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The foster care system and its effects
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The foster care system and its effects
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Policy Brief: Foster Care & Adoptive Parents in the Latino Community Foster Care & Adoptive Parents in the Latino Community Foster Care and Adoption are the most multi-faceted areas of child welfare. Foster care consists of placing children outside of the custody of their parents or legal guardians. This out-of-home placement can be temporary or long-term. Adoption on the other hand, consists of the legal and permanent process that establishes a parent/child relationship between individuals not related biologically (Downs, Moore, & McFadden, 2009). These two areas of child welfare are constantly evolving and the decisions made on a child’s behalf can affect many areas of their biological, spiritual, social, and emotional wellbeing. In the child welfare system, there is a growing number of children who are in need of homes. This number is increasingly made up of minority populations, to include Latinos. With the enactment of the Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994, as amended by the Interethnic Adoption Provisions of 1996, greater opportunities were made available to Latino communities were made available for them to foster and adopt. However, with lack of proper information and little recruitment efforts in their community, the numbers of Latino families available for children remain low. The Latino population is the largest minority group in the United States. The cultural term Latino refers to individuals of Latin American descent. This population is made up of many diverse races and nationalities, such as: Mexicans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, and other groups with Spanish origins (Arias, 2010). On average, Latinos are a younger population, with about one-third of individuals being under the age of 18 (Committee for Hispanic... ... middle of paper ... ...la, M. (2008). Nuestra Familia, Nuestra Cultura: Promoting & Supporting Latino Families in Adoption and Foster Care. Retrieved from http://adoptuskids.org/_assets/files/NRCRRFAP/resources/latino-tipsheet-packet.pdf Olsen, C. S., & Skogrand, L. (2009). Cultural implications and guidelines for extension and family life programming with Latino/Hispanic audiences. The Forum for Family and Consumer Issues, 14(1). Retrieved from http://ncsu.edu/ffci/publications/2009/v14-n1-2009 spring/olsen-skogrand.php Pichardo, C. M. (2003). Latinos' perceptions toward foster care. (Order No. 1416472, California State University, Long Beach). ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.jproxy.lib.ecu.edu/docview/305229342?accountid=10639. (305229342). Quintanilla, M. L. (2002). Remove Barriers and Latino Families Will Adopt. Recruiting News, 2(3).
Relating his personal experiences and encounters of being raised as the son of Latino immigrants within the states, readers are presented with realistic and factual accounts of Latino immigration. As a successful and renowned American journalist, Suro’s narrative was a successful, four-part exploration of Latino status, future trajectory, and points of origin. Within “Strangers Among Us”, Suro takes a look at network migration while contrasting African Americans and Latinos. In the second part, Suro analyzes and interprets Latino immigration and the reactions of Americans and other ethnicities. He then analyzes various Latino groups throughout America in six different large cities within the country before finally in part four, identifying immigration policies that he believes will work and be successful within the states. Suro’s narrative successfully analyzes and discusses many issues within Latino Immigration while giving an overview of many different Latino groups and how each group and America deal with this rising
As the Latino population in the United States continues to grow, U.S. Census Bureau, 2001, increasing attention is being turned toward understanding the risk and protective factors of immigrant Latino and U.S.-born Latino children and families. The demographic data relating to Latinos in the United States estimate that one of every two people added to the U.S population was Latino, in July 2009 Latino population was the fastest growing minority group U.S Census Bureau, 2010. Despite the increased risk of growing the immigrant families are in lower risk of Social Economic Status, having parents with less education and limited with language and knowledge about education. Immigrating to one place to another is often the most stressful event
As a traditional, collectivistic cultural group, the Latino population is believed to adhere deeply to the value of familismo. (Arditti, 2006; Calzada, 2014). Familism is an emphasis on the importance of the family unit over values of autonomy and individualism”. (Santistaben, 2012). Family is considered to be the top priority in the Latino culture. Comparatively, at times, this isn’t true of our busy, work devoted western culture. In western culture we think of our family in a nuclear sense made up of a: mom, dad, and siblings. Conversely, Hispanic culture focuses on the whole extended family including aunts, uncles, grandparent, and cousins. Their culture believes having close connections with the entire extended family benefits the development of their children. The entire family helps the child by giving them differing levels of social and emotional support. (American Home Resolutions,
The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) was as a response to growing concerns about “foster care drift”; that is, children experiencing multiple, unstable foster care placements over extended periods, children virtually lost within the child welfare system (Rockhill, 2007). The ASFA has become a very important and much needed policy that helped with placement and safet...
In the growing community where I reside in northern Colorado, the population is a mix of Euro-Americans and Mexican-Americans. Therefore, the majority of clients entering into agencies in the community would be of these populations. The issues foreseen would be communication concerns, even though, the child speaks English the parents may not or it may be limited. With this knowledge as a professional counselor, it is the responsibility of the professional to educate themselves on the culture of the clientele in their community. Hays (2008) reports, In the Mexican American culture attending counseling by a professional, is the last resort, they typically keep their issues within their family. Therefore, by the time a Mexican-American client
Clutter, Ann W., and Ruben D. Nieto. "Understanding the Hispanic Culture." Osu.edu. Ohio State University. Web. 20 Nov. 2011. .
