'Removing A Child Is Terrible'

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.

Jill Lepore’s New Yorker article Baby Doe: A political history of tragedy provides documented history of child abuse in the U.S. that date back to colonial times. She illustrated tragic cases Massachusetts Child Protective Services had been confronted with and gave a synopsis of the challenging history the Department of Children and Families.

The author, Nina Biehal, tells of the treatment in foster care and the need for correction in her article, "Maltreatment in Foster Care: A review of the evidence." The author gives many facts about how the government needs to change the level of care provided for the children. This article is more of a constant reminder of how much still needs to change and the level of care offered to children of abuse today. Unlike the article by authors Kristen Turney and Christopher Wilderman, which bases their article on the number of children in foster care receiving mental health care, Biehal gives evidence to support the problems that result from being in foster care. My essay can use this article to paint a picture of the number of children in detrimental conditions and how foster care developed problems with their system to support my argument.

The Book of David discusses how preserving families in some cases can cost the lives of innocent children. Richard J. Gelles was once a prominent defender of family preservation and believed that keeping troubled families together was what was best for the child. However, he changed his mind after he reviewed the tragic case of David Edwards, who was an infant killed by his mother after falling through the gaps of the child welfare system. David had an older sister who was taken from their home after obtaining juries leading to hospitalization. She was later removed from her parents care after they pleaded guilty to child neglect. A month after David’s birth, Mr. and Mrs. Edwards voluntarily terminated their parental rights and a year later, David was killed. Even with the red flags that the Edwards exhibited with the neglect of Marie, did not prompt social workers to monitor the welfare of David. The case of David completely transformed Gelles’s opinion of family preservation and how our child welfare system is fundamentally flawed and has to be changed so other children do not end up like David. He believes that David’s death could have been prevented and that the idea of family preservation should not be applied to every abuse case. Gelles claims that the child welfare system needs to be reformed and that family preservation does not need to be as strictly reinforced to all cases of child abuse or neglect. Throughout the book, Gelles

More than two-hundred and fifty thousand children enter the foster care system each year, making it extremely difficult to find the right caregiver for each child. There are so may effects on the child that last their entire lifetime, making it difficult for them to trust others. Not being able to trust their peers, they often find it hard to make friends and long-term relationships last. Fortunately, there are many results that can improve everyone’s position in placing the child. Foster care agencies repeatedly create destructive situations due to the selected caregiver, as well as the plethora of glitches that are created. Due to the unacceptable and inappropriate selection of foster parents, the child frequently experiences difficulties and disadvantages later on. Most children are placed into foster care because of mistreatment and experience the same treatment in their foster homes. Unfortunately, a lot of times the foster parent will take their anger out on their foster child, making a wide array of short-term and long-term complications for the child.

Parents are suppose to supply their children with love, support, and teach them skills so they could grow to become their own person. The Fosters does an excellent job showing what parenthood looks like, but they did it with a lesbian couple raising their children. The Fosters shows the mothers doing the same parenting task as heterosexual parents. They discipline their children when they need to, they helped their children with schoolwork, and they always show their kids the love that they have for them. Lena and Stef go through the same parenting struggles as heterosexual parents do when it comes dealing with their teenage children. Since society is still new to same-sex parenting, some individuals think that the children are not going to be as “normal” as children raised in a heterosexual household. However, research shows that children that are raised by a homosexual couple do not differ when it comes to being raised by a

I started my reading with the New York Times Magazine article (I could not resist an article from the Times). During my internship, I had an experience where I suggested to a client that she might reach out to Allegheny County Children, Youth, and Families (CYF) for assistance. I could not understand her apprehension. Reading about Marie and her sons gave me an entirely different perspective. When Marie walked into the DCF office pregnant and the department decided to petition the court to claim her sixth child permanently - while still in her womb; made our clients apprehension real.

needs. “Who are these people who become foster parents?Where do they fit into the very

