Foster Care System

The foster care system exists in order to enhance the lives of children whose parents were deceased rather than because of abuse today. Our outlook, principles, and ways of being concern for and protecting abused or neglected children and looking after families has shifted greatly throughout history. In this paper I will discuss and inform the readers on the three main components. The first part will discuss the foundation and growth of the foster care system as time pass. Secondly, describe the contemporary state of the system within the United States, including pertinent statistics. Lastly, considering future guidelines intended for the system, including ways in which the system can progress throughout the time.

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.

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.

Over 600,000 children in the United States are in the foster care system. Reasons include, abuse, neglect and abandonment. These children lack nurturing environments and stable homes. Children within the foster care system have more mental, physical and developmental problems. It is imperative to understand the challenges children entering the foster care system are exposed to. The system works best when children are provided nurturing, and short-term care until they can be placed back home safely or a permanent adoptive family. For many children, however, the stay is longer, with 30% remaining in temporary care for over two years. Staying in the system is detrimental to the child’s well-being. The foster care system is an unsuccessful intervention for children that cultivates development, health and mental issues.

The term foster care commonly refers to all out-of-home placements for children who cannot remain with their birth parents. Children may be placed with non-relative foster families, with relatives, in a therapeutic or treatment foster care home, or an institution or a group home. Nearly half of all children in foster care live with non-relative foster families, and about one quarter reside with relatives. More than 800,000 children spent some time in the foster care system in 2001, with approximately 540,000 children in foster

According to the Children’s Bureau, there were 427,910 children in the foster care system in 2016. Placements in a foster family have dramatically increased over the last ten years. For some young children and young adults in the foster care system, they have experienced abuse and neglect and have been removed from their parents. Other children have suffered a variety of parental problems such as drug addiction, abandonment, incarceration, mental and physical impairments and death. These painful experiences associated with maltreatment and the trauma of being removed from parents or caregivers can affect the mental health and development of these young people. “ Most children in foster care, if not all experience feelings of confusion,

And when children are abused, the foster care system came up to help. “Foster families provide a home for children who have been abandoned, neglected or abused. These children are in need of nurturing families who will help them heal and grow” (“Be a Foster or Adoptive Parent”). If the Foster care system was not in this world, then today billion of children would be homeless or died, so that's why the world need Foster Care. When children are abused or neglected by their parents, or when the parents cannot for any of a number of reasons care for their children, someone must intervene to see that the children are adequately looked after. That someone is usually the government, and the intervention is frequently foster care steps in. Every 10 seconds a new case come to foster care, about new children getting abused. Once the children are safely placed in foster care than caseworkers and laws come in. There are plenty laws related to foster care like parental rights. “The parental right are laws for parents to give the children protection, shelter, and food etc” (Grounds for Involuntary Termination of Parental Rights). If there was no law, such as parental rights, today all children would be badly abused. A parent who had a problem with children, which caused to lose children than it means they also lose their parental rights. To get their children back or -- in other words, to get their parental rights back, the role of

“In the U.S. today, approximately 400,000 children and youth are in foster care at any given time and each year about 20,000 of these students emancipate (i.e., age out) of foster care” (“Students in Foster Care”). There are many children in this world who are separated from their parents. Placed somewhere by the government. They are being placed somewhere not familiar to them or somewhere far from where they lived before. Many people are not aware that foster children need help in their education and one of the reasons would be that they do not even know or are not aware of what defines a foster child. Therefore, what is a foster child? Well, this definition describes it accurately, “... Webster 's II New Riverside Dictionary defines

Foster care can be a horrible experience for a child. Not knowing your parents or not being able to see them again can emotionally mess with their mind. They can be depressed and angry and think that they’re not wanted and that there’s no point in life. This can lead them bouncing from house to house just so they can find somewhere

There are over 428,000 children in the foster system(“Children rights”). Every day 1,200 kids enter the foster system in the United States(“Together”) and theses children come with multiple issues when they enter the foster care system. Children enter the foster care system for several reasons but mostly it is due to neglect or abuse from the parents. As a former foster child I have been one of the kids that have suffered for what there parents have done. I have suffered from depression . Children that have gone through the foster care system have a higher risk of having mental health issues such as depression and anxiety as well as long term physical issues. Ultimately , these issues pose challenges that affect every aspect of the child's life.

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.

The foster care system is designed to remove children from abusive homes or house them if they are without caretakers. Often times this can be a great opportunity for children. Children who come from difficult backgrounds have the opportunity for a fresh start in a a safe environment. Other times, children experience the same kind of abuse inside of the foster home as they did outside. There are many reasons for this: bad judgment of character when hiring foster parents, other children in the group home who are misbehaved, or even unsafe neighborhoods. My uncle Bud used to foster boys only. Most of the time the boys stayed with him for at least six months. He had a real heart for the boys that stayed with him, but they always came from a background

Foster children are raised in unqualified foster homes The main reason for all the situations regarding the foster children have to do with the unqualified foster homes. The condition of an environment a child is raised in effects children in several different ways. According to an article called “The quiet crisis” on the Foster Care 2.0 website, “Foster care historically provides unqualified and under trained volunteers to care for and treat our most vulnerable victims of child abuse during vital times of development. This strategy has failed miserably for more than a century in America and next to nothing has been done to change it. The outcomes for the majority of these traumatized children are appalling. Research has proven over and over

One of the ways foster care is inhibited is that the separation of the child from their parents and placement in a foster home can be traumatic for the child. In some instances where the child is not safe in their home, the first choice may be to remove the child and place them in foster care. Both the parents and child have a hard time accepting the situation. This separation causes conflicts and resistance from the child (Crosson-Tower, 2014, p. 316). Other myriad adjustments, such as lifestyle change, new school, new friends and neighbors, and at times a new culture, also inhibit the effectiveness of foster care placement. Foster care can create an environment of