Taking a Look at Foster Care

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

In the past few decades there has be an increasing amount of children placed in the foster care system. With the amount of rising teen pregnancies and maternal drug abuse means increasing numbers of infants abandoned at birth. There have been many cases of child abuse or neglect that have been on the rise. State and local agencies are unable to suitably supervise foster homes or arrange adoptions. Statistics show that many children will spend most of their childhood and teenage years in the foster care system, which has shown to leave emotional scars on the child. Today, Child Welfare groups are looking for federal funding and legislation to increase programs and services aimed at keeping families together.

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.

When an adolescent comes into for therapy there is really never an easy task of finding out what is going on. Adolescent that come in who are part of the foster care system will add another degree of challenges. Children and adolescents that are put into the foster care system are not there because they choose to be, they are there due to some event in their life putting them there.

Many systems are goal oriented. They interact with the environment in order to achieve a specific goal or target. The primary goal of placing a child in the TFC agency with medically fragile children is to meet the medical and mental health needs present (Youth, 2014). Additionally, a sense of permanency is the end goal for all children in the suprasystem of foster care. This would come by way of returning the child back to their original home with their parents or guardians or having the child adopted by

The chosen population of interest for the course project is children who are placed in foster care. Children in foster care are considered vulnerable due to a variety of reasons for which they are taken away from home and placed in the child welfare system. Foster care children are often removed from their home due to physical abuse, drug exposure, or in some cases due to parental inability to fulfill the child basic necessities. Foster care children are at greater risk of mental, health, and behavioral problems (Lovie, Beadnell, & Pecora, 2015). Case management is an essential part of the care plan to improve the outcomes of the population of interest. Foster care children face additional problems when the health care system is inadequate.

Many people across the country may not be familiar with what foster care actually is. Foster care is a full- time substitute care of children outside their own home by people other than their biological or adoptive parents (“Foster” par. 1). These parents may have their children taken away from them for many different reasons. There are also

The foster care system and the Child protective services (CPS) main goal is to maintain and provide children with a safe environment/home, when they are at risk or in danger. The main reasons children enter the system are because they are being abused, neglected, parents have abandoned them, have an illness, have died, or are struggling with addiction. As of September of 2015, there was an estimate of 427,910 children in foster care, 45 percent were placed in the homes of non relatives. About two thirds of children in the system have siblings and most are separated, about 31 percent of former foster youth will spend time couch-surfing and homeless. Their are far more children entering the system than people opening up their doors and becoming foster parents. There are also more and more cases of child abuse within the foster homes being reported and discovered. While the intentions of the system is to better the lives of the children the system itself is against them, the separation of siblings, being sent to multiple homes, and aging out are a few problems that the foster care system have control over and can change. It’s clear that the they aren’t meeting their goals, but what happens in the lives of these children that are the victims in the situation is a social issue that society as a whole should be a part of.

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.

Residence for children who have been a victim to abuse, neglect or other matters in their family that put them in harms way. This is what the foster care system was designed for. It keeps these children safe and provides a temporary home until the parents get their life together and prove themselves or they do not, and the children get adopted by loving families.

or residential treatment centers.” Foster care is intended as a short-term service that helps during emergencies in the lives of families, and the government expects that children who go into the system will be returned to their parents as quickly as possible, or will be given a safe haven,

Foster Care can be a confusing place and scary to some. It is unfortunate when situations must put a child through the system, sometimes due to families’ inability to care for them or other times due to abuse or neglect. Many have experienced some form of loss and trauma and so the process from beginning to end must be handle with care and compassion. When foster placement is called for it is both physically and mentally stressful for all parties involved, most especially to the child. All measures must be taken to ensure that their health, safety, and welfare are top priority when a placing them with foster families who can give them stability and love.

Foster youth are become more independent and usually leave the parental home at age 23. In the article Mental Health Care of Families Affected by the Child Welfare System by Manny J. Gonzalez; it states, “Given that young children under age 5 are more likely to be placed in out-of-home placements and to spend a significant portion of their lives in foster care, their unique mental health needs are highlighted.” Children placed in foster care systems may end up getting a mental health condition so if a family tries to

Foster care provides care for children who have for some reason not able to get it via usual means, this could be because of different types of circumstances. I came to know about this system when I watched hollywood movies.

Foster care is supposed to help children by removing them from a harmful environment, but it does have its disadvantages. Foster care takes a toll on children to the point where therapy is provided in an effort to diminish problematic