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Foster Care Essay

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Foster care, according to John DeGarmo, “Foster care is a form of placement for children who are in need of being placed in a home or environment outside of their home of origin” (17). It is important to note that foster care is not a correctional facility, rather an impermanent fix for children who have been mistreated. Foster Care is a socially positive way to reduce the number of abused, neglected, abandoned, and/or homeless children. The main goal of Foster Care is to help children learn and grow in a different environment when they are no longer safe in their home with their current parent/guardian. Although there are always ‘kinks’ in the system, where certain children may be misplaced or separated from their siblings, the …show more content…

Secondly, they must go through four 2-hour consultations with a social worker, two of which include separating the parents and asking them questions separately. The questions the social worker may ask have no limit. Thirdly, the social worker performs finger-printing and background checks on the prospective parents. If or when they pass this, there is online training with extensive material covering almost any question a parent might have. The parents then have to take a post-test on the online training that was completed. Finally, after the online training is complete, each parent is required to spend at least twenty hours in a physical classroom, learning about anything ranging from trauma, the signs of sexual abuse, the issue of neglect, permanency, and so forth (Jefcik). To some, this process seems tedious and unnecessary, but this is a child’s life, future, education; there should be background checks and extensive training. The statistical pros of Foster Care are enough to prove it is much more beneficial than harmful. In 2013, 2,483,539 children experienced homelessness; that is one out of every thirty children was/is homeless. Foster care can not only give them a warm place to sleep and food to eat, but can also help the child gain an education (Bassuk 6-7). Also, with the extensive training each foster parent must go through, they are well equipped to handle children who are traumatized

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