The Role Of Children In The Foster Care System

Raising children is one of the most important responsibilities in any society. Today, working parents have many options, but what about those children who have neither a mother nor father? What about those children who come from broken and abusive homes? In such cases there are often few choices. Parentless children may be placed in orphanages or in foster homes. Ideally, foster care offers children more personalized attention than would normally be available at a public or private situation. However, orphanage care is notoriously uneven. While some children are indeed in loving homes, others find themselves neglected or

Children who have been abused are left with more than just physical scars. They have many psychological, emotional, and behavioral problems as well. Their social lives are affected dramatically, and they suffer lifelong effects. (Lambert) Children tend to

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.

Every year in the United States, hundreds of children and adolescents are taken from their parents and primary caregivers and placed in out-of-home care situations due to issues in their homes and family lives which contribute to unsafe living conditions. These children and adolescents often face many health, behavioral, developmental, and psychological issues.

In America it is stated that 1 in every 84 children live in foster care circumstances via "Statistics on Foster Care". There is a numerous amount of contrasting children from various backgrounds and ages living within these special housing homes, and many are repeatedly in and out from unstable circumstances. As children grow and mature into the new faces of the world, they face many obstacles and tribulations that will alter their lives. Living in fostering homes is a substantial example and the effects of living in these institutions can truly be great.

Each year, an estimated 20,000 young people "age out" of the U.S. foster care system. Many are only 18 years old and still need support and services (. Several studies show that without a lifelong connection to a caring adult, this older youth are often left vulnerable to a host of adverse situations. Compared to other youth in the United States, kids who age out of foster care are more likely to not have completed high school or received a GED, they often suffer from mental health problems, many are unemployed and live in poverty, and nearly 40% become homeless.

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 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is a federal law that guarantees educational services to eligible students with disabilities. It establishes “people first” language for referring to people with disabilities. IDEA requires states to educate students with disabilities for transition to employment, and to provide transition services. IDEA also provides the students with a free and appropriate education If a student with a disability is expelled from school, IDEA says that he or she must still receive educational services. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act mandates that all students with disabilities take state and district testing. This law also requires a general education teacher to be a member of the Individualized Educational Plan (IEP) team.

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.

In the John Burton Policy Brief on AB 12 the realities of education for foster youth are highlighted, “The rate at which foster youth complete high school (50 percent) is significantly lower than the rate at which their peers complete high school (70 percent),” (2011, p. 2). This affects chances for higher education including college degrees. This has a significant impact on the community as “aged-out” youth without services have more chance of risk for: homelessness, poverty, unemployment, going to jail, prostitution, substance abuse, early parenthood and untreated health conditions. Samuels and Pryce state that foster care has not always been a positive, developmentally appropriate experience. Youth who are

Special education students are delayed in there learning process. To resolve the gap in learning abilities Individual with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) obliges by law that all public schools to create an Individualized Education Program (IEP) for every child that receives special educational services. IDEA inspires to create an effective relationship amongst the parents and school that boost an educational team with the goals of providing the student with proper services (Mueller, 2009). In Each IEP meeting it involves the IEP team, IEP sections that addresses the student with disabilities educational progress.

As family structure changes children pay the biggest price. They may lose the luxury of a stable home or school to call their own, when parent are no longer in the picture either. This is an issue that is largely ignored by society and most importantly the government. Without the foster system, children would be left abandoned 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. But, foster care in America is inadequate for all American foster children and needs to be improved. Improvements are critical in bettering American foster systems, these improvements include, creating programs, finding more stable homes, and starting mentoring programs

Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (AFSA) clearly and unequivocally establishes three national goals for children in foster care: safety, permanency, and well-being. ASFA was in part “a response to the fact that more children were entering the foster care system than were exiting.” Five principles underlie the ASFA and apply to professionals working with families through public and private agencies as well as state courts. These principles are:

Everywhere across the world, more and more children are being placed into foster care or a welfare type system. Foster care can benefit children or harm them; the effects of foster care differ for every individual. These types of systems often have a major effect on young children’s physiological state. Children entering in foster care are often malnourished and have untreated health problems. A high percentage of children who are placed in these types of systems have mental health, physical health, and/or developmental issue which often originates while the individuals are still in the custody of the biological parents. Children in foster care should be provided with a healthy and nurturing environment which often provides positive long term results. The age of children in a foster care varies across the world, but it is often seen that majority of these children are young (George para. 1). There are more young children in the system because younger children require more adequate care than older children that are already in the system. Placing these children in welfare systems is supposed to be a healing process for them. Although this is supposed to be a healing process, statistics say these children have a negative experience while being in these systems, but this is not always the case. A number of children in foster care fall sucker to continuous neglect and recurrent abuse with the lack of nurturing and an unstable environment. These same children often have unmet

Research suggests that children who grew up in foster care have a more compromised developmental outcome compared to those who grew up in loving homes (Princeton University). If we take abortion rights away from women, the number of children in foster care would rise above the existing 397,000 children that are in foster care and therefore more children would be put into homes where there could be physical, sexual or emotional abuse. Many people say that abortion is murder and shouldn't be legal, but it should be legal for a woman who has been raped or is too young for the baby and herself to be healthy after the birth, because a child isn't going to thrive in foster care or in a home that doesn't love them.