Wonderful Kids Program Research Paper

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.

By providing a secure and stable home for teens , it teaches them responsibility and further equips them with stability in overall life decreasing homelessness rates. Extending foster care services supplies former foster children with stable homes if they are in need. According to Foster Focus Magazine, “65% of youth leaving foster care need immediate housing upon discharge”() Housing after foster care is an immediate issue that comes with aging out. Over 50% of desperate former foster youth are searching for a home to begin their life independently. Statistics show that, “many foster youth are placed in homes with complete strangers that sometimes are just as dysfunctional, if not more, than the homes they were removed from.”() Unfortunately there are children in foster care that often get bounced from home to home never really knowing when they are safely sheltered. Some children find it better to live on the menacing streets of state's, where they are homeless, than to be in a home

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.

Foster children struggle immensely within healthcare and the foster care system. They are not receiving the correct support to help them when they go out into the real world.Within foster care, children and teens can either go into a foster home or a group home. Group homes can prevent permanent and authentic connections, while in foster homes, adolescents experience abuse and they are aware that there is no long term stability. For fifteen years, Betsy Krebs has worked with teens in the foster care

AB 12 lets foster teenagers stay in foster care until they are 21 years old. Often, when foster youth turn 18, their foster parents kick them of the home out due to no longer receiving payment, and the youth have no place to go. With the implementation of AB 12, they can choose to stay in a foster home and the foster parent continues to get a stipend to help pay for the foster teens expenses. The foster teenager also has the option to move out of the foster home and get a monthly stipend that goes directly to them. This stipend is used to help pay for expenses such as rent, utilities, food, etc. This all sounds great, but I don’t feel that it is working for foster teenagers. The concept is good, but definitely needs to be reformed and restructured. To receive AB 12 funding, a foster teenager still has to meet with a county social worker monthly and meet certain criteria which include going to school, working, or looking for work. They can lose AB 12 funding if they do not meet these qualifications. Often, it is hard for the youth to meet these qualifications because they have not learned the necessary skills to effective apply and hold a job or learn how to navigate the college university system to enroll in school. What is happening is that the youth are not qualifying for AB 12 and if they do they are so used to the money that when they turn 21 and lose the AB 12 funding, they end up not

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

The Child Study data I have gathered comes from the observation I have completed at Mission Bell Elementary School. Mission Bell Elementary School is a local school in Riverside. In the P.M preschool class there are 24 students, one teacher, and one assistant. The child I decided to observe is names Zoe. Zoe is 4 years and 10 months old. I immediately was drawn to Zoe because she had such a big personality, was very social, and smart. I am glad that I choose to observe Zoe because she was able to make my observation process smooth and easy. While observing her I had to pay close attention to her biosocial development, motor skills, cognitive skills, communication skills,

Foster Care Independence Act of 1999 Before this bill was signed into law the Federal Government provided about $70 million per year to conduct programs for adolescents leaving foster care that are designed to help them establish independent living. Research and numerous reports from States conducting these programs indicate that adolescents leaving foster care do not fare well. As compared with other adolescents and young adults their age, they are more likely to quit school, to be unemployed, to be on welfare, to have mental health problems, to be parents outside marriage, to be arrested, to be homeless, and to be the victims of violence and other crimes (Cook, 1991). The need for special help for youths ages 18 to 21

No two children in foster care have the same background. The youths can vary by the age when placed into care, the number of times they were put into care, the quality of the home and family they lived with, and the youths own emotional outlooks (Zlotnick 539). They can develop abandonment issues due to being separated from their biological parents, and stunted emotional growth due to the trauma that foster care puts on a young child. Children need to be raised in a stable and safe environment, and while plenty of foster care parents are loving and nurturing to the child, they may still be affected by being raised by multiple families in a negative way. Every year, over 1 million children experience maltreatment, and about half of these children enter foster care (Greeson et al. 92). Those who enter foster care have usually encountered multiple traumatic events, from either their parents or another caregiver in their lives.

I think that the foster care system deserves the reform because of what it has done for so many kids that had to be taken from their families in order to have a safe life. At the same time though, children being taken from their families in order to have a safe life can also cause for the child to have an even more dangerous life. It has be proven many times before that sometimes children in the foster care system gets sent to unsafe homes which puts the children in danger, “Between 2003-2007 in Texas, fourteen children died because of abuse from foster parents,” (The Foster Care System is Flawed and Should Be Eliminated, p. 7). This can actually be taken to the other side of the argument in why foster care should just be eliminated entirely, but I see it as a

Nationwide, nearly 397,122 children live in foster care. In California, which has the largest foster care population than any other state, the number of foster youth has tripled in the last 20 years (Source: AFCARS Report 2013) due to certain circumstance such as; physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse or caretaker inability. Welfare workers turn over at continuing high rates, and many are underpaid, poorly trained, overworked and demoralized. Foster Care system welfare lacks providing services to prepare older youths in foster care in independent living are lacking. Many youths that exited the system discuss their experience such as, being let down, lack of role models, poor training programs, and lack of basic living skills. Foster

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

The teenagers need to be set on a path where they can live on their own. The children were taken out of their homes in the first place because they lived in a harsh environment of abuse or neglect, only to potentially be thrown into another uncaring foster family then be introduced to the cold hearted reality of life once they turn 18. Not only do they need to have the stability to live on their own and job, they also should receive help to receive health insurance and other government fundings that will help them. CAPTA should have requirements that will help the children that were placed in foster care with long-term goals and plans. It should not stop at when the children turn 18 years old. If the policy insists that the children will receive help until they are the age of 18, then the foster care system should be funded enough to have workers who will help the older children start a savings that will be from a job that they start years before they have to leave. Also the foster care system should not force the 18 year olds to leave if they do not have a proper place to

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

The numbers of children in foster care continue to increase annually with minimal attempts to intercept the causes of the escalation. Children are generally placed into foster care as a result of parental abuse or neglect; however, there are many racial inconsistencies circulating general foster care involvement. In the year of 2014, the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System reported a total of 415,129 children in the foster care system. Depending on their situation, children in the system are in need of some sort of home, whether that be temporary or permanent. When experiencing this type of shift in their lives, many children tend to act out. Foster care in the United States is a