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Foster care research paper
Foster care research paper
Early childhood trauma effects paper
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Profile Erik is a Hispanic male born to teenage parents who meet when they were in Jr. high. Neither of them graduated from high school, with the highest level of education between them being the 10th grade. His father (19), is a migrant worker and is often not home as he was the following work like his own father did. His mother (17) stays at home with him but is often neglectful due to lack of parenting skills and help. His father is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico while his mother has DACA status. His mother does not pick him up when he cries and avoids daily interactions with them. She spends most of her time watching television, doing her nails and talking with friends. Both parents abuse alcohol and mild drugs. His father was deported …show more content…
when Erik was a year old, the mother was unable to support Erik’s care without him resorted to illegal means and went to jail for petty larceny. He was turned over to the state at 13 months of age. Home Life Currently, Erik is 22 months old and living in his second foster home with two other children.
One child (12, White Female) is biological to the foster parents and the other is a newly adopted child (4, Black, Male). His foster father is a doctor and his foster mother is a housewife, although she has a teaching degree. Erik spends most of his time with his foster mother and four-year-old foster brother. He does attend a daycare twice a week for four hours at a time to work on his socialization. The family often tries to experience new things every weekend and they go the park at least once a month. Erik has severe crying fits when he is taken to daycare even though it has been three months since he was placed in his current home. He is not fully verbal and often grunts his requests to his foster family. He responds mostly to his foster mother as she is his primary caregiver, but does acknowledge the others. He is missing several of the developmental milestones for his age to include socialization and communication. The foster family hopes to adopt Erik as his biological parents have given up all rights to …show more content…
Erik. Attachment style Attachment is an emotional bond between two people. It has been stated that the bonds formed in early childhood affect the rest of a person’s development. This impact formed through attachments with a mother specifically aid in a child’s brain developments, socialism, and cognitive development. There are four phases of attachment, each which Erik missed a critical piece of imprinting. The first stage or Pre-attachment stage is from birth to three months. At this stage, infants do not show an attachment to a specific caregiver. But this is where a child learns trust as their cries initiate a response in the caregiver that shows the child that there is someone responding to their needs. Next is Indiscriminate attachment, from six weeks of age to seven months infants show preferences for who is the primary and secondary caregivers. The Discriminate attachment phase, from seven to eleven months, is where strong attachment and preference is shown. Stranger anxiety often is seen here when an unknown individual tries to provide care. in Erik’s case, care was not a constant and no true bonds were formed yet. Lastly, Multiple attachments are formed around nine months of age. When a child is born it is necessary that the baby establish a relationship with their mother. They need a quality relationship to help them feel safe and meet the basic sociopsychological needs. (Bornstein, 2012) Erik’s mother displayed characteristics of Avoidant Attachment. She was emotionally unavailable to Erick and unaware of his needs. If left uncorrected he will become a little adult. He will start to display anxiety in normal situations and spiral into other avoidant behaviors. Another side effect will be to seek love and belonging from others because his need for love is still there even though they know they will not be there for them. Impact of culture Erik is a socioeconomic disadvantaged Hispanic male.
This has a negative impact on the life outcomes for him even with the changes made by his seen to be adopted family. Individuals that live below the poverty line are more prevalent to have a cognitive delay due to external factors like prenatal drug use, environmental toxins, poor nutrition, and exposure to stress and violence (Coley, 2013). Another delay in development is caused by the lack of spoken word. A study by Hart and Risley (1995) demonstrated that by the age of four, children from low-income households hear 32 million fewer spoken words than their counterparts. Not to mention the quality of conversation differs as well. Another setback for Erik is that his parents were both teenagers with no family support. Research has shown that neglect can affect a child’s ability to learn, problem solve, and make tasks difficult that require higher level thinking (Pizzolongo, 2011). Erik is also at risk for more illnesses later in life than a white middle class child of the same
age. Intervention The most important intervention for Erik has been granted; removing him from the home and placing him in a stable environment (Winn, Nd). One intervention to get Erik back on track will be build trust between him and his caregivers (Brogaard, 2016). When he cries someone should be there to ensure him that he is safe, he should not go ignored and his cries be validated but not necessarily always given into. According to the Child welfare Information Gateway, 2013 children who have been neglected to feel safe and see healthy nurturing relationships around them. Modeling protective parenting and soothing responses during distressful experiences can aid in the trust factors that a neglected child has developed (Winn, Nd). This also builds stability and shows the child positive behaviors to model. Every member of the household should be a part of the modeling behavior for Erik.
