Essay On Foster Care

Danielle Jackson
Carlton - 5
English 11
1 March 2018
The Broken System we call Foster Care Yes foster care is an essential system used to provide loving homes to children, but unfortunately these systems have become broken and can no longer keep kids safe under their care. Everyday children are being placed in foster homes facing abuse, unloving parents, and even death. The system has only progressively gotten worse leaving behind children traumatized to a point where no amount of love or therapy can fix them. To inaugurate, the biggest issue with foster care is the inadequate placement of children in the system. Children are placed into homes based on cases of availability and not what their unique needs call for. Patricia George states,

When children are forced out over and over again it makes them feel unwanted or that they did something wrong. Patricia George writes, “Shuttling children off to a strangers home for a period of days or weeks, only to be potentially shuttled off to another home… simply underscores the frightening and traumatic experience of seeing ones family fall apart” (George and Walker). Not only do children have to deal with the constant moving around, they also have to deal with complications such as sibling separation. Sometimes a family isn't always looking to foster or adopt more than one child at at time so social workers tear brothers and sisters apart. In some cases, siblings will never see each other for years or even ever

Laura Finley states, “Indeed, restoration of the family is achieved in over half the cases of foster care, according to federal statistics. Where this is not possible, permanent adoption is the goal with about twenty percent of foster children. Other children are simply waiting until emancipation…” (Jacobs and Finley). The issue with this view on the foster care system is that its completely sugar coated. Restoration of original families in foster care is not always an accessible choice. For example, if a child is in foster care because their parent is sick, restoration is easy but in other cases when a parent is addicted to hard drugs and shooting up heroine everyday, it's not quite as “simple” as they are making it sound. Also, this quote mentions the other half of children stuck in group homes waiting to age out of the system when they turn eighteen. The drawback with this is aging out of the system is in no way a happy or ideal situation. When these used to be children, now adults, age out of the system they are left on their own with no family for the rest of their lives. They are completely alone and have no support system or anyone to fall back on if they need