ion, as well as the written characterization of the spectrum.
The Spectrum of Care does not appear to be a mere borrowing of standard concepts in the field of child care support. Thus, for example, the "conceptual framework" presented by Solnit, Nordhaus, and Lord (1992, pp. 3-7) does not present intervention leading to foster care as merely one in a series of family services, but as an exceptional intervention resulting from disruptions in a particular family that justify and require exceptional state intervention.
Implicit in the Spectrum of Care concept is therefore an assumption that there is no special break between intact families, for which foster care is not an issue, and disrupted families, where foster care becomes an option to be considered, and sometimes the only satisfactory option. All families may potentially move forward or backward around the spectrum, going from voluntary services to mandatory intervention, and then perhaps back to stability or on into disruption and fosterage for the children involved.
This may well be a rather accurate picture of many of the families with which the various family services deal; poor families that live a paycheck or two away from homelessness, and therefore are in constant insecurity and flux. In spite of the inclusive language about all families and all income levels, well-to-do families seldom call upon voluntary public family services; if troubled, they can afford private counselling.
But at a time when families and family values are hotly politicized issues, potential critics of the plan, particularly conservatives, may find in the Spectrum of Care a source of ammunition for charges that the intent of the proposed reforms is to blur the distinction between intervention and family services in general, and therefore ultimately extend state control over child rearing practices.
Yet the very effort of the Foster Care Committee to maintain an emphasis upon ...