Foster Care: Social Causes Of Foster Care

A social problem is defined as a behavior or condition that is seen as causing harm to society. When we think of the foster care system and the number of children being placed into it, we generally don’t see any harm to us as a society. People usually approach foster care with an individual explanation blaming the kid’s biological parents for the cause of the kids being placed into the states holding. However, there are many different factors that we need to analyze and identify to be social causes of foster care. Kids are put in foster care due to various different reasons occurring within their families such as domestic violence, child abuse, immigration, incarceration, mental health, and substance abuse. A child is taken from their home

Daily, there is approximately 428,000 children in the system (Children’s Rights 2017). Although, the government and agencies have come up with plans to reduce this high number, society should consider an objectivist and constructivist approach that may be occurring and ultimately why the numbers aren’t drastically decreasing. An objectivist would argue that the foster care system is a real social problem, but not have identified all aspects that cause this problem. A constructivist would argue that the foster care system is an issue, but the way society identifies with foster care doesn’t seem to view it as significant to other problems. Moreover, society needs to pinpoint why the numbers of children in the system are so high. One of the main causes is substance abuse by parents. In order to understand substance abuse, we need to identify the opioid crisis as a social problem that plays into foster care due to the number of parents that have drug history that runs within their families. Due to the fact that people are more likely to be involved with drugs when they are struggling financially, socioeconomic status is a definite factor. The opioid crisis affects various families under the system, because parents are losing their children due to becoming addicted and not even being able to care for themselves. A lot of opioid users and substance abusers want to get better, but they have just

Durkheim’s idea of egoism can be applied to the effect that foster parents have on their children. For example, too little social integration can lead to bad outcomes for these individuals later in life (Durkheim 1897). According to the Annual Review of Sociology, there are many high risks that foster children are in danger of. Individuals placed in the system are more likely to smoke, try to commit suicide, get involved with crimes, and deliver or father a child. Foster children have symptoms of psychopathology. Also, these individuals are more at risk of having no health insurance, being poor and homeless., and abusing substances. In comparison with individuals who are not in the system, foster children suffer poorer outcomes in life. Therefore, it is necessary that these children are developing a close relationship with an adult they can trust. Statistics show that having a positive connection with just one adult can be beneficial to those children who age out of the system and are suddenly on their own. This one relationship can save them from many of these other hardships they are in danger