Suicide In Foster Care Essay

Presently, suicide is tenth leading cause of death in all age groups. However, adolescents who were in the foster care system are two and a half more times likely to seriously consider suicide than any other youth (Pilosky & Wu, 2006). Suicide Ideation falls under the categories of Psychological disorders, being that the psychological disorders such as: depression, post traumatic stress disorder, panic disorder, and anxiety disorder, can ultimately lead to suicide ideation. The foster care system in America presently consist of around 520,000 of children who enter the foster care on average each year. The purpose of this study is to discover if there is in fact a correlation between adolescents who grew up in foster care and a higher rate of suicide ideation. Foster care homes are places where children and teens

Although prior problems may also affect the reasons for suicidal ideations of adolescents, it is suspected that factors such as social workers workload, the crowding of the foster homes and the surroundings of the foster homes could possibly play a role in adolescents not receiving the proper help that they need. For instanced, it is noted that the recommended number of cases of social worker should have is seventeen, however in some states social workers could have twice or even three times more cases than the recommended seventeen. Also, 80-90% of foster care cases can be linked back to substance abuse. By knowing this information America, there should be new improvements with the way that substance abuse is treated. If repremations were made pertaining to substance abuse, and the treatment of social workers, the amount of adolescents in foster care would decrease, and the foster care system would in fact better itself due to new strict regulations on how many cases a social worker can handle at a time. With broader changes, comes great affects and by in fact changing the way the foster care system is built, a decrease in suicidal ideation will