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The effects of foster care on children
The effects of foster care on children
The effects of foster care on children
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My family has been a foster home since the middle of my eighth grade year. We hadn’t had kids until everything changed October 30, 2012, my freshman year of high school. It was a regular school day, everyone talking about their Halloween plans, what parties they were going to, and who was "too old" to trick or treat. I was sitting in my dreadful World History class when I got a text message from my mother saying, "Call me as soon as you can.” This sent me into an immediate panic. Was she hurt? What rule did I break? Did she find out about ____? I asked my teacher if I could go to the bathroom, and I called her. "Hi mom." "Do you want two little boys?" "What the hell do you mean do I 'want two little boys'? " I asked, forgetting …show more content…
about being a foster home. "DHHS just called. There are two boys who need a placement; they are two and four." "Mom can we talk about this tomorrow morning? I have history right now, and my college class tonight." "They would need to be here in 4 hours." I went into a larger panic. I started having trouble breathing, and I felt my heart pounding. Everything went quiet, and I could just hear my rapid heart palpitations. "Mom, I don't know. This is all too fast. Are you sure you're ready for two little kids?" I asked worried about her being overwhelmed. "Yes." I could hear her smiling while she said that. Such a simple word, but it made her happy. "Let's do it." My heartbeat slowed down, and I started thinking how good this could be for our family. I smiled, and took a deep breath. I was on the fence about whether I should have said yes or no. I was a Freshman in high school, taking a college class at University of Rockland, trying to fit in and find friends, and trying to figure out who I am. I thought that something like this would be good for my family; that it could bring us even more together. They got to our house at around 4pm. The social workers carried them in because they had just woken up from a nap. They were so little, and looked so sad. Just from seeing their eyes, and faces you could tell they felt so lost, and so alone. Jeremy, the 2 year old, had shining blonde hair, and his hazel eyes were so bright. The 4 year old, Jaime, had dirty blonde hair. The social workers gave us the basic information on who they were, and what they were like. There are good times and bad times to every child in our care; just like having biological children. One of the unnerving stories was set four months into having these boys. Jeremy had a chest cold, and Jaime was screaming because my sister, Tasha, took away his toy. I was trying to calm down Jaime. Mom was working so we had to be alone for the night. Tasha was making Jeremy some tea, and she had just put the hot water into the mug. She took three steps to the left so she could get the tea-bag. Jeremy ran through the kitchen and grabbed the tea mug. All I heard was a splash, a crash of the mug, and a scream; an ear-piercing scream. I turned around to see Jeremy screaming, and Tasha grabbed him. His stomach was bright red, and blistering. From there we went to the hospital. We got to the hospital, and rushed him into the emergency room. The doctor saw us, and told us it was a second degree burn. Once we finally got to leave, we called DHHS and told them what had happened. The hospital faxed them the hospital record, and they cleared us to not be responsible. My sister and I both cried that night.
After the boys went to bed, we both reflected on what had happened. The most shocking part was that the kids were put into our care because their parents were hurting them. We were supposed to give them a safe haven, and we did nothing more than their parents; inflict pain. The doctor told us that the scar would slowly fade as Jeremy grew up, but that was forever scarred into our minds. Don’t let me mislead you, being a foster home isn’t always a negative thing. There are so many great memories with the children who have been put into our care. The great times vary from child to child: Like when we receive loving art from the boys with handprints and footprints, or taking a day trip to Portland with the 18 year old who lived with us for 11 months, or my current 10 year old who buries her head into my neck when she’s …show more content…
scared. Being a foster home isn’t close to easy.
It isn’t watching kids for a couple of hours, and then leaving. You don’t become wealthy from the government paying you; you barely scrape by. It’s waking up at two in the morning to change a diaper, or cuddle after a nightmare. It’s your family coming together as a unit, and slowly dissolving. It’s waking up an hour and a half early so that you can dress the kids, feed them, make their daycare lunches, while writing an essay. It’s not knowing if your current child is going to be there for three days, or several years. Running a foster home is a constant feeling of unknown. Being a foster home is enjoying going to school, and work because it’s less stressful than being at home. It isn’t about your comfort, or your happiness. It’s about changing someone else's life, creating a safe home, and making an impact on someone's life; and hoping it's for the better. You hope it’s better because all you want is to give these kids something they can hold onto after they leave. Being a foster home is the best, and the worst thing you can have growing
up.
