Children In Foster Care Essay

Children in foster care often face multiple barriers that impact their educational achievement and this is a problem because the eventuality of low academic success for this population plays a role on whether they can become functioning and contributing adults in society. Due to not having the educational gains one would need, children in foster care who have poor educational outcomes can become adults that face further obstacles in their lives such as poor mental and physical health, high unemployment rates, homelessness, and possible involvement with the criminal justice system. Additionally, the cost to society is heavy when we have a significant number of children in foster care who are inadequately prepared and equipped to achieve academic

success early on.
Foster care children and youth often repeat grade levels because they have not met the standards of promotion towards the next grade level. They also encounter disciplinary actions within the educational system at higher rates, are referred to receive special education services more often, face delays in enrollments in schools, have lower attendance in school, drop out of school more frequently, they have multiple school placements and have less parental or caregiver involvement regarding their education than those children not involved in the child welfare system. The two factors explored here will be how multiple placements and how parental/caregiver involvement affects educational outcomes for children in foster care.
Many of these children come from a difficult home life and either due to neglect, abuse or both, are placed in the care of others. Children in foster care are placed in multiple settings within the child welfare system which affects their ability to experience positive attachments to peers and adults.
According to the AFCARS report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2016), there was an estimated 427,910 children in foster care nationwide in Fiscal Year 2015. Though the placement of children in foster care has decreased over the years, the number of these children struggling academically is still high. In New York State, there were 16,215 children in foster care as of the end of 2016 according to the Office of Children and Family Services and in New York City there are 8,888 children in foster care as of June 2017 according to the NYC Administration for Children’s Services.
These children are caught up in a cycle that is difficult to break due to their multiple placements and home disruptions. Although schools may address these children’s needs through IEP’s, schools continue to struggle in supporting these children effectively in their education by not being able to adequately meet their behavioral, emotional and academic needs. Further, parents and/or foster parents encounter barriers to have their child’s educational needs advocated for effectively which impacts the level of parental/caregiver involvement regarding their child’s education. Many times, caregivers as well as child welfare representatives such as case planners lack knowledge on how to navigate the educational system to be able to see to it that this population of children have their needs met in their schools.
MULTIPLE PLACEMENTS
Zetlin, Weinberg, & Shea (2010) assert that 75% of children in foster care fall below grade level in their education. The average age of a child in the foster care system is 7 to 8 years of age, well into their elementary school education and represent most of the children in care. Additionally, 45% of children in care are placed with non-related caregivers in homes they are initially unfamiliar with (AFCARS report FY 2015, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services). One of the greatest impacts to their educational stability is how often children in foster care are moved from foster home to foster home. It is averaged that children in care experience about three foster home disruptions while in the system (Casey Family Programs, 2010); which then impacts how often a child may change schools. Although the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act that Congress passed in 2008 (H.R. 6893, 110th United States Congress) focus was to improve educational outcomes specifically for children in foster care, the implementation of this has been problematic. One of the most important aspects of this law addressing multiple placements that children in care encounter is that it requires States that receive federal child welfare funds to ensure that children who enter foster care remain in their initial school setting at the time of entry in the child welfare system. Additionally, if keeping the child in their school of origin poses a hardship for that child, it is required that child welfare agencies act to place children in a new school setting immediately and appropriately (Chambers & Palmer, 2011). These measures of this law are founded on the premise that one must act in the “child’s best interest”. As Palmer (2011) states:
First, with regard to the best-interest determination, neither the federal law nor the state regulations specifies who makes the best-interest determination regarding whether a child should remain in his or her school of origin or attend a school in the district where the new foster home is located. The law does not state whether the family court judge, the child’s welfare agency, the school district, the child’s attorney, the parent, the foster parent, or some combination of these individuals should oversee the decision. (p. 1114 – 1115).
Due to the vagueness and broadness of this stipulation, this law does not provide sufficient direction as to how adults responsible for these children are to approach this complex issue.
PARENTAL/CAREGIVER INVOLVEMENT
Due to the complexity of risk factors associated with children who are placed in foster care, parental involvement in these children’s lives can be greatly disrupted on many planes, including being involved in the educational health of the child. Depending on the situation and severity of the circumstances that revolve around why the child was removed from their parent’s physical custody, it is possibly that parents of children in care participate less in the child’s life either due to their own inability to sustain this connection through personal factors or due to systems such as the courts determining that a parent’s right is limited or terminated. According to Beisse & Tyre (2013) “parents’ decisions to become involved in their children’s education are primarily influenced by what parents believe they should and can do as parents” (p. 3). Parental perception of education is a key component that influences the educational outcome for children. It is widely held that when parents involve themselves in their child’s education, regardless of their socioeconomic status, children tend to perform better in a variety of educational milestones and benchmarks that delineate academic achievement.
The next source of participation in the child’s education should come from the foster parent/caregiver involved in that child’s life.

Foster parents play a pivotal role for children in the child welfare system. Primarily the role of the foster parent is to provide for the child’s safety and welfare while the circumstances around the removal or home disruption are addressed. There are factors that affect foster parent involvement in a child’s educational health, and these factors include multiple placements of the child, which then impacts the opportunities a foster parent may have to address educational concerns. Foster parents also experience having multiple children placed in their homes as well as have foster children removed from their homes mostly due to their inability to handle the child’s behavioral and emotional challenges. Children being reunited with their biological families also impacts how involved a foster parent will be in the child’s education. All these factors can play a role in whether a foster parent becomes involved in the child’s education. Further, because children in foster care face multiple placements, school records and information are often incomplete or unavailable to help a foster parent understand the educational needs of the child placed in their home (Pears, K.C., Fisher, P.A., Bruce, J., Kim, H., & Yoeger, K., 2010). Additionally, individual personal factors can also impact the level of educational involvement in a child’s life from the foster parent perspective. Many foster parents see their role as that of a providing a temporary solution with its main function to provide an immediate safe environment for the child. Foster parents’ perspectives on the child’s education can vary based on their own beliefs about education and how far they feel their influence can carry when advocating for the child’s educational needs. After conducting an exploration study on caregiver involvement for youth in foster care, Beisse & Tyre (2013)

determined that in part caregivers’ Role Construction for Involvement – that is, the extent to which they believe that it is their responsibility to be involved in the education of children in their care” (p. 6) is associated with higher levels of at-home and at-school involvement, whether or not they had knowledge of how to navigate the educational system. The more foster parents perceive their Role Construction of Involvement to be, the more involved they were in the educational health of the child in their care (Beisse & Tyre, 2013).
Parental/Caregiver involvement in children’s education is crucial to the ability of the child to succeed in school, especially during their formative years. Having parents/caregivers involved in this manner can mitigate many of the issues these children encounter in their education and help them get promoted to the next grade level, address behavioral concerns in the schools, intercede in disciplinary actions and advocate suitable educational services.