Elena Ow-Wing Mar 27, 2015:

2nevaeva Very good references: they explain a lot. Legal guardians seem to have more rights than foster parents (in the latter case Juvenile Court makes most important decisions about a child). However, it is remarkable that both guardians and foster parents/ care givers first have to meet state guidelines and requirements for foster care placement and in some cases (when not related to the child) have to be licensed. So, these terms basically describe different levels of involvement with a child: a closer involvement if you are a legal guardian, a more superficial involvement if you are a foster parent.

In this case, only the context can provide a clue what kind of "opeka" is meant here.

Yulia Savelieva Mar 27, 2015:

Differences... between adoption, guardianship and custody (US):
http://www.fosteringperspectives.org/fpv18n2/differences.htm

between adoption, guardianship and long term foster care (US):
http://calswec.berkeley.edu/files/uploads/doc/CalSWEC/06_Leg...

Elena Ow-Wing Mar 27, 2015:

@The Misha To me, the line is pretty fine between the two. Foster care is not necessarily an evil and sometimes leads to adoption of the child by a foster parent/ parents. Foster family is not necessarily a group home, it really depends. The only consideration in favor of the guardianship is that this person from the context seems to be a child's relative. On the other hand, as far as I know, there is no requirement for a guardian to be a family member. So, you really need to be an expert in family law to understand the difference.
Anyway, I don't consider myself such an expert and don't really know which option is better in this context.

The Misha Mar 26, 2015:

Foster care vs. legal guardianship There's no need to be an expert, one only needs to pay attention and look around. Foster care in the US is by definition an arrangement mandated by the government's child services under which the child is placed in a group home, most likely with adults the child has no family relation to that are actually paid for their services and are often in it for the money alone. More often than not, the arrangement is temporary, and those are not particularly happy homes. It is a very rough equivalent of the Russian sirotskiy priyut or detskiy dom. Here, see for yourself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foster_care

Legal guardianship, on the other hand, is usually awarded to family members, however distant, or even unrelated parties that actively seek custody of the child and go into the trouble of filing and arguing a court petition to that effect. The child would then get to live in an actual home in something resembling a biological family to a much larger extent. It is generally a much gentler and more preferable solution. That's opekunstvo and it is distinctly different from the orphan asylum-like environment of most foster homes.