Children In Foster Care

Foster care has become an important topic to researchers today. Studies by various sources like Children and Youth Services Review, Child Welfare, Child Abuse and Neglect, Pediatrics, Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing, and Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal, show that foster children are more likely to fail out of high school and end up in jail than non-foster children. The researchers say that the majority of foster kids are not prepared for the world after foster care. Researchers point out that children outside of the foster care system have their parents for housing, money, and overall care, well past their 18th birthday. Foster children on the other hand, are dropped by the system and left to fend for themselves

at the age of 18. They continue to say that foster kids are prone to crime and or dependent on government aid after aging out. Studies say that there are many factors to blame and tell of new programs set out to help foster children before their 18th year. The experts view foster care as something that is broken but also believe that there are ways to fix it. Although the foster care system is meant to be a safe haven for children from bad homes, researchers state that placement instability, traumatic experiences, and mental health issues can cause the children to become very problematic in society.

According to experts, the foster care system is supposed to be a saving grace for children who come from abusive, unfit, or overall dangerous homes. The recent studies show that children in foster care or struggling more than they are preserving and one reason is because of placement instability. Foster youth enrolled in 11th grade is 27% more likely to not graduate from high school. Meaning only 59% of foster children graduate compared to non-foster children at 86%. (Burley, Halpern pg. 1). 22% of foster children had three or more moves in 2.5 years. (Newton, Litrownik, Landsverk, pg. 1364). Every time they are moved, they are in rolled into a completely new school. This change causes the children to miss many days of school, repeat grades because credits do not always transfer over, and can be extremely hard socially causing them to disassociate and make them have a greater number of behavioral problems. (Bruskas, pg. 71). 89% of the foster children who "graduated" got their GED. (Bruskas, pg. 71). In a study consisted of 167 Foster students and 167 non-foster students, academic results of foster children to non-foster children is compared. In comparison to students who were not in foster care, 51% of foster care students were going for their GED while only 23% of non-foster students were doing the same. 20% and foster kids dropped out of high school only 7% of non-foster kids dropped out. (Blome, pg. 47). Even if the foster children graduate high school, standard achievement test scores are 15 to 20 percentile points lower than students not in foster care. (Burley, Halpern, pg. 6). Not one expert disagreed that the foster parents are also to blame for the low grades. Researchers found that many do not watch over their foster children to make sure they are actually studying or doing homework, in fact many just do not care enough to do those things. The parent’s overall involvement in the child's education is lacking. 65% of senior foster children said their foster parents never went to a parent teacher conference and greater than 73% never visited the child's class or volunteered at their school. (Blome, pg. 48). Placement is a awfully important part of the foster care system, as it can lead to a successful case or a failing one. In a study by David M. Rubin et al. consisting of 729 foster children, 52% found instant stability, 19% found it a little bit later, and an astounding 28% remained in an unstable lifestyle. Because they never found stability they're already awful behaviors become worse, making the future after foster care very rocky. (Ruben, et al, pg. 1). Most of the experts said and agreed that foster children from the ages of 12 to 14 or more likely to be placed in unstable homes and are more likely to have more behavioral problems. This can be because of their age and increasing hormones. (Jonson – Reid, Barth, pg. 507). The studies mentioned illustrates that unstable homes are the leading cause for behavior problems and educational problems.

Experts say that foster children in foster care are coming from homes that are filled with maltreatment and that this fact can affect their stability in foster care and their life after it.

This is where all of the authors could agree. One researcher, in particular, said that simply removing a child from their family, even though they are not good families, can be a highly traumatic experience for the child. (Bruskas, pg. 73). The maltreatment they received while in their "birth" homes is also majorly traumatic. In one study researchers found that the most common type of maltreatment is neglect coming in at 41.2% followed by physical abuse at 17.6% and then sexual abuse at 2.5%. (Hussey, Guo, pg. 493). The dramatic experiences can and do affect the social aspects of the child's life. Because of their mistreatment, it becomes harder for them to create bonds with their foster parents, teachers, and peers, which in turn causes them to be moved from homes and placed elsewhere creating an unstable environment. (Newton, Litrownik, Landsverk, pg. 1364). The feeling of abandonment not only when they were removed from their first home but also when they are moved from home to home in foster care can cause them to have lowered self-esteem. (Burley, Halpern, pg. 12) The child in foster care feels like they aren't good enough and this feeling gets reinforced every time they are moved from a home. Constant movement can affect their behavior and is traumatic. (Newton, Litrownik, Landsverk, pg. 1364). After going through so many traumatic experiences to foster care youth's behavior is forever affected, making them less trusting and more problematic. After leaving the foster care program many report having a hard time finding a job or are finding themselves in jail as a criminal, according to a study conducted by Bruskas. (Bruskas, pg. 71). Traumatic experiences make the overall life of a foster child harder during the program and also

after.

Many researchers say that there needs to be greater amounts of preparation of foster parents and also that there desperately needs to be more programs readily available to help out the family and group homes with what they need to survive. One of these programs created to relieve pressure is called Systems of Care or SOC for short. SOC is a program that helps with things "outside the scope of traditional mental health interventions including, but not limited to, recreational activities, music lessons, providing professional clothing for job interviews, home furnishings, tutoring, and others" (Weiner, Schneider, Lyons, pg. 1999). These programs are meant to help relieve stress on the caregivers so that they might be able to provide more stable and more permanent home for the foster children in their care. The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services implemented trauma specific treatments to add to SOC agencies. These were meant to target developmental needs in specific age groups. Children in foster care under age six will go to something called Child Parent Psychotherapy in order to help with attachment issues. And ages 6 to 12 they begin to focus on Trauma Specific Cognitive Behavioral Treatment in order to help the children cope with what they have been through. And finally for any children in foster care over 13 you have a treatment focused on treating chronic stress, as these are fundamental years for schooling and largely biologically developmental, called SPARCS or Structured Psychotherapy for Adolescents Responding to Chronic Stress. (Weiner, Schneider, Lyons, pg. 1200). Also there is treatment foster care where the child spends some time in a hospital in order to help with their mental disorders. In one study, 20% of those studied scored above a 70 on the DSMD, which means they had elevated psychiatric disturbance. Out of home placement is is known to be a leading cause to increased levels of psychiatric symptomology. (Hussey, Guo, pg. 492). After staying in the hospital for a while, the children began to show improvements on their DSMS scores. The average score before improvement was 55.4 and overtime the score went down at.003 or 3.29 points over 3 years. In another study the researcher found that 71% of children in foster care have behavioral or emotional problems, the underlying cause being mental health issues. (Burley, Halpern, pg. 12). All of these programs all work to make an unstable lifestyle stable for the sake of the children's future.

In conclusion the researchers found that children are heavily affected by the foster care system because of placement instability, traumatic experiences before entering the program, and they develop or trigger mental health issues. Placement instability can affect their education and the studies showed that the children in foster care had high higher dropout rates, higher GED rights and overall lower placement in ranking. Traumatic experiences can affect their personal life in the studies show that after going through the experiences, they have a hard time forming relationships and trusting others, leaving them isolated. The mental issues they develop or trigger can make them an outcast and can actually be a threat to their own life. Luckily there are new programs being created to help them improve. Overall the researchers all can agree that the foster care system is very difficult for children to go through and it affects their life forever.