Charlotte Newcombe Scholarship Application (Autobiographical Description)

Ashley is a young woman like many in today’s society born in 1985 to a single, teenage mother. However, her story is a success story. Therefore, she survived, although all odds were stacked against her. Due to her mother’s inability to provide for her, the Florida Foster Care System was her home from the tender age of 3 until her adoption at the age of twelve. During that decade, she resided in 14 different foster homes along with her brother. During this period, her brother and other children endured an abusive life which included beatings with a wooden paddle, starvation, made to drink homemade hot sauce, molestation and verbal abuse which led Ashley and her brother to attend a different school each time their foster home changed. She witnessed the tragedy of her uncle being shot and she experienced her own tragedy when thrown from a moving vehicle.

Just over a year ago I was homeless, pregnant, and sleeping in a tent on the grassy median next to the beach in Waikiki. Twelve years of hard drinking, two years of shooting meth, a failed marriage, abusive relationships, and losing custody of my oldest child brought me to this self-centered existence. I was battling depression and struggling to stay clean and sober. I did not see a future for me and feared I would lose my youngest child to CPS. I couldn’t let that happen. I had to get help. I reached out and on December 2, 2013 I entered the Salvation Army Family Treatment Services (SAFTS), a residential drug treatment facility in Kaimuki. My journey to recovery had begun.

As I read through the final chapters of Beam’s book, I felt both hopeful and disheartened. I feel that the original premise or goal of the child welfare system is to ensure that children have a family. A family that is capable of appropriately caring for a child and providing them with unconditional love. Pat O’ Brien and Chester Jackson’s program, You Gotta Believe! resonates with this goal. There homeless prevention program addresses a principle issue of foster care that the system has not properly addressed, so it seems. According to Pat, an estimated 50 percent of the current homeless population consists of individuals that were once in care. Pat and Jackson saw a need to address the damaging aspects of growing up in care, by implementing

Though I never entered foster care as a child and therefore, did not consider this topic directly related to my childhood; I see things differently now. The largest common denominator for the existence of foster care and the primary reason why children get placed is extreme poverty. Although I have gone hungry myself here and there in my life, and I also have encountered financial hardship throughout, it appears as really nothing compares to the histories of these families. The traumas they have endured living through despair and darkness of these circumstances is not easy to put into words. My research took me to different genders, different cultures, and different extremes of personal history. It was really heartbreaking to find out these facts via individual memoirs because it felt like they all sat in the middle of my room, up close and personal. What I do know now without a doubt is that I can clearly relate to the raw emotions which back up any human trauma out there. Any of these emotions are what connects humans all over the world; it gives people the key to relating to one another, especially in the space of suffering, as it will demonstrate through the call for and usage of foster care.

Twenty-one year old Claudia Felder lives in Chino, California in a lovely home, with three sweet dogs, and most importantly, a family. One would never think that this well off young lady was once living a life inside foster care. She entered the system when she was just three years old, when most preschoolers were busy having play dates and learning to color within the lines. Claudia’s earliest memories instead were of her mom being beaten in a motel room. After that experience, Felder entered the foster system and stayed there for the next ten years. With not enough foster families in the system, she was bounced around wherever a bed was available. Her lack of a consistent foster

Diehl, Howse, &Trivette (2011) describe such traumas as child abuse and neglect, domestic violence, and the death of loved ones as traumatic events. The general youth population will experience one event; but youth in foster care generally will have exposure to two or more types of trauma. Youth also lack a sense of stability due to 85.6% of foster care clients experiencing two placements or

Foster care is a program that is beautiful and lifesaving. The government has worked hard to make it an opportunity for children to access a better life and a brighter future. However, it is also a program riddled with flaws and injustices of many kind. Many have been denied a support system once they graduate out of foster care. Some entered foster care after suffering from sexual abuse, yet had dismissed court cases because they did not have enough physical evidence to properly accuse their abuser. Another major problem riddling the foster care system is the lack of mental health care for children entering the system that have been through intense amounts of trauma. This issue is very prominent, yet it receives little recognition from the

