The needs of foster carers are complex as children in their care often present with complex emotional and behavioural difficulties. Previous studies have examined foster carers’ perceptions of the unmet needs of the children in their care but there is a lack of knowledge regarding carers’ own goals when seeking professional help. The present study seeks to fill this gap by examining the goals that carers who are looking after children with emotional and/or behavioural difficulties set at the start of an intervention, the Reflective Fostering Programme, designed to support them. Twenty-six foster carers were asked to complete a Goal-Based Outcome Measure (GBOM) before starting the programme. Qualitative content analysis revealed five main categories of goals. Three were child focused (child’s relationships, challenging behaviours and emotions) and two were foster carer focused (personal goals and goals related to participating in the programme). By understanding the types of goals meaningful to foster carers, interventions can be developed to better target their specific needs and allow outcome measures to be more closely aligned to their goals. Results are discussed in terms of implications for the development and evaluation of interventions to support foster carers and the children they look after.

寄养者的需求很复杂，因为他们所照顾的孩子经常会遇到复杂的情感和行为困难。先前的研究已经检验了寄养者对孩子在照顾中未满足需求的看法，但是在寻求专业帮助时，他们缺乏关于照顾者自己目标的知识。本研究试图通过检查照顾者的目标来填补这一空白，这些照顾者是在干预开始时设定的旨在支持他们的，具有情感和/或行为困难的儿童的，即“反射性养育计划”。在开始该计划之前，要求26名寄养者完成基于目标的结果评估（GBOM）。定性内容分析揭示了目标的五个主要类别。其中三个以孩子为中心（孩子的人际关系，挑战性的行为和情感），其中两个是寄养者关注的重点（个人目标和与参与计划有关的目标）。通过了解对养护者有意义的目标类型，可以制定干预措施，以更好地针对他们的特定需求，并使结果衡量指标更符合他们的目标。就对发展和评估干预措施的影响进行了讨论，以支持寄养者及其照顾的孩子。