Erik is a harsh person, rude, selfish, and soulless. These character traits will cause evil to rise up in him and finally pushing away friends and family resulting in ending up alone. I know this because I once had a friend who only cared about herself, never saying thank you, always trying to draw attention to her things and her stories. She never told anyone how much she appreciated them for doing something or being their friend. After a year almost all of her friends, including me, left her because we felt like dogs trying to treat their
When Cris Bean was writing the book, he mentioned a couple of times the fact of how traumatizing it can be for kids who end up in foster care. When a kid is placed into the foster care system, it can be very stressful and disorientating the first few days. Probably the hardest part is wrapping your head around the fact that now a child is in the foster care system and why are they there. Many kids that are older probably did not have to follow many rules since the biological parents where perhaps on drugs, alcohol, or not even being there at all. So, living in a new house with rules can be a very difficult thing to follow, or even if the child has reasoning for right and wrong.
This film chose to focus on very young people struggling to survive in poverty. All three of the boys are younger than 18 years old and thus are in an important developmental stage. The film gives us a view into the effects of a disadvantaged upbringing on a child’s development. These three boys grew up in situations defined by poverty and familial dysfunction and for two of them, the after effects are clear. Harley has severe anger issues and is unable to function at school. Appachey lashes out uncontrollably and has multiple diagnosed behavioral disorders. Both boys have had run-ins with the law and dealings with the juvenile court system. This solidifies the argument espoused in Marmot’s The Health Gap that children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds face significant developmental challenges. The evidence suggests that children who grow up in poverty have cognitive and developmental delays and suffer from greater risk of mental and behavioral disorders. As shown in the film, Harley and Appachey both suffer from extreme behavioral and cognitive deficits and exhibit the corresponding poor scholastic and societal performance which will serve to further negatively affect their
Another obstacle Olivia and Sabreen encounter is the lack of adult support in the foster care system. Family support is a crucial variable mediating the influence of neighborhood on a child’s development (Burton & Jarrett, 2000); nonetheless, Olivia and Sabreen receive little support and guidance and must quickly survive on their own.
...t with a child in the foster care system. This paper gave me the opportunity to learn the positives and the negatives as well as more details about the little parts of the foster care system that I didn’t know existed. Even though my focus is to help the child and think about their best interest, this paper showed me that the parents, both biological and foster, are another important factor that helps the children. It made me realize that I will need to meet the parents and work with them to make a plan that fits their life. I will need to figure out what issues they feel are important to fix and how to get to those solutions. Foster care is a complex system that will challenge me daily if I enter the into this specific field but even if I work with children in a different environment I need to be aware that children come from all different types of backgrounds.
Allhusen, V., Belsky, J., Booth-LaForce, C., Bradley, R., Brownell, C. A., Burchinal, M., & ... Weinraub, M. (2005). Duration and Developmental Timing of Poverty and Children's Cognitive and Social Development from Birth Through Third Grade. Child Development, 76(4), 795-810. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2005.00878.x
The first stage of Erikson's psychosocial stage is trust vs. mistrust, which is experienced, in the first year of life. Infants learn to trust in order to satisfy their needs thus developing a feeling of self-worth. When infants receive inconsistent care they may mistrust the people in their life. This is a very important stage to look at when looking at adoption and the foster care system. Children who are adopted in the first few weeks of life will probably not face may difficulties during this stage because their care will be consistent from the second or third week on. This is very different from children who are adopted later in this stage or who are in the foster care system during this stage. Some of these children will have inconsistent care thus mistrusting people in their lives. This mistrust will follow this child for a long time or possibly for the rest of their life. For example I was adopted at three years old and I remember my social worker coming by a year after I have been placed with my family to do the last home visit. As soon as I saw her I ran and hid in my closet because she had taken me away from so many places and my care was so inconsistent that I have formed a sense of mistrust of people. With the help of my family I have learned to trust and have successfully completed this stage.
