Foster Home Abuse Case Study

Maddy and Jason were young when they first got put into the foster care system. Maddy has burns down her arms from her father’s cigarettes, while Jason has permanent brain damage from the drugs that his mother was taking when he was in the womb. They were caught being abused from the hands of their mother and father, two people who were supposed to hold unconditional love for them. Maddy and Jason’s abuse did not stop there though, it continued for six more foster homes. Six houses, neighbors, schools, and parents who did not love them even the slightest. Illustrating the abuse from the lives of two children represents one example of how today’s foster care system is failing. We live in a generation where the amount of people wanting to help

Florida State University recently conducted a study on the general behaviors of children in the system, the study states, “when asked [foster parents] about mental health problems, 51.4% of children with chronic illnesses had mental health problems.” After suffering years of abuse we anticipate that these children will be okay and continue living their ordinary lives. The complication with this is that these children do not know how to be normal because their abuse was the normal. They were never given the opportunity to do children activities; such as playing on the playgrounds, playing dolls or action figures, or building snow forts. Being a foster parent you are able to give these children those experiences. Furthermore, these children can come into the system suffering from well known mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety. With the correct treatment and environment these children can become mentally healthy again. Small minds walk around this world assuming they are useless and unlovable but with you as a parent you can stop the vicious cycle of mental self harm. In being a parent, you get to teach these children all the opportunities in the world. To give them self empowerment, something that was robbed from them for such a long time. In reference to the cycle of self harm, there is also a cycle of abuse being caused by current foster

The half a billion children in foster care are not broken, damaged, or worthless. However, they are unloved, scared, and in danger. You have the opportunity to stop this, to take these kids in and show them so much love that they will question why they ever thought they were unloved in the first place. Yes, there are a lot of costs to becoming a parent and there is a lot of fight that goes into it. But look at the love we have for our family, a unconditional love, and take a moment and remember how privileged we are to have that. Loving is not as easy as breathing and to some people having children is a burden which they will punish those children for as long as they can. Become a parent and give these kids a better tomorrow and the story of where they came from and what they have been through will become meaningless because now they have you. They deserve to have someone fighting on their side, we need to stop punishing them for something that was out of their control. There are numerous reasons why becoming a foster parent is a terrible idea, there are numerous reasons why it is the best idea. However, the real reason to become a foster parent today is because the number of opportunities you will give these children is