Minuchin and Elizur argued that foster care should be oriented toward providing services to whole families, rather than solely to the child (as cited in Kates, Johnson, Rader and Strieder, 1991). “Whose child am I?” according to Kates, Johnson, Rader and Strieder (1991), is a common question children struggle with when they are pulled from their home and put into foster care. Once in the system a child has a myriad caregivers and professionals, such as biological parents, caseworker, foster parents, physicians, and the courts, working together to decide what’s best for that child, which in turn distorts the role boundaries, therefore causing more confusion. Kates, Johnson, Rader and Strieder (1991) go on to say, “The blurring of role boundaries

In the readings, it gives the scope of “290,000 taken from their parents”, and more than “800,000 children spend time in foster care” (Loseke, 312). There is a fear with those high numbers of children are being taken erroneously as stated, “workers were two to six times more likely to wrongly label innocent parents guilty than they were to wrongly let guilty parents off the hook” (Loseke 313). Another argument is keeping the children home with their families is safer than placing them in the foster care system. Deemed “foster care panics” there are issues with the foster care system and the workers as they are stated as, “Underprepared, undereducated, undertrained and underpaid...” making “life, and death decisions” (Loseke, 320). Life in a foster home is also difficult with examples of overcrowding, bad shelters, and 30% chance of abuse that may occur (Loseke,319-320). While IFPS is mainly presented in this section there are other examples of diverse states deepening more on family and relatives than relying on the foster care system (Loseke, 316). Family reunification in the long run, is presented as better than the foster system, as it is better for the family to unite with some support from the

The factors that are most common around the world are poverty. When a family are experiencing poverty, they decide to abandon a child “believing that they are acting in the best interests of the child” (The University of Nottingham, UK, 2012). Conversely, in some cases the child is placed in foster care and treated as a slave. If they don’t behave according to the high expectations for the carers they are exposed to physical

During Cindy’s second year of life the needs of belongingness and love were met due to a new, caring foster family. I infer from the case study that the two lower categorical needs of safety and physiological were met because she began

Certainly, the child welfare organizations failed to protect Virginia. She was abandoned by her drug-addicted mother and subsequently bounced around by the foster care system. Also, the system denied her adoption petitioned by the only parents that Virginia felt emotionally safe with. At eighteen, Virginia was on her own, and she got pregnant and gave birth to Laura. After being dismissed from the hospital, Virginia was emotionally lost. With no guidance on parenting, she ended up treating Laura in an emotionally disconnected way (Perry, & Szalavitz, 2008). Laura’s inability to gain wait stemmed from emotional neglect, also known as “Failure to thrive” (Perry, & Szalavitz, 2008). The hospital neglected to explain this diagnosis. And upon being discharged from the hospital, Virginia was given no maternal advice, only nutritional advice. The medical experts completely ignored the issue of neglect. Through a privately funded program, Virginia was able to move in with Mama P. to learn how to raise Laura in an emotionally stable environment (Perry, & Szalavitz,

Jennifer appears to have an appropriate understanding of her children's growth and development, educational interests and, abilities. Jennifer reports being very angry with her husband that he would put his family in this position to have police, courts, and the Department involved in the families lives. Jennifer has been sober for 7 years and is prescribed Subutex. Jennifer showed good judgement by seeking weekly therapy for herself when Dashiel was arrested. Jennifer explained she is Catholic and attends church and does not believe in divorce so she wanted to make sure this was right. Jennifer has a number of both formal and informal supports who assist her. She reports her parents are a big part of her life and she and the kids spend time with them at least once per week at the family home in Peabody. Jennifer functions in some aspects as a single parent with Dashiel working outside the home from 6 a.m. - 6 p.m. and on Saturday's as well Jennifer also takes the role as disciplinarian

“ I hate you”, “No one wants to be with you”, “You are a liar”. All things spoken to me by my children. All lies. When I am weak I believe them. When I am strong I can replace the lies with the truth of God’s Word. On the battlefield, each twist and turn of the blade could name a new victor. The ups and downs of foster parenting sometimes seem like a battle of the mind. It’s not a battle against anyone in particular: Not the children, not the caseworkers, not the biological parents. It’s the battle to collectively reclaim identities that have been stolen and hearts that have been made cold and defiled.