Child Maltreatment And The Child Welfare System Essay

Each year, an estimated 20,000 young people "age out" of the U.S. foster care system. Many are only 18 years old and still need support and services (. Several studies show that without a lifelong connection to a caring adult, this older youth are often left vulnerable to a host of adverse situations. Compared to other youth in the United States, kids who age out of foster care are more likely to not have completed high school or received a GED, they often suffer from mental health problems, many are unemployed and live in poverty, and nearly 40% become homeless.

According to the National Foster Youth institute, “More than 23,000 children age out of the US foster care system every year.”() Aging out is the process of a teens transitioning from the legal control of the foster care system, to independent living. Youth aging out of foster care should be given an extension on foster care services after the age of 18, because it provides a stable home for teens, it increases the amount of college graduates and it provides healthcare for those in need.

The foster care system in America negatively affects the lives of adolescents in the system mentally and physically. On any given day there are over 428,000 children in foster care and more than 20,000 kids age out of foster care with no permanent family; therefore, they are being left behind socially, educationally, mentally, and under developed for the real world. Foster care first started in the nineteen hundreds when Charles Loring Brace created the “Children’s Aid Society” in New York. Then later on the 1900’s, social agencies started to supervise and pay the foster children’s sponsors. However, back in foster care’s history and still today, the kids in the system experince abuse and become mentally unstable. One out of five kids

Foster care is supposed to be temporary, but for many teenage youth in foster care it is often a permanent solution. Foster care was never meant to raise children into adulthood. Even though foster care is supposed be temporary, most teenage foster youth reach their 18th birthday and become emancipated and end up living their lives without a family. Currently, 40% of foster youth in the system are between the ages of 11 and 21 (Child Welfare 3). Foster care is supposed to be a temporary arrangement in which adults provide care for children whose parents are unable to do so, due to issues within the family such as neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse, or homeless. The earliest documentation of foster care can date back to the Bible, which

Foster care: The system in which a child under 18 years old is placed in a group home, institution, or private home through a governmental or social service agency.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, every year close to 25,000 youth age out of the foster care system and are faced with cold hard realities of adulthood. This does not include the youth who leave the system, which is estimated to be another 30,000. Most adolescents anticipate their eighteenth birthday, as it brings on a new found sense of independence and most importantly a time of celebration. However when foster children reach eighteen, they begin facing the challenges of transitioning to adulthood. These children disproportionately join the ranks of the homeless, incarcerated, and unemployed. These youth are unprepared for the independent life they are forced to take on. The average age that young adults who have never experienced foster care leave their family home for good is 24, and 40% return home again at least once afterwards (Margolin, 2008). With these facts being stated, we yet expect youth who has dealt with rejection after rejection to leave “home” of the state custody permanently and fin for themselves. These youth sometimes have fewer than $250 in cash, only one-third have drivers licenses, and fewer than one-quarter have the basic tools to set up a household, let alone the skills to know what to do with the tools (Krinsky, 2010). Youth exit care with no more than a garbage bag of their belongings, finding themselves alone at the age of eighteen, with little reason to celebrate what is supposed to be an exciting milestone

Many children will average about five or six years in the system and go through four to seven homes, making it hard for the children to find stability and have a productive life. Generally, when a child moves to a new foster home, it is far away, forcing the child to pretty much start all over from the very beginning. Moving from home to home and not having that stability causes the child to have many emotions, which are often ignored by foster parents. The neglect and maltreatment by a lot of foster parents is out of control, but a lot of social workers say there isn’t much they can do. And when the children age out of the system, there aren’t that many resources for them to be on their own. Once they turn eighteen, the foster parents usually send them out on their own, making it difficult for the children to finish school. An ideal environment for the growth of children does not usually exist anymore and in order to promote continuity in the social, emotional, and developmental growth of children, there has to be people out there willing to listen.

