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I did most of my research online. My first piece of information came from a website based on Children 's Rights. This site gave me information about average ages in foster care, institutions, and group homes. This sight was very informal about the types of living foster kids can go through. The next site I visited was about What Foster Care is.
But sometimes, due to certain unfortunate circumstances, children have to suffer separation from their family of origin for their own betterment. They need to be placed under state care, in some other family, so that their future is secured. Foster care is intended to be a short term solution until a permanent placement can be made. The work of healing children and families in foster care starts with the child welfare system, but it does not end there.
The article ties the two main focus’ together to show how a child’s internal behavior such as depression, anxiety, withdrawn self-esteem; and external behaviors such as incarceration, pregnancy, homelessness, substance abuse, defiance, and running away can be greatly altered based on how he or she is treated in a foster home (Orme & Buehler, 2001). Introduction
According to M. V. Chapman, author of ¨Attitudes Toward Out-of-Home Care Over 18 Months: Changing Perceptions of Youths in Foster Care¨, one-fifth of children in these programs become homeless at least once in their adulthood (3). When children age out at eighteen, these young adults have nearly no support, nobody to turn to, nowhere to go, often leaving them homeless and alone. This statistic shows that young adults are often left without a home they can call their own because foster care programs´ rules and regulations. Frank Ainsworth and Patricia Hanson claim that during the placement precess, one in every five children moved six to ten times and every one in seven were relocated more than ten times during their stay in care (88). They also acknowledge that children who move twenty times or more while being in care is far too common (90).
Many of the placements are done to carry out the systems policies and other placements are done if foster parents don’t meet the child needs. Children are less likely to be moved many times if a foster family is prepared to meet the child 's challenging needs. The foster care system is also in need of more social workers that will ensure that the child is placed in a good family so that they are not moved several times. Plenty of placements are also done if the child is initially placed in short-term care but needs to be moved to long term. However, the more changes a child experiences decreases the chance of them returning home or being adopted.
According to a Child Protective Investigation, there are approximately half a million children in the U.S. foster care system, otherwise known as congregate care (group homes and institutions). Children are placed in congregate care when they are found to be in an unsafe environment. Usually children of abuse or maltreatment are placed first (Font, 2015). Out-of-home-care causes increased problems of attachment, behavioral, and psychological disorders in the developing child. Child safety is the primary goal of out-of-home-care; however, maltreatment investigations are still reported in those institutions.
a. Foster parents can have an impact on the lives of a foster child by giving them a safe place to stay where they can feel loved and cared for. Foster parents can also provide the love and support that these children need especially if they came from an abused or neglected home. According to (Hasenecz, 2009) there have been several shocking stories about children being abused and neglected while in foster care or even worse reports of social workers who knew of the abuse and neglect and failed to report it or do anything about
Since entered into the system, each and every child begins to question everything. some even question if they actually matter. The amount of children in the foster care system continues to grow. To a child, it seems as if they are the ones to blame; however, that is an issue that couldn't be further from the truth.
Foster care is not a perfect system. Many children that are put into the foster care system are separated from their siblings and put into harmful environments. These environments are supposed to be safe and give the child a chance at a better life. However, children living in group homes are not able to develop secure attachment to the people who are supposed to take care of them. Children bounce back and forth from house to house, family to family, causing them to live in an unstable environment through most (if not all of) their child hood.
Through previous studies conducted, the findings “reflect both insufficiencies in the foster care system and in insufficiencies in parenting and education youth bring into foster care (Scannapieco et al., 2007, pg 425).” As a result of children being placed in care most of their childhood, the findings of the empirical research must be viewed with caution. Such findings included that teens in fact have “significant difficulties transitioning into independent living and self sufficiency (Scannapieco et al., 2007, pg 425).” When it comes to education, compared to that of their peers, youth in foster care are drastically behind. A small percentage of youth exit foster care having just graduated from high school.
The foster care systems has and will always be a part of society. The idea of a foster care system has always been around, even if it was not properly attained in the past. There has also been other methods to try to find placement for children with no or bad homes, for example the orphanage train, living with widows or living house to house in a community. Now in today’s time, we have an organized system of foster care with two different types of homes for children. For example we have group homes, which is a care facility that houses six or more children at a time.
Have you ever thought about how it feels to be ripped out of the only place that you know as home? To get no explanation of why your parents just did not want you anymore? Not a lot of people think about this. Usually, the only people that do think about this is children that are experiencing or have experienced this problem. The children’s rights website stated that, “On any given day, there are nearly 428,000 children in foster care in the United States.”
When children are taken from their homes at a young age and placed in a foster home they are already create a form of disconnection, yet when taking them from their siblings their familial connections are torn away ten times faster. Siblings provide leadership, care, and challenger in each other's lives, siblings are meant to guide one another and help their family in tough times. When one doesn't have their sister or brother to be their guide, the child may not join the right crowd. Then the serious issue of full disconnection from all relationships. When one is separated from so many things all at once, it is very rare for that child to form a bond, with the adults or the other foster children.
Experiencing rejection and parental unavailability can cause, children develop behavioral patterns that have negative consequences for social-emotional development. Multi placement in foster care is linked, to poor social functioning as well as, emotional difficulties. There are also negative impacts on child behavior when there are multiple placement changes. It makes it hard for children to have a good relationship with their foster parents when they 've, had multiple changes in placement.(Hodges 2156). There are frequent, anxiety and depression diagnoses among foster children.
Literature Review Throughout the years, research has been conducted on the effects that foster care can have on children. In the United States alone, there are roughly 670,000 children who have spent time in the foster care system each year (“Foster Care,” 2017). Of those children, approximately 33% of them age out of foster care system. Studies then show that the foster care system has had varying effects on the children who are/have been a part of it. In many cases, studies have noted the effects of attachment for children in foster care.
