Foster Care Abuse

“About two-thirds of children admitted to public care have experienced abuse and neglect, and many have potentially been exposed to domestic violence, parental mental illness and substance abuse” (Dregan and Gulliford). These children are being placed into foster care so that they can get away from home abuse, not so they can move closer towards it. The foster children’s varied outcomes of what their adult lives are is because of the different experiences they grew up with in their foster homes. The one-third of those other foster children usually has a better outcome in adult life than the other two-thirds, which is a big problem considering the high percentage of children being abused in their foster homes. Although, the foster care

As many as 75 percent of foster kids are abused while in the foster care system. (Promise2Kids) Foster children, taken from inattentive relatives and put in custody of the state, suffer once again in foster care system that was supposed to keep them safe. While being abused by their foster parents, many children are too afraid to tell anyone. Without any trusted adults to speak out for them or listen, they are forced to bear abuse for over periods of time.

Biehal, N. (2014). Maltreatment in Foster Care: A review of the evidence. Child Abuse Review,

From existing research it is proven that children have mental, physical and development issues from growing up in foster homes. These young adolescents and children do not have the proper care in fostering homes as they would in an "all average American home". These kids are open to new traumatizing experiences not usually seen if one had a stable home, and these events causes permanent damage to one 's health state. Also with the simple fact that there are hundreds of children per foster home, all with different needs, still needing the basic necessities to thrive as a human without getting the proper funding calls for malnutrition children. Now these young kids are not just getting the proper care needed but they are also doing poorly in school and with daily challenges in life generally.

“Merging educational and child welfare databases from a Midwestern state showed that only one in five of these youths demonstrated the skills necessary to pass the reading, math and science standardized tests” (Coleman, 2004). “Among youths who stayed in foster care until the age of emancipation (18 to 21 depending on the state), more than one-third earned neither a high school diploma nor a GED (Courtney & Dworsky, 2005). Foster care children

Many children encounter difficulties which could include abuse. Neglect, and physical and sexual abuse just to name a few, are types of abuse that unfortunately cause children to be taken from the home and placed into foster care. Removing them from the home can be devastating to children involved, but placing them into foster care help eliminate the possibility continued abuse.

America has a staggering problem among its youths and is in desperate need of help. Every day, young, innocent children are being abused. Unfortunately, this rate only seems to be growing as the foster care system is becoming flooded with children who need help. According to the website, Foster Club, a child is entered into the foster care system every two minutes. The reasoning for a child being placed in foster care can range, but mostly it is because of abuse. These traumatizing experiences and memories can hinder a person for the rest of their life. These kids find themselves in a terrible situation and learn ways to cope with the pain. It can be easy to judge their behaviors but for somebody with a normal life we can never understand the trials that they have had to live through. Fortunately, the psychological damage that is done can be reversed but in order to understand this fully we first need to know the negative psychological affects abuse can have on a person.

In today’s society Fostering Children has become a form of employment, and too many Foster Parents consider fostering to be nothing more than just a job. Agencies are considering the hiring process as an urgency to match staff with cliental; considering families as just another case to fill their homes and keep their agencies up and running instead of taking time to match families according to the needs of the children and qualifications of the foster parents.

The life for a child in foster care is much different than any other child’s. While growing up children look up to their father or mother. They aspire to be like them and follow in their footsteps. For the children placed in foster care all they see is that their parents could not take care of them. They will not have the memoires of growing up with their family, but instead memories of the different homes they have been transferred too. Foster parents love and care for all of the children that come into their homes, but it’s hard for the children to accept someone who moves in and out of their lives.

No two children in foster care have the same background. The youths can vary by the age when placed into care, the number of times they were put into care, the quality of the home and family they lived with, and the youths own emotional outlooks (Zlotnick 539). They can develop abandonment issues due to being separated from their biological parents, and stunted emotional growth due to the trauma that foster care puts on a young child. Children need to be raised in a stable and safe environment, and while plenty of foster care parents are loving and nurturing to the child, they may still be affected by being raised by multiple families in a negative way. Every year, over 1 million children experience maltreatment, and about half of these children enter foster care (Greeson et al. 92). Those who enter foster care have usually encountered multiple traumatic events, from either their parents or another caregiver in their lives.

Zetlin, Weinberg, and Shea (2010), conducted a study that looked at the roles of the Child Welfare system, schools, and the caregivers in helping foster children succeed in the education system. Although all groups agreed work needs to be done to enhance the learning outcome for foster children, everyone had their own opinions as to how to accomplish this. In order for foster children to be given a fair shot in the public school system everyone involved in the child’s life must work together. This means that the caregivers, foster parents,

The U.S foster care system is corrupt and the children trapped in it face the worst of it. The goal of foster care is to eventually reunite children with their parents or find the child a safe, loving home. Instead, foster kids face the harsh reality of abuse, mental illness, and temporary homes. The children and ripped from the homes they’ve known their entire lives because their parents struggle financially. The system would rather pay strangers to the child to take care of him/her rather than helping the parents of the child. This case would be called “neglect” when in reality most parents were doing all they could to take care of their children. The children’s new foster parents are paid hundreds of dollars per month. Often times, the money doesn’t go to the child and he/she is left truly neglected. The system is broken because children are taken from their homes for the wrong reasons and put into unsafe environments that will have a traumatic effect on the rest of their lives.

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.

Helping these vulnerable children access the services, interaction, and the stability needed for them to grow-up to being successful members of society can be provided with foster placement. If the process is well planned and if the foster parents are given adequate support, the foster care system can be a valuable resource for abused and neglected children (Crosson-Tower, 2014, p. 321).

The study consisted of 12 parents who foster children ages 2-8 years old. The high levels of conduct problems among children in the foster care system and the added cost to families, society and services, there is a pressing need to support foster parents. Providing foster care to children with increased emotional, behavioral, and medical needs requires not only time, but patience in dealing with the child’s demands. Foster parents often voice they are unprepared to meet demand of children with increased behavioral and emotional needs and adolescents in their care. This situation can result in placement disruption, which further strains foster care resources and has negative impacts on foster children and youth. The incidence of conduct disorder