With the growing population of minorities in the United States, it is reasonable to believe that at some point in a counselor or therapist career, there will be a session with a Latino/Hispanic client. From a cultural competence perspective, it is imperative that a counselor understands the Latino/Hispanic culture and their worldviews. Counseling Latinos offer to be discussed in the paper is the case of an Alberto and Angela a Mexican American couple married for 27 years. Alberto has recently lost his job. (
Kroll, Joe, et al. "Transracial Adoptions from Foster Care Pose Unique Challenges." Are Adoption Policies Fair? Ed. Christine Watkins. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2012. At Issue. Rpt. from "Finding Families for African American Children: The Role of Race & Law in Adoption from Foster Care." www.adoptioninstitute.org. 2008. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 17 Apr. 2014.
Black children are disproportionately represented in the foster care system. In the most recent Statistical Abstract published in 2011 by the U.S. Census Bureau, Black children accounted for 15% of the U.S. child population in 2009. In contrast, Black children were at almost 30% of the total number of children in foster care for the same year according to the Department of Health and Human Services 2009 Foster Care report. In addition, there are not enough Black families available to adopt these children. Interracial adoption advocates often hail it as a good solution to address these problems. Interracial adoption is promoted as a major step towards an integrated, unprejudiced, and colorblind society. However, instead of healing the wounds of racism, interracial adoption often contributes to racist ideologies and practices that devalue family relationships in the Black community (Roberts 50). This type of adoption is a surface only solution that fails to dig deeper and address the underlying reasons for the disproportionate representation of Black children in foster care and the lack of minority adoptive parents. This deeper analysis exposes a system of that is very biased against the Black community in the adoption industry. Even when it is altruistic, interracial adoption is mostly detrimental to the Black community because it aids in the breakdown of Black families and the dismissal of the root causes of the circumstances that lead to large numbers of Black children needing to be adopted in the first place. Furthermore, interracial adoption has not made any significant difference in lowering the numbers of Black children in foster care.
Since the 1990s the U.S. has been working on policy changes to improve adoption permanency. “The US Adoption and Safe Family Act of 1997 (P.L. 105–89) continued to promote the theme of timely permanence for foster children through the reduction of birth parent reunification time
Each year, six hundred and fifty thousand children in the United States spend time in foster care (Children’s Rights “Adoptions” 1). But most people do not know that because most people are among the other seventy three million, two hundred and ninety one thousand, eight hundred and forty eight people who live in stable homes. The majority of the population does not know the faults of the foster care system, because most have not lived it. In the mid nineteenth century, the foster care system was established. Since then, there have been many developments to the system, and today it is imperfect and inadequate. All across the United States, the foster care system needs to be reformed and now is the perfect time because there is a growing number
After having a steady growth in adoption, the number of international adoptions has dropped nearly 50% since 2004. Currently, there are many adoptive parents who seek to help this issue, however, adoption trends show that a large percentage of parents prefer to adopt within the 0-5 age bracket. Adoption is an act of adopting a child, so why doesn’t anyone adopt any child who is in need of a home? The lack of adoption to older children in the foster care system have been negatively affected because most of these families and/or couples adopting are parents who are childless and have the desire to have a baby or at least a young child. Once children become 6-17, adoption becomes far less likely. These families do not want to deal with older children
In a first-ever review of Latino caregivers, National Alliance for Caregiving (NAC) and Evercare® by UnitedHealthcare (2008) reaffirmed the importance of the family in Latino communities (p. 3). Their findings indicate about one-third of Latino households contain at least one caregiver, most
“Approximately 30,000 to 40,000 youth leave the foster care system each year with no permanent, stable family to support them as they negotiate the challenges of early adulthood” (Diehl 81). Additionally, according to the most recent “Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System” from 2013, 296,833 children between the ages of four to eighteen, considered of older youth to adoptee parents (Waterman 18), lived in the foster care system. The highest amount of children placed was at 16 or 17 years old. This totaled to be 53,990, and came to be about 20 percent of the children residing in this lifestyle (AFCARS Report #21). Yet, even while these numbers exist, the problem remains. Older children without a definite family are not being adopted. Statistics display numbers well, but the one thing statistics do not display is perspective. When a people look at these numbers, they shouldn’t see just numbers but children in need of a
Parra-Cardona et al. (2012) looked at two different culturally adapted versions of the PMT. What was called the CAPAS-original consisted of simply translating the PMT material into Spanish, while CAPAS-enhanced consisted of translating the material to Spanish and adding two culturally specific sessions. A total of 12 Latino immigrant families were evenly and randomly assigned to either the original or enhanced adaptation. The results showed positive parental and child outcomes in both of the adaptations. The only significant difference among the adaptation outcomes was that in the enhanced adaptation families were given the opportunity to address highly relevant cultural issues which was associated with positive effects in the lives of Latino participants and their children (Parra-Cardona et al., 2012)