...ices, the medical field, teachers, and administrators could all benefit from reading about Kathy and her family. People who are considering taking part in fostering certification should definitely read Another Place at the Table. The events she walks the reader through are not common events taking place in the traditional family. It would help any professional who may be exposed to the Social Service System to understand the systematic process that a child in foster care experience, the good, and bad. So many professionals are mandatory reports and they know nothing about the system as it relates to the child’s experience. Hearing how these children and the foster homes they occupy could benefit from quality assistance and support would provide improvement to the system.
When Cris Bean was writing the book, he mentioned a couple of times the fact of how traumatizing it can be for kids who end up in foster care. When a kid is placed into the foster care system, it can be very stressful and disorientating the first few days. Probably the hardest part is wrapping your head around the fact that now a child is in the foster care system and why are they there. Many kids that are older probably did not have to follow many rules since the biological parents where perhaps on drugs, alcohol, or not even being there at all. So, living in a new house with rules can be a very difficult thing to follow, or even if the child has reasoning for right and wrong.
...t with a child in the foster care system. This paper gave me the opportunity to learn the positives and the negatives as well as more details about the little parts of the foster care system that I didn’t know existed. Even though my focus is to help the child and think about their best interest, this paper showed me that the parents, both biological and foster, are another important factor that helps the children. It made me realize that I will need to meet the parents and work with them to make a plan that fits their life. I will need to figure out what issues they feel are important to fix and how to get to those solutions. Foster care is a complex system that will challenge me daily if I enter the into this specific field but even if I work with children in a different environment I need to be aware that children come from all different types of backgrounds.
There is nearly 400,000 children in out-of-home care in the United States right now (Children’s Right). Just about every day children are being shipped in and out of foster homes and group homes. Most people want the best for children in foster care and decide to take care of them until their parents can possibly recover. The foster care system can have both a negative or positive effect on children, foster parents, and biological parents because of the gaps in the system. Foster cannot not be avoided but the some aspects of the foster care system can be avoided if the missing gaps were filled.
Addressing the needs of children in foster care has been an issue that has tried to be addressed in many ways. In 2001, approximately 300,000 children entered the foster care system, with the average time spent in placement equaling 33 months (Bass Shields, & Behrman, n.d.). Statistically, the longer a child is in the foster care system, the greater number of placements they will have, and instability increases each year (Bass Shields, & Behrman, n.d). I recently read a novel by a girl who was placed into the system at age two, and by age 12 she had already experienced 14 different placements (Rhodes-Courter, 2007). Stories such as this one are not uncommon in the foster care system, especially if the child is a member of a sibling group or
One of the biggest misconceptions that we have in our country is that foster care is a great thing; well, it’s not. There are so many flaws in our foster care system to even consider it a good idea. With constant reports of abuse, depression, lack of stability, to even the terrible after effects of the foster care system, like homelessness and incarceration; the foster care system hurts more than it helps. Our foster care system is bad for America, but most of all, our children.
“About two-thirds of children admitted to public care have experienced abuse and neglect, and many have potentially been exposed to domestic violence, parental mental illness and substance abuse” (Dregan and Gulliford). These children are being placed into foster care so that they can get away from home abuse, not so they can move closer towards it. The foster children’s varied outcomes of what their adult lives are is because of the different experiences they grew up with in their foster homes. The one-third of those other foster children usually has a better outcome in adult life than the other two-thirds, which is a big problem considering the high percentage of children being abused in their foster homes. Although, the foster care system has most definitely allowed children to experience the positive home atmosphere that they need there is still an existed kind of abusive system in the foster care program that is unofficial but seems to be very popular. Foster care focuses on helping children in need of a temporary stable environment; however, foster care can have negative impacts to the children and the people around them concerning the foster child going through the transition, the parents of the foster child, a new sibling relationship, and problems that arrive later influencing the foster child long-term.
