Foster System: The Effects Of A Broken System

The Effects of a Broken System

Foster care is a system in which a child under the age of eighteen, is placed in a temporary home away from one’s parents due to physical or mental neglect. Children from as young as a few days old to teenage years are placed in foster care every day. The amount of children in the system affect how needs are met and how high these youths are placed on a need of special care for problems that were developed before and while in the system. Most of which occur because they are abused and that is why they were taken away. Foster care is an escape for those being mistreated. It gives a chance to do things that maybe would not be possible if stuck in the situation that originally caused such problems. Foster

When a child is placed into foster care, many times they have trouble adjusting. This may be caused by developmental delay. In an article, by Brenda Harden, she states that, “Moreover, research demonstrates that children exposed to violent, dangerous, and/or highly unstable environments are more likely to experience developmental difficulties.1 Children exposed to violence within their homes experience the most deleterious outcomes. For example, children exposed to physical maltreatment often experience impairments in their physical health, cognitive development, academic achievement, interpersonal relationships, and mental health.” Most children are more likely to experience problems if it has to do with violence or abuse before they were taken away and placed into the system. Those are the children that have more severe problems which will most likely lead to long

Although, there are a ajority who do not develop such habits and good percentage still do. In the National Institute of Justice article, the author states, “Being abused or neglected as a child increases the likelihood of arrest as a juvenile by 59 percent, as an adult by 28 percent, and for a violent crime by 30 percent according to one study that looked at more than 1,500 cases over time.” They are more likely to partake in such activities because of the neglect and abuse from their previous situation. Getting a perminet record at a young ago tends to affect the person for years. It may have not been their fault and they probably turned their life around but because they continue to be neglected they do not see any harm in partaking in criminal activities. In the same article it was also stated that, “Researchers found that childhood maltreatment was a risk factor for officially recognized delinquency, violent self-reported delinquency and moderate self-reported delinquency. Overall, child maltreatment appeared to be a risk factor for more serious delinquency, such as assaults, but not lesser forms of delinquency, such as underage drinking.” Another form of juvinile behavior they partake in, often tends to lead to drug abuse. They grew up with it being okay to hit someone just for the sake of it. They become used to the idea that these things are normal and they rarely look to see what the consequences of their actions will be in the near future. Lastly this