In October of 2012, a little boy named Matthew was born. He was born prematurely, underweight, and was running a fever the day he was born. Matthew was prenatally exposed to some controlled substances including methamphetamine. He was immediately placed into a foster home after being released from the hospital. His biological mother was on illegal drugs and his father was in jail. Matthew had four biological half sisters and one full sister; all of them had already been adopted or were in the process of adoption by different families. Unfortunately, this is a common story for many children in the United States. The number of foster children is on the rise due to many causes. “As of the middle of 2016, more than 18,000 Arizona children are living …show more content…
In the United States a majority of foster children come from the poorest families and communities. “For children ages 4 and under, counties with the highest concentrations of poverty had more than triple the rate of child-abuse fatalities compared to counties with the lowest concentrations of poverty” (Reuters 1). This statistic is startling and disheartening, children that are living in a more impoverished situation have a more likely chance to go through something so rough. If there is a way to support families in poor neighborhoods and get them out of the desolate pattern of getting stuck in poverty than that number would drop drastically. WIC, a supplemental food program for women, infants and children, is helping people of these communities but there is more that can be done, they provide supplemental food to pregnant women and children under five years (Social Safety Net 1). What happens after children age out of WIC, or when women do not qualify, or their food needs are taken care of but they have nowhere to stay the night, what is done then? The problem of poverty has such a large impact on many areas of life and providing support for biological parents could help eliminate the amount of children going into the foster system for neglect or