“Stresses of poverty may impair learning ability in young children.” National Institutes of Health. NIH News, 28 Aug. 2012. Web. 17 Oct. 2012.
Erik H. Erikson was a significant psychologist that greatly changed the field of child development. In the 1950’s, Erikson advanced a Freudian approach in development. He viewed that social development as a series of eight challenges that people have to overcome. Each challenge has an outcome that’s either favorable or unfavorable. The outcome drastically affects a person’s personality. For example, in a favorable outcome, the result can leave a positive feeling. With a positive outlook, it’s easier for a person to cope with challenges in life. An unfavorable outcome can leave a person at a disadvantaged for the future. During the first couple challenges, Erikson believed that the caregiver has a great impact on a child’s development (Romero).
(Chipungu & Goodley, 2004) Chipungu and Goodley also stated that these issues shown by children in foster care come from their experiences prior to being placed in foster care, as well as from their actual foster care experience. Children are forced to deal with the separation from their parents and siblings, and must now adjust to a new life. In a 3 month time period of being in the foster care system, children have been shown to have symptoms of depression, aggression and withdrawal, as well as sleeping problems, and failure to thrive. (Chipungu & Goodley, 2004) Due to children’s experiences prior to entering the foster care system, many of them have development issues, including mental development. According to Bass, Shields, and Behrman “children in foster care have more physical and mental health problems than children growing up in other settings.” (2004) Dubois-Comtois et al. stated that the number of foster care placements, as well as the type of placement, a child has had also contributed to the child’s behavior and emotional problems.
We as Americans are extremely lucky. We live in a big country with many resources and almost all the luxuries we ever wanted. On the flip side, in America there are also many people who do not have these privileges. The lower class is a struggling class. For many years, people have been trying to pull themselves up from the lower class and the majority does not succeed. Childhood poverty is a large problem in the U.S. It is said that the poorest people in the United States are the children of the lower class. Childhood poverty could lead to a number of problems such as hunger, violence, physical and mental disabilities, educational problems, homelessness, family stress, sickness, and too-early parenthood. The sad truth is that living in poverty lowers a child’s chance to grow into a healthy, well-adjusted adult who will contribute to society.
Being 7 years of age, a child’s only problem should be which toy they should play with. Unfortunately, for Eric Lopez at 7 years old he was put to work with his family to help support the household. Being the oldest of 3, the responsibilities of being the oldest meant working with his parents after school and on weekends, taking care of his brother and sister, and still maintaining to keep up with his schoolwork. This is the reality of how growing up in a Latino community has humbled Eric’s vision of life in this country. Experiencing the societal effects that economic policies have on Latinos first hand has influenced his designs tremendously. Although, through all the challenges Eric faced he managed to persevere and managed to enroll to
Childhood development is both a biological and psychological period that occurs to every human from birth to adolescence. The transition from dependency to autonomy characterizes this period. The crucial factors that affect this period include parental life, prenatal development and genetics among others. Childhood period is immensely significant for the child’s future health and development. Efforts in ensuring proper child development are normally seen through parents, health professional and educators who work collectively. Such efforts are essential in making sure that children grow to reach their full potential. However, it is not extremely easy to raise a child in modern times because certain factors emerge to ruin this pivotal stage in life. Poverty is a serious problem that can immensely affect childhood development (Horgan, 2007). Children are susceptible developmentally to problems in their earliest period of their life. Poverty is not a selective issue and it can affect all ages in any place, but its
With a wide variety of studies and research, it has been shown that socioeconomic status can affect a child’s health even before they are born. This theory comes from a study by Hackman, Farah and Meaney (2010) in which researchers identified three classes of mechanism that SES effects on cognitive development. The first class that they recognized is the prenatal influences. If a low- SES mother does...
Laden, Greg. "Children from Low-income Families at Educational Disadvantage." Science Blog. N.p., 26 Dec. 2008. Web. 8 Jan. 2014.