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Book synopsis Kathy Harrison starts her personal story happily married to her childhood sweet heart Bruce. Kathy was living a simple life in her rural Massachusetts community home as the loving mother of three smart, kind, well-adjusted boys Bruce Jr., Nathan, and Ben. With the natural transitions of family life and the changes that come with career and moving, she went back to work as a Head Start teacher. Her life up until the acceptance of that job had been sheltered an idyllic. Interacting in a world of potluck suppers, cocktail parties, and traditional families had nothing in common with the life she would choose after she became a Head Start teacher. Working as a teacher serving at-risk four-year-old children, approximately six of her eighteen students lived in foster care. The environment introduced Kathy to the impact of domestic violence, drugs, and family instability on a developing child. Her family lineage had a history of social service and she found herself concerned with the wellbeing of one little girl. Angelica, a foster child in Kathy’s class soon to be displaced again was born the daughter of a drug addict. She had been labeled a troublemaker, yet the Harrisons took the thirty-hour training for foster and adoptive care and brought her home to adopt. Within six months, the family would also adopted Angie’s sister Neddy. This is when the Harrison family dynamic drastically changes and Kathy begins a journey with over a hundred foster children passing through her home seeking refuge. The foster care system, then as now was desperate for qualified homes. Kathy and her husband had become certified foster parents, she was a certified teacher, and they had empty beds in their home. Their phone soon bega... ... middle of paper ... ...ices, the medical field, teachers, and administrators could all benefit from reading about Kathy and her family. People who are considering taking part in fostering certification should definitely read Another Place at the Table. The events she walks the reader through are not common events taking place in the traditional family. It would help any professional who may be exposed to the Social Service System to understand the systematic process that a child in foster care experience, the good, and bad. So many professionals are mandatory reports and they know nothing about the system as it relates to the child’s experience. Hearing how these children and the foster homes they occupy could benefit from quality assistance and support would provide improvement to the system. References Harrison, K. (2003). Another Place at the Table. New York: Penguin Putnam, Inc.
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.
One of the cases found in the novel by Cynthia Crosson-Tower dealt with a little girl by the name of Jessica Barton. Although still a small child, her foster family had an issue trying to raise her in which she gave them behavioral issues and she would not react to them and was hard to ...
“Stef Foster and Lena Adams, a lesbian couple, have a family of adopted, biological, and foster children. Mariana and Jesus are adopted 15 year old twins and Brandon is Stef's 16 year old biological son from a previous marriage. Everything is going normal in the house. Until Callie and Jude arrive. 16 year old Callie Jacob and her 12 year old brother, Jude, have been to many different foster homes. But when they get placed with the Fosters, things begin to happen. In this series, the Fosters will deal with many different issues including, hook ups, break ups, romances, and important life lessons.” - Imob
As the narrator begins his description of Miss Giles, he says, “Lillian always had a knack with babies and could put even the most difficult ones down for a nap within minutes” (118). When the narrator shares that Miss Giles’ favorite child is the “ugliest, fussiest baby ever born” (119), the narrator shows the readers Miss Giles’ goodwill and kindly feelings toward the baby, Julian Cash, that everyone else rejects or scorns, and thus displays her resilience to conform to societal norms or be weathered by the judgment of others. Miss Giles, years later, agrees to care for two unknown children, even though Social Services has deemed her too old to be on their official registry of foster families. The willingness of Miss Giles to take on care for the two children, Keith and the baby, exemplifies her unwavering altruism in childcare. Upon the arrival of Keith and the baby, Miss Giles refrains from complaint or doubt, and “goes to make up a crib and a cot with clean sheets” (119). Miss Giles never asks questions or hesitates when faced with taking care of children, she simply performs the job. Miss Giles is tough, and able to overcome the problems of the difficultly of childcare in her age and her hearing problem that she faces. As the narrator continues to introduce Miss Giles to the readers, the narrator observes that, “a long time ago, Lillian was in love with Charles Verity’s great-grandson, but he went to New York and married a rich girl, and Lillian stayed put” (119). Miss Giles does not dwell on the departure of the love of her life across the United States, but instead, channels her loss of love for a spouse into love for taking care of orphaned or foster children. Finally, Miss Giles is resilient in her response to the urgent situation with which she faces when left with the infant, nearly dead body of Julian Cash. When Miss Giles
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”.
