relation: http://publicatio.bibl.u-szeged.hu/36067/ title: From Thought to Action: The Decision‐Making Process of Foster Parents creator: Lopez Giulia creator: Sichel Francesco creator: Sallay Viola creator: Iafrate Raffaella subject: 05.01. Pszichológia description: Although foster care represents an essential practice for helping children and families in difficult situations, nowadays, in Italy, the number of people open to engaging in this kind of care is limited compared to the real need, and agencies have difficulties recruiting new foster parents. The present qualitative study is aimed at identifying the process that leads families to become foster parents and investigating how this decision has been put into practice, with the aim of improving practices in the foster care system. A constructivist grounded theory approach was used to study the experiences of foster parent dyads in Northern Italy. The basic social process of ‘acting generatively’ was identified. This represented the inner need to act experienced by the people who approach foster care and who are guided by the desire to go beyond the self, to serve others and to take care of future generations. Six axial codes representing the six main phases in this process, characterized from a sociorelational point of view, were identified: values awareness, generative ideation, generative agreement, evaluation, generative intention and generative action. This article describes a foster decision‐making model that may help social workers in recruiting foster families. date: 2025 type: Folyóiratcikk type: PeerReviewed format: text identifier: http://publicatio.bibl.u-szeged.hu/36067/1/ChildFamilySocialWork-2025-Lopez-FromThoughttoActionTheDecisionMakingProcessofFosterParents.pdf identifier: Lopez Giulia; Sichel Francesco; Sallay Viola; Iafrate Raffaella: From Thought to Action: The Decision‐Making Process of Foster Parents. CHILD AND FAMILY SOCIAL WORK. ISSN 1356-7500 (2025) identifier: doi:10.1111/cfs.13259 relation: https://doi.org/10.1111/cfs.13259 relation: 35773413 language: eng relation: info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1111/cfs.13259 rights: info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess