Personal Narrative: Bleak Or Swim

Many children prefer to live with their parents, so they always think the foster care system is the bad guy. Living with strangers is bad enough for them but to add on some foster homes are abusive. Foster Care goes all the way back to the Old Testament, which the churches require widows to care for orphaned children (“Care” 1). It would be a miracle that someone would treat the children like their own. Many foster homes are abusive just like the one Ashley had. Year after year, the increase of foster families is due to drugs, abuse, economy, financial, and psychological problems (“Care” 1). In this society, there are many problems that lead children to have the feeling of worthlessness. It is really sad how many children are in families of irresponsible parents. Child abuse occurs when a parent or caretaker physically, emotionally, or sexually mistreats or neglects a child resulting in the physical, emotional, sexual harm, exploitation, or imminent risk (“Care” 1). It is disgusting how people would do this stuff to kids. These people have no heart and should be punished. Not everyone gets punished, but when the time comes, they will get what they deserve. Ashley’s book shows how her difficulties in foster homes were troubling. Many professional readers enjoy reading about her hard times.

Specific Speech Purpose: To inform my audience about the nature, problems, and proposed solution of the Foster Care System.

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

For many years, foster care has been a difficult subject throughout our society. When the idea of foster care comes to mind, many immediately think of screaming children, distressed parenting and uphill battles. Before foster care existed in the United States, orphaned children were sent to orphanages. While these institutions were often the best option available to children with nowhere else to go, they often lacked the necessary staff, structure and resources to adequately care for all of the children in need. As a result, some orphanages were overcrowded, and children lived in poor conditions. Some children even died due to the lack of sufficient care (Adoptions, 2017). In order to give children better living situations, the United

In the United States 21% of all children are living below the federal poverty line. 2.9 million cases of child abuse and neglect are reported every year in the United States. 428,000 children are in the foster care system, and 107,918 foster children are waiting to be adopted. The foster care system is temporary out of home care for neglected, abused and impoverish children under 18. While the foster care system has all positive ideas, they fall short in providing certain needs for these children. Kids not only in America but all over the world that are living in poverty, are abused, neglected, and have an unstable home life. Nobody wants to live a life like that, especially not a child. They don’t know how to support themselves on their own, they need a family and a guardian that will take care of them, support, and love them.

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.

year (2014). Most of these youth struggle finding permanent housing that can afford, and some

Imagine growing up without a family, moving constantly and never having a permanent home. Envision being taken away from an abusive parent and left to survive in foster care for an undefined period of time. Think about lingering within the system for years and suddenly loosing any kind of aid at the age of eighteen. This is a reality for thousands of children in America’s foster care system. There are kids that are searching for a home and family -- and many of them never get one. These youths are all hoping and wishing for a permanent place to go back to. The number of children aging out of the foster care system annually is a serious problem because many children leave foster care without support and suffer consequences in their adult life that could have been avoided if they had been adopted.

Is the foster system really a good place for any person? Most adolescents would have to deal with other adolescents always starting fights, degrading you, and stealing your belongings. Adolescents in the foster care system turn to crime, have to deal with depression, and deal with having no one to really trust. When I was in the system, I was stabbed, I was shot, and constantly bullied; I hated each day of being in the foster system. I saw everyday as a struggle with no one to turn to. The only peace I had was to read a book and immerse myself into a make believe world. I believe the foster system is ineffective because children in the foster system struggle through their experiences of group homes and foster homes.

In the United States there are over 500,000 children living in foster homes with approximately two-thirds of the population being African-American children who remain in care longer than any others do (American, 2005). Of the 500,000 children, only two out of three reunite with their birth parents within two years (American, 2005). The most common reason is abuse but it is not always the reason for a child’s placement into foster care. Several factors play a role, such as, abandonment, death of a parent or guardian, incarceration, and physical or emotional illness (American, 2005). Over the past ten years, there has been a decrease in the number of foster parents, who are non-relative, available to care for children.

My parents are divorced, and have been since I was about seven years old. I hardly remember what life was like before then. But despite my parents separation I have never been without proper care, and in this way I am fortunate. On any given day, there are nearly 428,000 children in foster care in the United States. The average age of a child in foster care is nearly 9 years old, and in all states in the US at least 50% of the kids in foster care are males. Until now, I personally, have never known much about the process. I have a few friends who were adopted and I’ve watched a few seasons of the show The Fosters. But I hardly think that qualifies as quality knowledge about the issue. What I have learned is this: Children are suffering in

Joyce Meyer, a Christian author and speaker once spoke: “If you can help a child, you don’t have to spend years repairing an adult.” In America, there are many social issues that are neglected because they do not have a daily effect on each individual. As a result of this, one of these issues is the foster care system in America. Foster care is a program worldwide that helps neglected and abused children be put in safer homes through a brief period of time until a social worker allows the children to go back into their original home or be adopted by their foster parents or other individuals. According to http://www.adopt.org/what-foster-care, “Some will be separated from their siblings. Others will be bounced from one foster care placement

Children play a key component in lives today. Unfortunately many children do not have the ability of having a stable home or school to call their own, while parents are not in the picture as well. This is an issue that is ignored by society and most importantly the government; in some cases. Without the foster system, children would be left abandon and forgotten by all. The foster system provides thousands of homes for foster children each year, with parents that can give them what they need. The American foster systems are failing; however, they can be improved through mentoring programs and finding more stable homes for foster children.

"Every child deserves to know the love of a forever family. Every family deserves the chance to thrive." When people hear about foster care they assume the kids there are just broken kids that have alcoholic parents, or drug addicts, parents ,and bad kids who get thrown into the system; In reality kids you get into the foster care system are usually kids who do have parents that are alcoholics or have drug addictions parents but also kids who been abused or neglect or even sexually harassed by their own parents. As a society we need to try and help make the foster care system a place where children can feel safe and secure and not be scared to be themselves, help lift back the children's confidence.

America idolizes youth, dubbing it a time of freedom, innocence, and incorruptible joy. However, approximately 400,000 foster kids in the US might understand childhood as something very different (Children’s Bureau).To them, youth may represent chains to an unstable, corrupt system as it unsuccessfully works to decide their futures. It may also represent a period of indefinite circumstances, isolation, and continual change. The Foster Care crisis isn’t just a few poor government policies that affect the tangible elements of our society; it is a crisis that impacts the personal lives of many individuals. Minorities, Women, LGTB have all fought to ensure their rightful place and voice in society. Now it’s up to America to fight for those who cannot start their own movements, create their own bills, and overcome their silence. What we do for our foster children will reflect the true nature of our values. What we do for our foster children, we do for ourselves.