Abuse in Government Care

Abuse in Government Care

It is unfortunate that in our society some children grow up without the opportunity of having a loving family to raise them. More unimaginable is children growing up with parents or family members that are abusive. Children raised in abusive environments that are reported to social services and removed from their home are placed into foster care. Foster care is defined supervised care for delinquent or neglected children usually in an institution or substitute home set up by the government. Some advocates claim that the government child care system is adequate, but others like David Van Biema of Time Magazine state that, “foster care is intended to protect children from neglect and abuse at the hands of parents and other family members, yet all too often it becomes an equally cruel form of neglect and abuse by the state (Biema).” There is substantial research that looks deeper into the foster care system. It reveals that abuse in foster care is a big enough problem that it needs to be addressed, but what changes can or should be made?

Government statistics, newspaper articles, and thorough research projects have been completed to answer the question, “is there a problem in the foster care system?” The results have revealed that a serious problem exist within foster care in the United States. At any given time there are approximately 542,000 children in the foster care system (Dept of Health). This number continues to rise each year. In 2001, 290,000 children entered into foster care, while only 263,000 children left the system (Dept of Health). Of the 263,000 children that left foster care in the year 2001, 31% were in care for over two years (Dept of Health). Nineteen percent of those children were in foster care for one to two years (Dept of Health). Two years is an unacceptable amount of time when taken into consideration that between the ages of 8 and ten are critical developmental years in a child’s life. The average age of the a child leaving the foster care system in 2001 was 10.2 years old (Dept of Health). The amount of children per foster home at any given time is another problem. The average number of children per home in the foster care system is 3.7, which is up from 1.4 in 1983. Although 3.7 children is an average per home, there are claims that tens of thousands of homes have 5 – 8 children at once (C...

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... we can ask for is that they come out alive (Thoma 8).”

Work Cited:

Biema, David Van. “The Storm Over Orphanages.” Time Magazine, p. 144

12 Dec. 1994.

Cohen, Deborah L. “Foster-Care Reforms Often Ignore Problems Children Face in

School.” Education Weekly 15 June 1991.

Maier, Timothy W. “Suffer the Children.” Insight on the News 24 Nov. 1997: Pg. 11.

Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. “Public records and confidentiality laws.” Jan. 2004 http://emanuals.odjfs.state.oh.us/emanuals/legal/pubrec/@Generic__BookTextVie w/3;cs=default;ts=default;pt=23.

Ritchotte, William. “Foster Care Reform.” Adoption.com

http://library.adoption.com/Advocacy/Foster-Care-Reform/article/5053/1.html.

Thoma, Rick. “How Widwspread a Problem? A Critical Look at the Foster Care System”

Liftingtheveil.org 24 June 2003 http://www.liftingtheveil.org/foster04.htm.

Thoma, Rick. “A Critical Look at the Foster Care System: How Safe the Service?”

Liftingtheveil.org 15 Nov. 2002 http://www.liftingtheveil.org/foster03.htm.

U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services. “Foster Care National Statistics.” 2003

http://nccanch.acf.hhs.gov/pubs/factsheets/foster.cfm.