Is Foster Care the Best Solution for Some Children?
Published on Nov 18, 2015
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Is foster care the best Solution?
By Kristin Roper
The Foster care system is to help children who live in unhealthy homes and put them in caring homes where they can thrive.
A foster parent can either impact the foster child’s life in a good way or they can fail.
POSITIVES:
Day-to-day consistency, predictability through daily care and realistic expectations, normal care and concern that parents have for their own children with meals, time spent together, and just being there and treated as part of the family.
FAILS:
excessive and loud arguing within the foster home, physical aggression between the care givers or others or the child within the home may be more damaging and scary to the foster child. Foster parents breaking promises made to a foster child, might cause them to not be able to trust their foster parents, this includes innocent broken promises.
Day-to-day consistency, predictability through daily care and realistic expectations, normal care and concern that parents have for their own children with meals, time spent together, and just being there and treated as part of the family.
FAILS:
excessive and loud arguing within the foster home, physical aggression between the care givers or others or the child within the home may be more damaging and scary to the foster child. Foster parents breaking promises made to a foster child, might cause them to not be able to trust their foster parents, this includes innocent broken promises.
Photo by *Lie ... on & off ... !
Most parents with children in foster care have usually experienced their own struggles and abuse.
Most parents with children in foster care have usually experience their own struggles and abuse, such as drug and alcohol misuse, mental illness, family violence, loss and grief. Some feel responsible and they feel as though they are the one to blame. Sometimes, one of the parents blames the other parent for reasons why their child is being taken away. While others blame social services and social workers for their child being taken away.
Sometimes, some parents are under the assumption that their child will only be in foster care for a short time. After a while with not having their child, they become angry and wonder why their child is not with them. While other parents understand why this has happened.
Some parents put their child or children in foster care themselves because they want them to have a better life than what they could give them. For example, one of the parents is abusive and they do not want their child in that type of environment.
Sometimes, some parents are under the assumption that their child will only be in foster care for a short time. After a while with not having their child, they become angry and wonder why their child is not with them. While other parents understand why this has happened.
Some parents put their child or children in foster care themselves because they want them to have a better life than what they could give them. For example, one of the parents is abusive and they do not want their child in that type of environment.
But is the child better off left with their birth parents than living with a foster family?
Former Foster care children are five times more likely to commit suicide and eight times more likely to be hospitalized for mental disorders.
Adults who had been in foster care were more prone to suffer worse prognoses as compared to those who were not in foster care. Foster care children are more likely to have PTSD (25%/4.5%), depression (24.3%/10.6%), anxiety (43%/5.1%), addiction (11.1%/2.5%), committing a crime (60%/10%) and becoming homeless for more than one day (22%/2%).
Some children ae put into foster care because of abuse.
Few Children that live with their birth parents again are killed because they are put back into the home of abuse and neglect.
Adults who had been in foster care were more prone to suffer worse prognoses as compared to those who were not in foster care. Foster care children are more likely to have PTSD (25%/4.5%), depression (24.3%/10.6%), anxiety (43%/5.1%), addiction (11.1%/2.5%), committing a crime (60%/10%) and becoming homeless for more than one day (22%/2%).
Some children ae put into foster care because of abuse.
Few Children that live with their birth parents again are killed because they are put back into the home of abuse and neglect.
Poverty stricken families are a majority with children in foster care.
Poverty stricken families are a majority with children in foster care because of the struggle to find the financial resources to keep themselves together, and to provide half-decent homes and acceptable care for children.
Some children are still being neglected and abused once they are put into foster care.
About 56 percent of foster parents have a high school education and around half of foster parents are unmarried. Foster families usually have more children than typical families, with a high percentage of foster homes having more than five children. Around 200,000 children are in non-relative, or stranger, foster care homes, and usually start off in a foster home that is not the best home for them.
"If 11 percent of the federal funding went to foster care and 89 percent of the child welfare dollars were made available for services to support children in their own families.”
Oneof my article, one solution Stone has for lowering the number in foster care was “if 11 percent of the federal funding went to foster care and 89 percent of the child welfare dollars were made available for services to support children in their own families.” This would allow some children, of milder cases, stay with their family and still be checked on. While the worse cases would be handled and the children would end up in foster care.
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“It's not about seeking perfection, but it is about realizing the true power we have to make a difference in a child's life - for the better or the worse.”
You really do not know if a foster child will be okay and how the foster placement will affect them. You just need to remember to do your best when taking care of them and hope they will be okay.
Photo by c.mcbrien