Foster care is a multifaceted service. It serves children who have experienced abuse or neglect at the hands of their birthparents and families, and their foster parents. Children in foster care may live with unrelated foster parents, with relatives, with families who plan to adopt them, or in group homes or residential treatment centers. Foster care was designed to intervene on behalf of the children during their time of crisis, with hope of reuniting the children with their families in a safe, stable and loving environment. Some children remain in foster care for extended periods of time. Many “age out” and go on to live on their own. This research looks

UTSA Social Work Assistant Professor Dr. Alfred G. Pérez’s research is distinct. As a youth who aged out of foster care, and a past child welfare practitioner, Perez’s research is influenced by his own professional and lived experience.

In the journal article, “Foster Care Youth Share Stories of Trauma Before, During, and After Placement: Youth Voices for Building Trauma-Informed Systems of Care”, they discussed people’s stories about the trauma in their life before, during, and after foster care placement. 19% of current foster care youth show clinically significant posttraumatic stress symptoms. (Kolko et al., 2010) Complex trauma includes youth exposure to multiple kinds of family trauma, such as physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, as well as neglect and domestic violence. Over 2,000 children and youth who lived in foster care, over 70% met the criteria for complex trauma. One third of foster alumni reports some maltreatment during foster care. Trauma scores are the highest for young

In conclusion, Lee explores a challenging topic in her article, revealing an area in which America is truly failing her neediest children. The article impacted me most because I want to work in the foster care system, helping children and trying to keep them from falling through the cracks, like many of the children in New York City’s foster care

Other health problems arise when the trauma from past experiences such as abuse or violence in the home cause long term effects in the children. The needs of children in foster care are multifaceted and the problems are exacerbated when the resources in the community are scarce and when the service system is fragmented (Halfon, Berkowitz, & Klee, 1993). Due to the complexity of their problems and the degree of vulnerability, a well-trained and

This inability to cope with their child’s intellectual or developmental disability often leads to improper care, and in extreme cases, abuse. Aside from the abovementioned causes, a small percentage of placement is due to particular environmental factors such as financial need, inadequate housing, or chronic unemployment, but poverty frequently contributes to the crises that require children to be placed in foster care (McDonald). While the overall goal is to reunite these children back with their families, sometimes that option isn’t feasible and while some children are fortunate enough to gain kinship care, others aren’t as fortunate. “Foster care includes a wide variety of placement options including emergency shelters, diagnostic centers, foster boarding homes, kinship foster homes, agency-operated boarding homes, group homes, group residences, child care institutions and residential treatment centers” (FC & EC). With so many options for placement that a child can be exposed to, it provides various dimensions that can impact child development, especially with those with past trauma history. The type of residence a child is placed in, whether it’s kin or non-kin, how many children are already in the residence, the type of staff and the support services provided all play a crucial role in their developing growth and overall success in the system.

Although Absalom Kumalo is raised in a rural culture, he runs away to the city as the valley of his childhood dies. However, he gets caught in the culture of the city which turns him away from his knowledge of what is right and what is wrong. He realizes he is not the man whom he is supposed to be when he is charged with the murder of Arthur Jarvis, and goes on the path to resolve his identity for his own sake. Absalom Kumalo was raised in a modest environment, living his childhood as the son of the Umfundi. He was taught to value honesty, integrity, and many other Christian values.

The United States was established on the basis of freedom. After finally gaining freedom from the tyrannical Great Britain American’s made sure they would never be stripped of their freedoms again by establishing our government and rights like freedom of speech, the press, and religion. Even with these rights in the past the United States was still full of inequality, with African Americans and women not having the same rights as white men. After fighting for their rights these minority groups have gained many rights that our founding fathers probably never would predict they would have. Regardless of these rights gained there is still inequality in our country, even in the 21st century. The Constitution is made up of several amendments that have been enacted over time to provide equality regarding race and gender. None of these amendments have ceased the problem of inequality between men and women in the workplace. In the United States the average woman earns seventy-seven cents to every dollar earned by a male for equivalent work. In this paper I am going to argue that if I were able to make a change to the Constitution I would add an amendment that guarantees equal pay for men and women in any working position.