Foster Care Research Paper

“I believe the best service to the child is the service closest to the child, and children who are victims of neglect, abuse, or abandonment must not also be victims of bureaucracy. They deserve our devoted attention, not our divided attention.” these are the words of the 27th governor of nevada (Kenny Guin). The world we now resign in is the outcome of the decisions man has made. A system in which were made to help those in need is now the obstacle preventing their success. In the article “American foster care system needs work” the authors state “On any given day, there are nearly 397,000 American children in foster care, according to a report conducted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. That's enough to fill Tiger Stadium

four times” (justin stafford). the foster care was set to aid orphans and kids whose parents weren't capable of taking care of their kids but the aim was to aid them towards a better childhood and adulthood. With the worsening of the foster care system, the foster care in the united states must to be reviewed due too many kids are entering the foster care system,and youths leaving at the 18 are prepared for adulthood.
In the article "Failure and success in foster care programs”, the authors reviewed the progress of the foster care system and how much it has worsened since it was first available. For decades the amount of abuse kids entering the care system has increased dramatically. with the population foster kids increasing their has to be a drastic change and in order prevent kids from becoming homeless once leaving the foster care system, there has to approaches taken to aid the hundreds of kids that are entering the system because the numbers are increasing dramatically as seen here “ Approximately 20,000 youth age out (emancipate) from state foster care systems each year . In addition, the percentage of children needing foster placement has increased by 48%, whereas the number of foster homes available has decreased by 27%”. This is clearly a major issue, and to make matters worse once the kids have entered the foster care system the amount of time spent in the care is has also increased due to the process that it takes to either find a placement for the youth. Too often parent aren't fit to take care of the youth making the situation worse, as seen when in the article “failures and success in the foster care system” when the authors states “For decades, the number of children in foster care has steadily increased (Courtney, Piliavin, Grogan-Kaylor, & Nesmith, 2001). These children have remained in the foster care system for longer periods of time , and the long term outcome of the care they received is not systematically monitored or reported ”. With this being said having the kids in the care for longer isn't helping them at all, which raise multiple questions as to why we devote our time into new clothing stores and new roads and war machinery but there has been nothing done for these youths why?
In the united states Forty percent of all adolescents that age out of the foster care system end up homeless and aren’t aided properly.

From the Orphan trains to the Children’s Bureau, foster care has been well researched topic in the United States. With hundreds of children entering the foster care system,The Orphan trains gave children the opportunity to be chosen by a family and to be accepted into another home nonetheless is difficult. Being placed into the Foster Care system is done so with the intention that in the future, permanent placement can be established for the foster child; however, many cases have proved that the transition from home to home has left adolescents ill prepared for the adequate challenges into adulthood. for example in the article "Balancing permanency and stability for youth in foster care" by Tonia Stott and Nora Gustavsson, an experiment was conducted to see if the multiple placements may have an effect on the success of the youths once they have aged out of the

system.
Youth aging out of the foster care system are at risk for poor outcomes. Little is known about the etiology of these outcomes. However, placement instability may be one contributor. Permanency planning as a policy was well-intentioned. However, for adolescents likely to age out of care, the policy may actually contribute to placement instability. A review of the elements of permanency reveals a complex concept which emphasizes continuity of relationships. Federal permanency legislation and state policy may be in conflict with this goal, especially for youth who age out of care.
The results of the experiment clearly show that youths are both physically and mentally affected when they are moved from home to home. To better understand the how youths are affected multiple placement changes, another experiment was conducted in the article "The impact of changing neighborhoods, switching schools, and experiencing relationship disruption on children's adjustment to a new placement in foster care" , the experiments included 152 youths ages 6-17 who were residing with relatives or non-relative to better understand the effect of being moved from home to and and having minimal contact with loved ones.during they interview the youths were asked a series of questions about their new placements. And concluded that “In contrast, changing schools had a positive impact on youths' mental health, and youth who were separated from siblings were more likely to get along well with their school peers. Implications for improving youth's adjustment to new foster care placements are discussed ”(king, kya). This quotations clearly shows that kids are greatly affected when they are moved from placement to placement but there are still hundreds of kids that face this issue everyday. to conclude we as an american nation, the home of the free need to take care of our up coming generation before we are faced with a bigger issues that could have been easily fixed if the issue was identified and action were taken towards it.
Though many may argue that the foster care system has given a home to youths that are abused, sexually abused, and no longer have parents or relatives to take care of the, what good has the system done if the youths don't have a stable home in which the parents or guardian can invest not only in their childhood but also their adulthood were live is the hardest.

However, despite this prevailing idea, according to “ Statistics on homeless Youths in America”, the author concluded that “ more than 25% of former foster children become homeless with two to four years of leaving the system, 50% of adolescent aging out of the foster care and juvenile justice system will be homeless within six months because they are unprepared to live independently and have limited education and no social support” ( Statistics on Youth in America). Though these reasons may be valid,the percentage of youths that end up homeless once leaving the care is to high making all the efforts put towards aiding them through their teens years worth lee. With this being said if there has to be another way to prevent the amount of youths becoming homeless to further

increase.
with our population increasing every day laws are put in place to satisfy the crowed, with this being said theses laws have given adults the right use illegal drugs that later prevent them from being able to provide care for their youths so the foster care system has to step in to provide unstable place for the youths that isn't beneficial once the youths leave the system at the age of. in the united states the process in which it takes to make and remove laws is a length process. With this issue at hand it's only a matter of time until you drive down the street and see a homeless youth and you wishing there could have been something you could have done to aid this youth. You may say that you're only one person and your action or word may not matter, but it most definitely does because without the words of adults, youths wouldn't have a voice in this world. Each year, 100 million people/youths worldwide are becoming homeless. They have no shelter: they sleep on pavements, in doorways, in parks or under bridges. Or they sleep in public buildings like railway or bus stations, or in night shelters set up to provide homeless people with a bed.The estimated number of homeless increases to 1,000 million people if we include those in housing that is very insecure or temporary, often of poor quality. So you may wonder What our world would look like if there was a better way to aid our youths, this picture may be impossible to paint at the moment but imagine a world where everyone is given a second chance, imagine a world where every single child has a bright future in front of them or a home to come too, wouldn't that bee a future we would all want to see one day.