The Pros And Cons Of Children In The Foster Care System

Successful Futures: The Need for Long-Term Residential Care There are hundreds of thousands of children that do not have parents to take care of them or a home to use. This is no new issue. Foster care was developed in the United States in 1853 to help children in need ("History," n.d.). More recently, long-term residential care programs, such as Tipton Children's Home, have emerged to help. However, there are many cases where attempts to help lead to failure.

Every year in the United States, hundreds of children and adolescents are taken from their parents and primary caregivers and placed in out-of-home care situations due to issues in their homes and family lives which contribute to unsafe living conditions. These children and adolescents often face many health, behavioral, developmental, and psychological issues.

The foster care system in America negatively affects the lives of adolescents in the system mentally and physically. On any given day there are over 428,000 children in foster care and more than 20,000 kids age out of foster care with no permanent family; therefore, they are being left behind socially, educationally, mentally, and under developed for the real world. Foster care first started in the nineteen hundreds when Charles Loring Brace created the “Children’s Aid Society” in New York. Then later on the 1900’s, social agencies started to supervise and pay the foster children’s sponsors. However, back in foster care’s history and still today, the kids in the system experince abuse and become mentally unstable. One out of five kids

FosterPlacement Disruptions Associated with Problem Behavior: Mitigating a Threshold Effect. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 79(4), 481 - 487. The article by author Phillip A. Fisher describes the effects of foster care on a child and the effects of multiple placements. This article breaks down the effects on the child in foster care and multiple placements.

Each year, an estimated 20,000 young people "age out" of the U.S. foster care system. Many are only 18 years old and still need support and services (. Several studies show that without a lifelong connection to a caring adult, this older youth are often left vulnerable to a host of adverse situations. Compared to other youth in the United States, kids who age out of foster care are more likely to not have completed high school or received a GED, they often suffer from mental health problems, many are unemployed and live in poverty, and nearly 40% become homeless.

Kristen Turney and Christopher Wilderman, authors of, "Mental and Physical Health of Children in Foster Care", list the mental health statistics of children in foster care versus not in foster care (2016). By the statists listed, the children in foster care develop more physical and mental health problems as opposed to children not in foster care (Turney & Wilderman, 2016). According to Turney and Wilderman (2016), children seem to endure early lifestyle tragedies in foster care that possibly cause them to develop problems mentally and physically (p. 10).

One of the ways foster care is inhibited is that the separation of the child from their parents and placement in a foster home can be traumatic for the child. In some instances where the child is not safe in their home, the first choice may be to remove the child and place them in foster care. Both the parents and child have a hard time accepting the situation. This separation causes conflicts and resistance from the child (Crosson-Tower, 2014, p. 316). Other myriad adjustments, such as lifestyle change, new school, new friends and neighbors, and at times a new culture, also inhibit the effectiveness of foster care placement. Foster care can create an environment of

Everywhere across the world, more and more children are being placed into foster care or a welfare type system. Foster care can benefit children or harm them; the effects of foster care differ for every individual. These types of systems often have a major effect on young children’s physiological state. Children entering in foster care are often malnourished and have untreated health problems. A high percentage of children who are placed in these types of systems have mental health, physical health, and/or developmental issue which often originates while the individuals are still in the custody of the biological parents. Children in foster care should be provided with a healthy and nurturing environment which often provides positive long term results. The age of children in a foster care varies across the world, but it is often seen that majority of these children are young (George para. 1). There are more young children in the system because younger children require more adequate care than older children that are already in the system. Placing these children in welfare systems is supposed to be a healing process for them. Although this is supposed to be a healing process, statistics say these children have a negative experience while being in these systems, but this is not always the case. A number of children in foster care fall sucker to continuous neglect and recurrent abuse with the lack of nurturing and an unstable environment. These same children often have unmet

On the other hand, people believe that the foster care system is doing a service to the society. Those families offering foster care for children are indeed giving service to the community and helping kids off the streets. It allows the families to be involved and to feel good with the difference that they are making to the lives of those children. However, the opportunity of being a foster family is not for everyone. Children can be expensive. For one, if it is an infant, think of the cost of diapers and formula, even as a child gets older they need not only necessities, but also experiences like a normal child that will cost money. Things like going to the movies, go shopping and even going out to dinner with their friends. Children

Being in foster care can either have a positive effect on someone or it could have a very negative effect on someone. In my case, it not only had a positive effect but it also had some downfalls. Most often times children/adolescents are placed in foster care because it is a safer environment for them to live in. Foster care is positive in many ways. They are positive in being it can give children and adolescents a safer home/environment to live in, it can stabilize the adolescent/child, and it can give the individual a more positive look on life. Although foster care can have many positive effects on an individual it can also have many negative effects. Foster care and being removed from the place the child grew up in can cause attachment issues, mental health issues, eating disorders, it can cause a child to become depressed and become more prone to drugs and alcohol, and can cause lots of stress on an individual.

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.

Foster care is a system were a child is put into after the parents gives them up. The child will stay in the system until he or she is adopted. If the child is never adopted they will be released at the age of 20. The children of the foster care system are there because they were voluntarily given up by the parent or taken away if the parent can't fit the role. There are many cons to the foster care system.

The numbers of children in foster care continue to increase annually with minimal attempts to intercept the causes of the escalation. Children are generally placed into foster care as a result of parental abuse or neglect; however, there are many racial inconsistencies circulating general foster care involvement. In the year of 2014, the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System reported a total of 415,129 children in the foster care system. Depending on their situation, children in the system are in need of some sort of home, whether that be temporary or permanent. When experiencing this type of shift in their lives, many children tend to act out. Foster care in the United States is a

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.