Foster Family

In the John Burton Policy Brief on AB 12 the realities of education for foster youth are highlighted, “The rate at which foster youth complete high school (50 percent) is significantly lower than the rate at which their peers complete high school (70 percent),” (2011, p. 2). This affects chances for higher education including college degrees. This has a significant impact on the community as “aged-out” youth without services have more chance of risk for: homelessness, poverty, unemployment, going to jail, prostitution, substance abuse, early parenthood and untreated health conditions. Samuels and Pryce state that foster care has not always been a positive, developmentally appropriate experience. Youth who are

Foster children are raised in unqualified foster homes The main reason for all the situations regarding the foster children have to do with the unqualified foster homes. The condition of an environment a child is raised in effects children in several different ways. According to an article called “The quiet crisis” on the Foster Care 2.0 website, “Foster care historically provides unqualified and under trained volunteers to care for and treat our most vulnerable victims of child abuse during vital times of development. This strategy has failed miserably for more than a century in America and next to nothing has been done to change it. The outcomes for the majority of these traumatized children are appalling. Research has proven over and over

Foster care is a multifaceted service. It serves children who have experienced abuse or neglect at the hands of their birthparents and families, and their foster parents. Children in foster care may live with unrelated foster parents, with relatives, with families who plan to adopt them, or in group homes or residential treatment centers. Foster care was designed to intervene on behalf of the children during their time of crisis, with hope of reuniting the children with their families in a safe, stable and loving environment. Some children remain in foster care for extended periods of time. Many “age out” and go on to live on their own. This research looks

Every year, teenagers in foster care are “aging out” of the social system ill prepared for what lies ahead of them. Currently, there are about 400,000 foster youth in the U.S. and 13,461 (3.4 %) of these youth live in Arizona (The AFCARS report, 2012, p. 1 ). In 2012, it was estimated that 23,000 youth emancipated out of the foster system in the United States (The AFCARS report, 2012, p. 3). These foster youth are become legal adults with little or no family support. Overwhelmed by this life transition, they feel defeated and frightened by

Abundant amounts of children who have been in and out of foster care are known to have more behavioral problems than children not in the system. Whether we want to believe it or not, there are bad people in this world. Somehow some of these “bad people” become foster parents for the wrong reasons. Some take in foster kids for the extra income. This makes no sense to me considering foster parents make nearly no money. Their average pay is one dollar and five cents and hour (“The Foster Life”). This money and usually the foster parents own money are spent on the child. Foster parents like this are huge contributors to the impacting trauma on foster kids’ lifes. With lousy foster parents comes frequent moves between homes. Researchers have found that frequent moves in foster care can be detrimental to child development. Some caregivers would go as far as neglecting the child they are meant to be protecting. This furthers the consequences, and changes the child’s life for the worse. Due to these circumstances, Medicaid steps in and covers majority of foster kids. Studies have shown that children who are in foster care are twice as likely than non-foster children to form behavioral issues (Becker, Jordan, and Larsen). There are other down sides to foster care other than a irresponsible caregiver. There are hundreds of children who need placement in foster homes. This leads to

60 percent of kids who age out of foster care are dead, homeless, or in jail within a year. There needs to be more focus on the foster care system and child homelessness. Children should not be living on the streets, they need a home and a loving family so that they can grow up and live a stable, independent life.

According to the Children’s Bureau, there were 427,910 children in the foster care system in 2016. Placements in a foster family have dramatically increased over the last ten years. For some young children and young adults in the foster care system, they have experienced abuse and neglect and have been removed from their parents. Other children have suffered a variety of parental problems such as drug addiction, abandonment, incarceration, mental and physical impairments and death. These painful experiences associated with maltreatment and the trauma of being removed from parents or caregivers can affect the mental health and development of these young people. “ Most children in foster care, if not all experience feelings of confusion,

