of care workers in a Children’s Home by means of a network
involving a Children’s Home and the children’s birth families, schools, and consultation center, using models of
different phases. We constructed a model of the framework of the support system around a Children’s Home and
interviewed eight care workers from three Children’s Homes. We focused on the networks involving the Children’s
Home and the children’s birth families in the analysis, because this networks contain various points, like complexity of
relationships between children and their family, impacts on children’s daily life and difficulties of homecoming, and it
is needed to analyse this network in detail. We constructed a model that describes the actual support practices. This
model describes the changing roles of the care worker as a support giver in daily practice in the Children’s Home and
as a mediator for each network. Finally, we describe the support a care worker provided in an actual case and the
dynamics of the support practices using the model.