In todays’ society many Americans never think about our foster care system. Foster care is when a child is temporarily placed with another family. This child may have been abused, neglected, or may be a child who is dependent and can survive on their own but needs a place to stay. Normally the child parents are sick, alcohol or drug abusers, or may even be homeless themselves. We have forgotten about the thousands of children who are without families and living in foster homes. Many do not even know how foster care came about. A few of the earliest documentation of foster care can be found in the Old Testament. The Christian church put children into homes with widowers and then paid them using collection from the church congregation. The system that the church had in place was actually successful, and was continued to be used until English Poor Law eventually regulated family foster care in the U.S.
As of 2014, there were over 415,000 children in the foster care system. Foster care is the raising and supervision of children in a private home, group home, or institution, by individuals engaged and paid by a social service agency (Legal Dictionary, 2016). Care givers can be of kin relationship to the child, or may not know the child at all. Group homes are run by a social worker and can house multiple children at a time. These homes are usually regulated by the state and/or government. Children of all ages go through many emotions when their lives revolve in foster care. This paper will discuss the emotions children deal with regarding separation from birth family, the effects of abuse, and the possibility of having to transition out of
Everyone knows about foster care but do not realize the impact it has on humans ' lives. “More than 400,000 children are placed in foster care annually, with more than 200,000 moving in and out of foster homes in giving year” (Brozak, 1). Foster care changes and benefits people live, from the child to the parent. By foster care you save more lives than just the foster child. Although, foster parenting come with barrage of challenges. It provides many advantages for the people in need. Having foster children in your home is a blessing to the child, foster parents, and birth parents.
In order for a possible successful future to take place, an appropriate selection of the caregiver must take place (Blythe et. al 88). Whenever an inappropriate foster parent is given responsibility over a child, all sorts of issues for the parent and child are created that could have been easily avoided. Foster care agencies must select foster parents that are completely capable to care for the health and safety of their new kids (Blythe et. al 88). This means that the foster parents must be able to supply all of the child’s essential needs so that they may be a valuable citizen in society one day. Research has discovered that foster parents will experience more anxiety and stress when compared to adults in their surrounding communities (Blythe et al. 88). This is directly because the foster parent was incapable of being a sufficient parent for the foster child. Since every child is special and unique in their own way it makes sense that the foster p...
According to the International Foster Care Organization “Foster care is a way of providing a family life for children who cannot live with their own parents.”(2004) Foster care is supposed to provide temporary care while parents get help dealing with problems, or to help children or young people through a difficult period in their lives. Children will return home once their parents are able to provide a safe enviorment for them. However if parent are unable to resolve the issues that cause their child in foster care their children may stay in long-term foster care, some may be adopted, and others will move on to live independently. (IFCO, 2004) Foster care has been a problem for many years and although there have been many attempts to improve it; it there still seems to be negatively impacting
The fall of ’99 was the year of all years; Janine was in her last year of law school at Yale, and her adoptive mother, Nancy, had just phoned telling her of their family visit in the fall. Just then out of the blue she hears a knock at the door.
She recently encouraged a pastor at her church to foster and now, he and his wife, have a baby whom they absolutely love. According to her, there are many important traits a foster parent must have. One of these is self-confidence because the parent must be able to leave their struggles behind in order to help the child to their best ability. The parent must also be strong mentally. Although it may be tough to raise children, but one must need strength to get through it. The foster parent must also understand that they will not always feel rewarded with this role. Another ability a person must have is to be able to grow a strong relationship in order to help the child thrive. A foster parent must be able to set a routine, however, they can not be a perfectionist because in raising children, there is no perfection. The most important trait of a good foster parent is the ability to love unconditionally. The child may not be able to love their foster parent at the current point in their life. But overall she encourages anyone who is thinking about foster care to try it. “Do it! Things will be a challenge, but don’t pass it up because it will end up being rewarding. It will be hard to have them leave, but they have a plan, God has a
As time went on, being in foster care didn’t seem that bad. I thought that it would never end; however, it ended for me ...