Though foster care was originally established to help children who were orphaned, abandoned, neglected or abused, it has also caused problems for children. Agencies often have difficulty providing adequate, accessible, and appropriate services for the families in their care. (Chipungu and Goodley, pp. 76, 2004) This paper will examine the negative impact of foster care on children as a social problem and how it is viewed and understood. Also this paper would point out the key figures and groups that are affected by problem. This paper would analyze past attempts to better the foster care system and current policies that exist to face this problem. Throughout this paper the goals and objectives of the current polices would be addressed. …show more content…
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 …show more content…
Problems in the society such as poverty, homelessness, unemployment, substance abuse, HIV/AIDS, unequal education, family and community violence, and racism all can affect families and impact child welfare and the system itself (Chipungu and Goodley, pp. 76, 2004) There is often a incongruity between the services being offered to children and families in foster care and what they actually need. One example that Chipungu and Goodley (2004) made was birth parents being offered training and counseling when services such as housing assistance and childcare are more critically needed but not available (pp. 79).
Early efforts to address child welfare were made when Charles Loring Brace, founder of the Children’s Aid Society established lodging houses and industrial schools, to care for neglected, orphaned and abandoned children and provide these children with shelter and moral education. However many of the children were not actually orphaned or being neglected they were simply poor (Warren, 1998).
The Children’s Aid Society in 1854 developed the Orphan Train program a predecessor to foster care. Charles Loring Brace believed that this would give children the chance of a good life by giving them the opportunity to live with “morally standing farm families”(Warren,
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.
This paper will contain research done about foster care, including a brief history and progressing along to the system today. This research interested me because it is a professional career option after graduation. I found both positives and negatives about the foster care system that children and foster parents go through on a daily basis. As the paper progresses I will be explaining these positives and negatives in more detail. Throughout the paper I will be referencing different scholarly sources that explain foster care in different ways. Overall, this paper will show different aspects that the general public may never know about foster care.
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.
Despite attempts in the foster care system agencies under the guidelines of the “Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997” (ASFA) to locate suitable homes and families for foster children, many remain in foster care. “Too often, Child Welfare policy and the agencies responsible for it – offices that respond to child abuse and neglect, oversee foster care placements, and seek to reunite children with their parents to find adoptive families- are out of sight and out of mind except for fleeting moments of tragedy, such as a child’s death”.
Imagine you're on a train to a place you don't know, with hundreds of other children riding with you. At the next stop you get off and hundreds of adults surround you. You hear them talking and mumbling but you cannot understand what they are saying. Some point at you and grab your arms to see your muscles. Complete strangers come over to examine you and scrutinize over whether to adopt you, one of the orphan train riders, into their homes. The orphan trains are a part of American history unknown by many. However, they played a huge impact in the passing of different laws and the foster care system today.
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
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.
Foster care needs to be reformed, especially when it comes to private agencies. Many people seem to overlook the issues embedded within the foster care system; all it does is take care of children, right? Wrong. Private agencies pervert the system with the nightmares they create. Foster children already feel unwanted and neglected because of the abandonment from their birth parents; private agencies provide them with conditions that further solidify their disbelief of care and love. Money comes first in the eyes of these agencies, followed by the need of control. This “control” can easily become abuse. It would only be sensible for a higher authority to intervene and put an end to these profound
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.
“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.
When foster care started it was going good, families were happy and children were also happy. But then the system was just placing them in random homes, putting some in more danger than they already were. When children eventually went home to their parents
In the book titled Finding fish: a memoir, the author addresses the need of our society’s neglected children to find love, safety and protection. Many children like Antwone are subjected to different types of abuse such as: physical, emotional and sexual. Foster care was an option for Antwone. Foster care is the placement for children outside the custody of their parents or legal guardians after court finding that the children have been abused or neglected. The court may also find the child to be a person in need of supervision or have committed delinquent acts. The foster care is a social service system with many component parts and complex interrelationships between those parts (Downs, Moore and McFadden, 2009, p.274).
Ideological, social, political, and economic factors of a given period play key roles in developing and maintaining any social welfare policies in which the area of child welfare is not an exception. Throughout the history of child welfare legislation in Canada, Acts have been passed and modified according to the changing concept of childhood and to the varying degree of societal atmosphere of each period.
Kids are suffering due to complications in their lives. Children of all ages are being put into foster care system year after year. Foster Care is a social program that helps children who have been abused or neglected by their parents. Abused and neglected children are removed from the care of their parents, and become a ward of the state. They are placed with a foster parent, a relative, a treatment center, or a group home. Foster care is meant to be short-term and most children are expected to return to their birth parents, a relative or a family who is looking to adopt them. There is a big problem where children aren't finding permanent homes and are not being prepared for life on their own once they become eighteen. The foster care system helps plenty of children escape abuse and neglect from their birth parents, but there are also a lot of problems with the foster care system. Yes, this is the twenty-first century & yes, some would say we have come a long
Early on during my undergraduate studies I acted as an intern at Yale’s Child Psychiatric Inpatient Hospital. Although most of my days were quite enjoyable, there were days when my heart broke for the youth that I was working with on a day-to-day basis. This particular psychiatric hospital was designed for children under the age of 15 who were experiencing emotional distress regularly and could not cope with every day struggles that others could handle more appropriately. Most of these children were in the foster care system and although some may have been fortunate enough to be placed with families who showered them with unconditional love, some children were not as lucky. Before doing my internship, I never worked with children who were a