We all end up lucky or unfortunate. We get lucky with the parents that love and care for us, and unfortunate with the ones who do not want us, or don’t care for us. For foster kids, they go through several houses with several different families. Sometimes these families are not the ideal family, and there is abuse and neglect in these homes. Foster kids never really get a break until they are adopted by a loving family. Sadly, they usually are more unfortunate than lucky. Treating foster kids poorly and placing them in bad homes just to get your job done is not okay. The foster care system is failing kids badly, because they are more emotional, scared, and most have developmental issues because of what they have been through. According to many authors the statement about foster care systems failing is true.
Most children’s first words are “Mama” or “Dada.” So what happens to the children who are ripped from their homes, from the only life they have known? The foster care system has been taking children from their homes since 1912, but has it really done any good? Sadly, “40 percetn of these children put into out-of-home care facilities never return to their parents. More than half will be away for at least a year and the majority will have multiple placements, some in as many as 15 different homes” (Horrors of the Non Home). Is what the foster care system is doing really helping these children or are they just setting them up for failure? Although many people feel that the foster care system is the best solution, many nationwide organizations feel that family preservation efforts are more necessary for today’s society.
Protecting the child and provide an opportunity in which they will live a close to normal life is the goal. But with so many children in foster care and so little workers, children can be over looked. How can a child live in foster care their whole life? “It has been long stated and strongly held belief that foster care must not be a way of life for children, but rather that it is intended as a short-term treatment measure which, for the children’s welfare, must eventuate in their return to their parents or in legal adoption” (Kline,1972,p.51). Children eventually need to be put into long term, permanent homes. In the hopes that they will grow up and know unconditionally
Studies have shown that thirty percent of children in foster care remain in care for more than two years. The longer children stay in care the more placements they are likely to experience. More than half the children who enter the foster care system will be moved to a different home in their first six months. It is also found that children care for more than two years will experience about three different placements. Nearly all of the moves have nothing to do with bettering the well being of the child. Many of the placements are done to carry out the systems policies and other placements are done if foster parents don’t meet the child needs. Children are less likely to be moved many times if a foster family is prepared to meet the child 's challenging needs. The foster care system is also in need of more social workers that will ensure that the child is placed in a good family so that they are not moved several times. Plenty of placements are also done if the child is initially placed in short-term care but needs to be moved to long term. However, the more changes a child experiences decreases the chance of them returning home or being adopted. There are many children that are stuck in the foster care system because they do not have a biological family or an adoptive
The foster care system is setup to provide needs and protect children who have been neglected or abused. The main goal of the system is to take the children out of dangerous homes, and relocate them to a safe home, and to hopefully reunite the children with their biological families. While they are in foster care, their life should be greatly improved. Help should be given to those who are struggling with mental and emotional disabilities. Life skills should be taught to the children in preparation for the future. Foster care is meant to normalize the child’s life as much as possible and give help where it is needed. Although the intent of the foster care system is protecting neglected children, it may be causing
The pro-choice/pro-life is a major argument in politics in the United States today. However it is not so simple as pro-choice and pro-life. Pro-choice has been coined to mean that women should have the right to choose abortion and it should be a legal option. Pro-life has been connected with the banning of abortion and looking at a fetus as a life so abortion is basically murder. However this pro-life view has gotten very convoluted. Often times recently people who believe in pro-life do not care about the child after they are born. Their lives are not cared for past birth. Pro-birth is a new term has been made for people who believe in the banning of abortion but not any of the legal aid to help the children and their families after the child is born. With the introduction of the term “pro-birth” pro-life’s meaning is slowly evolving. It is not only pro-life but “pro-woman, pro-adoption,
Sometimes, parents are unwilling, unable, or unfit to care for their children. They often make poor choices that lead to their children going into foster care. Foster care is the temporary placement of a child in a new home. Today, I will be explaining what foster care is, the effects of foster care, and the process of adoption after a while of care. On any given day, there are about 482,000 children in the foster care system. My hope for the future is that people can learn more about foster care and realize how big of a problem this actually is. Being involved with the whole system changed how I thought about it and I now realize just how important the matter is.
Foster parents can have an impact on the lives of a foster child by giving them a safe place to stay where they can feel loved and cared for. Foster parents can also provide the love and support that these children need especially if they came from an abused or neglected home. According to (Hasenecz, 2009) there have been several shocking stories about children being abused and neglected while in foster care or even worse reports of social workers who knew of the abuse and neglect and failed to report it or do anything about
In addition to the maltreatment of children in foster care, another issue that arises is that children are moved from one foster care home to another on an average of every six weeks (NCANDS, 2012). With the changes in the caregivers of children in foster care experience, the more likely they are to exhibit oppositional behavior, crying, and clinging. With that being said, in 2012, 23,396 youth aged out of the U.S. foster care system without the emotional and financial support necessary to succeed. Nearly 40% had been homeless or couch surfed, nearly 60% of young men had been convicted of a crime, and only 48% were employed. Seventy-five percent of women and 33% of men receive government benefits to meet basic needs. Fifty percent of all youth who aged out were involved in substance use and 17% of the females were pregnant (http://ccainstitute.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=25&layout=blog&Itemid=43). In the U.S. 397,122 children are living without permanent families in the foster care system. 101,666 of these children are eligible for adoption, but nearly 32% of these children will wait over three years in foster care before being adopted (AFCARS report, No. 20). Pulling a child out of their home to place them in a foster care service with these types of statistics is unsettling. How would any of these findings promote the “best interests of the
The foster care system shatters like broken glass and there is no repair for broken glass. Permanent damage can only be fixed with drastic solutions, redesigning the system is the method to follow. Foster parents go through hardships and trials while trying to adopt children. Children need stability and the parents willing to give them that they cannot be with forever. A reason for a shattered system is the result of a shattered admissions process. There are no various perspectives within the admissions decisions or after. Moreover, becoming a foster parent is too simple. Basic background checks and home visits are not enough for today’s society. Taking a natural parent's right away directly when their children are taken away is a solution.
Helping someone find a good home for foster children might be a difficult task to do, but it's not impossible. The work it takes could be long and extensive, but with the help of a good social worker, will always get done. Every year millions of children get placed in foster care, social workers are often overwhelmed trying to find adequate foster parents. Although some foster parents are caring for these children for the wrong reasons; there are still some good foster parents that are caring for the child, to benefit the child.
Joseph A. Doyle Jr. (2007) discusses, “Children investigated for abuse or neglect are not tracked over time in a systematic way.” (p.1584). If the foster system does not efficiently track the wellbeing of these children, it makes it difficult to provide all the necessary support for them. Providing a program that will help track, transition, and counsel these children will greatly impact the overall improvement of the foster system.
Foster care is a system in which a child under the age of eighteen, is placed in a temporary home away from one’s parents due to physical or mental neglect. Children from as young as a few days old to teenage years are placed in foster care every day. The amount of children in the system affect how needs are met and how high these youths are placed on a need of special care for problems that were developed before and while in the system. Most of which occur because they are abused and that is why they were taken away. Foster care is an escape for those being mistreated. It gives a chance to do things that maybe would not be possible if stuck in the situation that originally caused such problems. Foster
The most common psychological problems developed by these children are ADHD, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and bipolar disorder. Many children suffer from attachment disorders from their foster families when taken in at a young age. Removing children from their home has proved to be traumatic to the psychological development of the child, thus creating a tough decision for child protective services when children cannot be taken in by family members (Lohr & Jones, 2016). Researchers have found that children who are in foster homes or congregate homes are more likely to be put on psychiatric medications including antianxiety, antipsychotics, stimulants, and