Nationwide, nearly 397,122 children live in foster care. In California, which has the largest foster care population than any other state, the number of foster youth has tripled in the last 20 years (Source: AFCARS Report 2013) due to certain circumstance such as; physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse or caretaker inability. Welfare workers turn over at continuing high rates, and many are underpaid, poorly trained, overworked and demoralized. Foster Care system welfare lacks providing services to prepare older youths in foster care in independent living are lacking. Many youths that exited the system discuss their experience such as, being let down, lack of role models, poor training programs, and lack of basic living skills. Foster

As of today, approximately 415,000 children are in the foster care system within the United States of America, and about 22,000 teenagers age out of the system, without any assistance, or any financial support (AFCARS 2015). Without guidance, it is more than likely for a teenager to turn to selling drugs, prostitution, or other criminal activities to provide for their basic necessities. Research has shown that those who leave foster care without any stability, have a higher probability to face prison time, homelessness, and are not able to maintain a financially stable lifestyle when he or she grows out of the system. At the age of seventeen, children are kicked out of their homes, and are forced to survive by his or her own means of survival. The children are not allowed to contact previous foster families, or anyone within the system to help them transition into adulthood. The transition from foster care, to adulthood can be a difficult one, especially for children who have endured different forms of psychological and physical abuse for the majority of their lives. It is important to reach out to children in need, especially those leaving foster care without any assistance. Many of those who age out of foster care are completing their last years in high school, and on top of school, they are forced to find a job, a home, and some sort of transportation. The youth leave the foster care system with a limited work history, if any at all, and a limited education. The little

Definition of Foster Care Foster care is a temporary situation in which adults care for a child or children when their birth parents are unable to. Foster care is not for “delinquents” or problem children, it is where children who cannot be taken care of by their birth parents, go to be taken care of. Sometimes the family that has fostered a child goes on to later adopt them, but that is not always the case. There are families to just chose to foster children and open up their home as a space for the children to be safe until the find their forever home, in some situations the child is almost 18 and they just need a safe place to be until that time.

Foster care is a system were a child is put into after the parents gives them up. The child will stay in the system until he or she is adopted. If the child is never adopted they will be released at the age of 20. The children of the foster care system are there because they were voluntarily given up by the parent or taken away if the parent can't fit the role. There are many cons to the foster care system.

Though that was not until 1954, and before then, the first foster programs in the country worked more as a trading market for children who were taken from their families (McDonald, Allen, Westerfelt, & Piliavin, 1996). But with today’s laws and regulations set into place, it has become a much more trustworthy program to help children in need of protection, a home, a safe haven. The system is not as simple as a child is immediately taken from its family and placed into a new home or living environment. It is a lot more complicated and there are also many steps to the foster care system on the goals for placement of children. The best option is to hopefully keep the child with their families for as long as possible if the child is receiving adequate care, however, that is not always possible. The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Amendments of 1980 helped modify the existing programs in place prior to the 1980s with certain goals that system should try strive for: first being to keep the child in his/her home unless the circumstances made this impossible; second was trying to reunite the child with his/her biological families as soon as possible; third was adoption of the child to limit the amount of time the child was placed in temporary care; fourth was guardianship; and then if all else failed, long-term foster care (McDonald, Allen, Westerfelt, & Piliavin, 1996).

Child maltreatment is a widespread issue that affects thousands of children every year. There are four common types of child maltreatment; sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect. All of these types of abuse are very serious and can have many consequences for the children and families. The most common consequence of severe child maltreatment is the removal of that child from their home (Benbenishty, Segev, Surkis, and Elias, 2002). Most social workers trying to determine the likelihood of removal evaluate the type and severity of abuse, as well as the child’s relationship with their parents (Benbenishty et al., 2002). When children are removed from their homes there are many options of alternative housing. The

Foster Care is a temporary, out-of-home care service for children and youth who cannot live with their families (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2015). The ideal living arrangement is with relatives nevertheless, children and youth may live with unrelated foster parents. Other examples of placement arrangements include group homes, residential care facilities, emergency shelters, and supervised independent

Due to a variety of factors, former and current foster care youth are confronted with a range of challenges and limitations. The literature on these challenges and limitations agrees, young adults aging out of foster care face more barriers to success than peers who were not involved in the welfare system (Lee, Courtney, Harachi, & Tajima, 2015; Gomez, Ryan, Norton, Jones, & Galán-Cisneros, 2015; Olson, Scherer, & Cohen, 2017; Rebbe, Nurius, Ahrens, & Courtney, 2017). Among the challenges include learned helplessness, lack of confidence in transitioning to adulthood, low self-esteem, poor decision-making skills, and increased likelihood to be involved with the criminal justice system (Lee et al., 2015; Gomez et al., 2015; Olson et al., 2017; Rebbe et al., 2017).