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Aging out of foster care thesis
Aging out of foster care thesis
Life for most youth aging out of foster care
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From damilyfig.com ”They said you help the child and the parents by supporting and helping get into a better environment”. There are many reasons in going into foster care. From,”adoption.about.com” says that physical abuse is the first reason or most common reason why they go into foster care. This shows that foster care isn’t as bad as it seems. Another way foster care is good because they take children/teens off the street.
It is speculated that chronic medical problems are prominent in the 50 % of the children in foster care. In addition, some children have developmental delays, according to Galehouse, Herrick & Raphel (2010). Thirty-five percent of children in foster care visited an emergency room or an urgent care center in a twelve month period (Jaudes, Champagne, Harden, Masterson, & Bilaver,
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
Common misconceptions associated with being in foster care portray youth in the system as orphans. Youth in foster care are supposedly delinquents, and will perform poorly in academics compared to their peers who are not placed in these institutions. In society, these stereotypes are often pretended, but very little people understand the circumstances and factors the youth in the foster care system are facing. Youth in care are often juxtaposed to their community counterparts, to signify the impact of being a ward of the state, rather than being with a family member.
In addition to the maltreatment of children in foster care, another issue that arises is that children are moved from one foster care home to another on an average of every six weeks (NCANDS, 2012). With the changes in the caregivers of children in foster care experience, the more likely they are to exhibit oppositional behavior, crying, and clinging. With that being said, in 2012, 23,396 youth aged out of the U.S. foster care system without the emotional and financial support necessary to succeed. Nearly 40% had been homeless or couch surfed, nearly 60% of young men had been convicted of a crime, and only 48% were employed. Seventy-five percent of women and 33% of men receive government benefits to meet basic needs.
In 2020 there were approximately 407,493 children in the United States foster care system, all under the age of 20 (“The AFCARS Report”). Foster care plays a big role in providing homes for children that experience abusive homelives, loss of parents or guardians, or severe financial hardship at home. However, being in foster care takes a toll on many children, due to both previous trauma, and trauma experienced in the foster care system. In order to understand the foster care system, one must research how the system works, how it affects childrens’ physical health, how it affects their mental health, and how being in foster care affects childrens’ chances of being successful.
Advocates of foster care programs are declaring that the need for foster parents is greatly needed. In New Orleans alone there was a ten percent decrease in foster families. In addition, children needing to find a temporary home has increased. Some obstacles affect the outcome of this system, but not many people would guess that environment changes the situation drastically.
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.
With this research and evaluation, children can feel safer when walking into a new home. Unfortunately, thousands of children in the foster care system are mentally, physically, and sexually abused. With this, children are mentally scarred, and the child's brain is physically altered by those experiences. Experiences so traumatic that children who suffered through constant abuse as a child, often have episodes of PTSD or, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. For instance, "They complained of empty pantries and padlocked refrigerators, of children who lived in rodent-ridden homes and ate cereal crawling with ants.
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.”
Foster care is something that America has put a lot of time and effort into to get right. Foster care will be defined as any place where a child is taken from their family of residence or who has no able guardian at birth. These are included but not limited to foster parents, group homes, residentials, and emergency shelters (5). Though we have put time, effort, and money into getting things right, foster care is still a dangerous and traumatizing place for children. Foster care has long been considered a “National Disgrace” due to the influx of missing children, complaints of maltreatment, and even deaths (5).
Children in foster care often have a high risk of having developmental problems. Seeing that most children in foster care were, taken away from unfit parents a lot of these children have faced some, type of maltreatment. "Proponents of foster care note that 70– 80% of children in out of home placements have been maltreated in the home of origin..."(Lawrence 58). Because, maltreatment is common before placement, poor development outcomes are a risk. Consequently, foster children are at risk of falling behind in development, and up to 80% of foster children have a developmental problem.(Hodges 2156).
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.