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
This is the story of Becky, an 11 year old, African American, female client who has been placed in Therapeutic Foster Care. Becky describes her traumatic experience of losing her parents in a bad, bad storm. Becky’s verbal account of how her parents died is a wild fantasized story and inaccurate. She uses the word ‘bitch’ regularly, has frequent night terrors, acts out aggressively toward foster siblings, lies, is experiencing night terrors, and is excessively attached to her foster father and case worker named Emily. Becky has explained that sometimes she freezes which is an emotional and physiological response to the trauma she has experienced.
Low educational achievement for foster youth was a pressing concern. A study completed by Ehrle and Geen (2002) using a phone survey of 44,000 foster care providers across the United States found that 55% of voluntary kinship care providers did not have a high school degree, this indicated that may care providers lack the knowledge and understanding to help foster youth be prepared academically. After studying over 1000 foster youth Pecora et al (2006) found, about one third of all foster youth repeated a grade in school. In addition, Vacca (2007) identified reasons that foster youth struggled in the school setting. “Foster youth will typically not have any consistent parent advocacy or representative in the creation and implementation of the educational plan for graduation” (p. 67). With primary and secondary education a struggle for foster youth, it was no surprise that higher education was not something foster youth had been prepared for. In a combination survey and interview study titled “Pathways to College for Former Foster Youth: Understanding Factors That Contribute to Educational Success” Merdinger, Hines, Osterling, and Wyatt (2005) studied more than 200 former foster youth and found that “overall 63.8 percent [of former foster youth] reported that the foster care system did not prepare them very well for college” (p.
Orphan Train, written by Christina Baker Kline, is a profoundly emotional tale of a young adolescent girl living in foster care. Molly Ayer is a 17-year-old teenage "orphan" (Kline, 2013). Despite Molly Ayer's mother still being alive; she is not emotionally stable enough to care for her after the loss of her husband in a tragic car accident. Molly Ayer reveals that she feels like an orphan to Vivian Daly, an older woman who shares many of the same experiences Molly has gone through in foster care. They are able to make a meaningful connection almost immediately despite their lack of willingness to open up to strangers. Although Orphan Train discusses many significant topics such as immigration, discrimination, being a young woman on your own, etc., the topic that moved me the most in this novel was foster care. Foster care has always been a contentious issue in this country and in most civilized countries around the
This paper will explore the behavior issues and emotional issues associated with children in foster care and the foster care system, as well as touching base on the mental health problems these children can possibly deal with. This paper will explain the different issues kids deal with, explaining how being in the foster care system affects the kids and their behavior. The examples used in this paper will be based off research, as well as a true life story, written by Ashley Rhodes-Courter, who was in the foster care system. There will also be examples based off of experience interning in the foster care system.
Victoria’s early childhood was a very sheltered and reserved one, her best friends growing up was her nanny’s a...
This article relates to current reading in many ways. In the reading it talks about the foster care system and how foster care became a long
As of 2014, there were over 415,000 children in the foster care system. Foster care is the raising and supervision of children in a private home, group home, or institution, by individuals engaged and paid by a social service agency (Legal Dictionary, 2016). Care givers can be of kin relationship to the child, or may not know the child at all. Group homes are run by a social worker and can house multiple children at a time. These homes are usually regulated by the state and/or government. Children of all ages go through many emotions when their lives revolve in foster care. This paper will discuss the emotions children deal with regarding separation from birth family, the effects of abuse, and the possibility of having to transition out of
There are far too many children in the foster care who need a stable home, along with the loving support from couples who are willing to adopt them, so that they have a more concrete environment to grow up in. Statistics from Child Welfare Information Gateway show that there were close to 400,000 children who entered the foster care system in the United States as of November 2012 (1). Out of the 400,000 children, an astounding 51% were successfully re-united with their families while only 21% were adopted (6). Thus, leaving an estimated 130,000 helpless children who ...