Foster care is supposed to support the children and find them a better place to be instead of being at their abusive or neglecting home; sometimes they are taken from their home without somewhere to put them due to the lack of foster parents. On the other hand, if they had stayed with their families they would already have a place to live and not have to be sleeping in makeshift homes which is one of the many reasons foster care should be replaced with family preservation. Not only does the foster system lack the foster parents, but they lack the money to support these kids that are coming in. The necessary amount of money to raise a child is an average of $713 per month, yet they were short with the reimbursement rate at about $522 each month (“Shortage of foster parents”). This absence of funds clearly conveys that the foster care system lacks the funding needed to support the number

Few people know what foster care means and many ponder at those words. An online article published by “Foster Care” indicated that foster care is a temporary living arrangement for abused and neglected children who are in need of a safe place to live when their guardians cannot take responsibility over them. A child arises into the system when foster care services suspect a child is in danger (“Foster Care”). When a judge approves, the system takes in the child. The main reason of why children end up in foster care services is mainly due to the guardian. Foster children usually have families who deal with issues like alcohol use, illness, drug addiction, or homelessness. Those issues will affect the child negatively if remained in environment. All children in foster care can range anywhere from infants to 18 years

“Number in foster care on September 30, 2015, of the Fy was...427,910” (“The AFCARS report”). The federal government spends $4.4 billion each year on the Foster care system for all youths so, as the youth's population in foster care is increasing. It is affecting the budget of a federal government so, that's why foster care became the social issue. The children in foster care were about equally split between Male (52%) and Female (48%). Most of the foster children that were in care September 2015 lived with nonrelative foster families (45%), followed by relative foster home (30%). The remaining children were placed in an institution (8%), a group home (6%), or a pre-adoptive home (4%). Some were on a trial home visit with their parents (5%). One percent were the runaway, and 1% were in supervised independent living. “Time in care (Months)...1-5 months...22%...95,999” (“The AFCARS report”). The more long children live in foster care, and the more federal government has to spend on foster care so — this can cause money to go over the budget of HHS and affect US economy. If parents or anyone else didn’t stop abusing the children, the day will come when all parents are in jail, and all children are in foster

Imagine growing up without a family, moving constantly and never having a permanent home. Envision being taken away from an abusive parent and left to survive in foster care for an undefined period of time. Think about lingering within the system for years and suddenly loosing any kind of aid at the age of eighteen. This is a reality for thousands of children in America’s foster care system. There are kids that are searching for a home and family -- and many of them never get one. These youths are all hoping and wishing for a permanent place to go back to. The number of children aging out of the foster care system annually is a serious problem because many children leave foster care without support and suffer consequences in their adult life that could have been avoided if they had been adopted.

No two children in foster care have the same background. The youths can vary by the age when placed into care, the number of times they were put into care, the quality of the home and family they lived with, and the youths own emotional outlooks (Zlotnick 539). They can develop abandonment issues due to being separated from their biological parents, and stunted emotional growth due to the trauma that foster care puts on a young child. Children need to be raised in a stable and safe environment, and while plenty of foster care parents are loving and nurturing to the child, they may still be affected by being raised by multiple families in a negative way. Every year, over 1 million children experience maltreatment, and about half of these children enter foster care (Greeson et al. 92). Those who enter foster care have usually encountered multiple traumatic events, from either their parents or another caregiver in their lives.

Many children will average about five or six years in the system and go through four to seven homes, making it hard for the children to find stability and have a productive life. Generally, when a child moves to a new foster home, it is far away, forcing the child to pretty much start all over from the very beginning. Moving from home to home and not having that stability causes the child to have many emotions, which are often ignored by foster parents. The neglect and maltreatment by a lot of foster parents is out of control, but a lot of social workers say there isn’t much they can do. And when the children age out of the system, there aren’t that many resources for them to be on their own. Once they turn eighteen, the foster parents usually send them out on their own, making it difficult for the children to finish school. An ideal environment for the growth of children does not usually exist anymore and in order to promote continuity in the social, emotional, and developmental growth of children, there has to be people out there willing to listen.

Recently I read an article in the San Diego Union Tribune entitled "Setting Up Foster Kids for Success" by Assemblyman Brian Maienschein. The article focused on helping foster kids succeed. The article points to statistics that show around half of foster kids who stay in the system until they age out wind up in dire straights - homeless, in prison, or victimized in some way. Some even wind up dead.