Foster Care System In Ashley Rhodes-Courter's Three Little Words

1. What can we do to fix foster care and what can we do to make foster care easier in the world? What can we teach children that are in the foster care system before they age out?

Yes foster care is an essential system used to provide loving homes to children, but unfortunately these systems have become broken and can no longer keep kids safe under their care. Everyday children are being placed in foster homes facing abuse, unloving parents, and even death. The system has only progressively gotten worse leaving behind children traumatized to a point where no amount of love or therapy can fix them.

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.

Every year, 2 million children come into contact with the child welfare system due to investigations of parental abuse or neglect (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2004). A recent policy implemented by Anytown’s Department of Job and Family Services pertains to the issue of child endangerment. It states that, “any household having one or more documented offenses of domestic violence, child abuse, or drug or alcohol related offenses committed by the mother, father, guardian, and/ or caregiver, will result in the removal of any child or children from the home.” The child will be placed in the care of the state until documentation can be provided on the offender, whereas they are “offense free” for a period of no less than six

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.

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

It will be 5 years this June that I have been in the Foster Care System, I can still remember walking home from school smelling the fresh breeze of air, all the sweaty kids running to their cars waiting to head home from school, or to the ice cream trucks that all had the same foul smell of cheese and takis that followed every breeze that came near. There was a black car, the one time is what we referred them to, this was something that was not out of the ordinary to see around my home. But today was different, two men wearing business suits stepped out of it and went into my home. I stayed back just to get a glimpse of what was going on. I see my mom rush out of the house and into the car, little did I know this would be the last time I would see her as a

Have you ever thought about how it feels to be ripped out of the only place that you know as home? To get no explanation of why your parents just did not want you anymore? Not a lot of people think about this. Usually, the only people that do think about this is children that are experiencing or have experienced this problem. The children’s rights website stated that, “On any given day, there are nearly 428,000 children in foster care in the United States.”() All of those children have to be reminded daily that the foster care system has a lot of problems in it. Most of these children are put in some of the most unbearable situations. The foster system has numerous problems that I think can and should be solved. This includes: children not having an education, foster parents and children not having a connection, children facing both sexual and physical abuse, financial problems, and children aging out of the system. There are many more problems with the foster care system but I think that these are the main problems that should be addressed and solved.

Our foster care system was developed in the 19 century, and it all started with Charles Loring Brace taking in homeless children. The system has come a long way since it started by passing laws, such as the child abuse prevention and treatment act, that protect children, and among another things, however, it still has problems. Some of the major issues they have are children placements, preparing them for adulthood, the rules and regulations with the foster parents, and drug abuse among teens in foster care.

Imagine growing up with the fear of constantly being abused by your parents, or not knowing the next time that your caretakers would feed you. Believe it or not, that is the reality for many children living in the United States, which is why the foster care system was established. The foster care system was created to find homes for children who are unable to live with their biological parents, for reasons such as death, abuse, or an unhealthy home environment. Today, there are around 500,000 children residing in the system, and this figure is growing daily (American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 2013). There has been some controversy about how the government handles the foster care system, as some believe that there

But she was very generous with the beatings, which often bordered on torture,” (Simon, 2014). This just shows how cruel people can be to those they do not know, and they don’t really care about them at all. This woman treated the children kindly, while the foster kids were treated horribly. This woman just did it for the money. An abundance of people will do this, just for the money and not care for the foster kids at. This is similar to the book They Cage The Animals at NIght, the main character Jennings was in a horrible home with an abusive woman, who was in it for the money. These people need to be stopped, the abuse, using them and the torture. These kids just want to feel wanted, there parents left, some by accident and some willingly. These kids need a place to actually call home, not some person who will treat thema like an animal, who feels nothings. These children are still growing and don’t need to be abused so young, while they are so innocent

Jeannette was neglected, beaten, and starved all throughout her childhood. She lived without a home, money, and enough food to get by and also managed, against all odds, to fight for her ambitions. The Glass Castle, a memoir by Jeannette Walls, depicts the hardships of her upbringing by her nomadic, undependable parents, yet also her ability to persevere into a successful and aspiring young woman. As a young girl, Jeannette was always travelling due to her unstable parents and living on edge in fear of her parents’ outbursts. When she was the tender age of five, she actually recalls thinking fondly of her dad, always being his little “mountain goat”. She describes his ever changing and creative plans for their future; however, also remembers

In 2014 there were 650,000 kids in foster care, that’s almost twice as much as Kansas City’s population of 467,007. Roughly 58,000 of these children were placed in an institution or group home instead of a traditional foster home. While these children will age out of the system 40% of them will find themselves homeless, 50% will have substance addiction, 25% will have not received a diploma or GED, only 3% will have received any college degrees and 17% of the young women will be pregnant. Even before they are blessed with their so called “independence” the average child in foster care will have an IQ 20 points lower than a child not in foster care and 33% of them will have moved elementary schools more than 5 times. The foster care system in

Over 28% of children in state care are abused while in the child care system. Once placed in foster care, a child is not always guaranteed to be safe from abuse. Ashley Rhodes-Courter was abused in one of the foster homes she was put in. She was starved and beaten almost on a daily basis when living in that home. Courter went through fourteen different foster homes and attended nine different schools in a span of nine years. Although Ashley Rhodes-Courter was not in the most nurturing environment as a child, she later used her experiences to become successful.

The day I got taken away was a day I remember like no other. It feels like it just happened yesterday. The police came to my friend’s house, where I was staying for the weekend and came to pick me up. I went home to get some clothes so I didn't have to wear the same ones for a couple of weeks, lucky for me it was in the summer so I didn’t have to worry about what people thought. When I went into my social worker's office they explained to me what was going on, and then I began to cry because I felt like I was never going to be able to go home again I felt as if I had lost both of my parents forever. And my biggest fear was losing both of my sisters also.