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The effects of foster care
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Fostering is considered as a noble act which is often challenging, fulfilling and leaning a helping hand towards the society. Fostering is difficult, but also incredibly rewarding. There are many children in the community who need your help and support. By fostering a child, you can make a difference in their lives. There are many people who want to foster and make a difference through their act, however, they are not aware of what fostering actually entails. Most of the people are not aware of the allowance that fostering children can bring. There are many allowance and benefits for fostering a child in long term placements. The foster care allowance is meant to pay for taking care of the foster child and their needs. The allowance is set based on the needs of the child and the amount is determined and paid out on a per child per week basis. Being paid …show more content…
Child benefit: If you take the responsibility of fostering a child, you will be eligible for to claim child benefit for your own child, or other children that live with you. However, you cannot benefit for child or children you foster. Disability living allowance: A child who is under 16 and is disabled by some reason can still claim this disability living allowance. This disability living allowance is paid only to adult foster parents or carers. Income support: You may be able to claim income support while fostering a child, however, you will have to attend work-focused interview every 6 months to 3 years depending upon your situation. Income support is a non-taxable benefit, for people who work less than 16 hours a week but who aren’t required to sign on an unemployed such as foster carers. Many foster carers are unique in their position, so you can choose whether to be deemed as working and to claim working tax and not working and claim income
In Family Court there are steps in gaining certainty that the placement of a child is right for him/her. Whether it be non-kinship foster care or kinship foster care the agency will provide understanding to the family in placing the child in a safer environment would be the child best interest. This is determine by Family Court Act article 7 “Person in need of supervision” which concern the child 18 years of age in care. Under the act there are categories to determine if the child brought into care falling into the category of detention, secure detention facility,
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.
Respite care: This is when children get support whilst living at home with their families. So the child will stay with the foster family or resident...
A foster parent, as defined by the Health reference series second edition, is an individual who is licensed to provide a home for an orphaned, abused, neglected, delinquent or disabled child (Matthews, 2004). A permanent placement is one that is intended, but not guaranteed, to last forever (Barth & Berry 1988). Foster care is not for delinquents but somewhere for children go when their parents can no longer care for them. A form of foster care has always been around in early Christian churches where “worthy widows” would board children in need and were paid by church collections. Foster care started in 1562 during the time of the English poor laws, which stated the poor children were allowed to be placed in legal services until they reached of aged (nfpaonline.org). In the 1970’s, foster care increased in popularity but foster parents were seen as unfit to adopt children permanently (Barth and Berry, 1988). In 1980 the Adoption Assistance of Child Welfare Act (public law 96-272) made it clear that the most desirable permanent placement for children is with their own family. The law...
The word Foster means to bring up encourage or promote the development of (Google). In the mid-nineteenth century, just about 30,000 homeless or neglected children lived like savages in the slums of New York. Thanks to the founder of The Children's Aid Society, Charles Loring Brace, an assumption was made. He believed that by removing all youngsters from the streets and placing them in farming families, they would have a better chance of escaping a lifestyle of suffering (Foster Care History). So, by sending all the children to the west in Midwest on a train called the Orphan Train.
Foster care has been around for many years and has evolved greatly throughout the years. America’s first foster child happened to be Benjamin Eaton in 1636 at the age of seven years old (NFPA 2012). This opened the nation’s eyes on an occurring issue with children. A minister, Charles Loring Brace started the free foster care home movement in 1856. Brace was a minister and directed the New York Children’s Aid Society (NFPA 2012). This was going toward the right direction with foster care and providing homes for these children. In the 1900s the first laws to prevent child abuse and neglect was issued. For example, the Social Security Act of 1935 was the first approved grants from the government for child welfare services (Facts on Kids in South Dakota 2007). In this following article it continues to explain various history about foster care in America. In the 1970s CAPTA--Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act became clear as far as what was expected and for investigations involving abuse or neglect. “CAPTA provides federal funding to states in support of prevention, assessment, investigation, prosecution, and treat...
Many potential adopted parents have experienced heartbreak, anguish and other problems that can be associated with adoption. There is an imbalance in the Nations foster care system and the system needs to be strengthening and the quality of services improved.
They should make sure that the kids go to a good foster home that cares for the child and not someone that just cares about the money. There are some ways to make sure this is put in place. The first thing the foster parent could do is check the child’s phone and make sure that things are going fine in their lives. The next thing that the foster parents could do is limit the amount of activities they are doing with friends. They should not let the kid come and go as they please they should set boundaries. They let the kids just go off and do things that they want because they do not want a big responsibility the workers have given
Many aspiring foster parent anticipated the increase in their expenses once they added a member in their family but one thing that surprised many is that there is a upfront cost that they will need to pay before they received their adoptee. “You may be shocked to learn that there are few costs to adopting a child. Or you may be surprised to discover that not every adoption costs thousands of dollars.” (financing). Theres is no recruitment agency that will cover that cost not even the government. And I think some people who planned to adopt and once they realized the cost that they need to pay first, they back out and the will keep the children in the foster care and that’s why we have a lot of kids there. The organization that I chose helps the potential foster parents to understand their options to how they can afford to
With foster care, foster parents get paid monthly by the state to ensure the children are taken care of. Each child gets an allowance every month to have for spending money. The Department of Children Services (DCS) gives the foster families that adopt money for the children until they turn eighteen, and even before adoption the state sends money for helping take care of foster children. According to the Tennessee Department of Children Services. “When children are not able to stay safely in their own homes and there isn’t a relative who can care for them, they often have to come into state custody. The department’s first goal for children is to work toward a safe return home to their families” (1 Foster care and Adoption). Another form of adoption can be through private agencies. Private agencies allow a person to adopt and choose if it is open or closed. Open adoption is when the child can still see his or her birth parents. Closed adoption is when the parents decided they do not want to see the children. In both cases of open and closed adoption most of the time the child or children are infants and straight from birth go to a family, in some of these cases the parents are young and cannot afford to take care of the child so they choose to let him or her be better off with people that can give them everything they will ever want or need. According to Sally Allphin in the scholarly journal article, “President Clinton’s Adoption 2002 Initiative, which intends to double the number of children who move into adoption or legal guardianship between 1986 and 2002. Each year, states will receive four thousand or six thousand dollars for each adoption that they complete above their projected baselines” (1). Getting attached to foster children is an uncommon thing, but in rare cases the children either go back to their parents or a relative chooses to take the
In todays’ society many Americans never think about our foster care system. Foster care is when a child is temporarily placed with another family. This child may have been abused, neglected, or may be a child who is dependent and can survive on their own but needs a place to stay. Normally the child parents are sick, alcohol or drug abusers, or may even be homeless themselves. We have forgotten about the thousands of children who are without families and living in foster homes. Many do not even know how foster care came about. A few of the earliest documentation of foster care can be found in the Old Testament. The Christian church put children into homes with widowers and then paid them using collection from the church congregation. The system that the church had in place was actually successful, and was continued to be used until English Poor Law eventually regulated family foster care in the U.S.
Foster care needs to be reformed, especially when it comes to private agencies. Many people seem to overlook the issues embedded within the foster care system; all it does is take care of children, right? Wrong. Private agencies pervert the system with the nightmares they create. Foster children already feel unwanted and neglected because of the abandonment from their birth parents; private agencies provide them with conditions that further solidify their disbelief of care and love. Money comes first in the eyes of these agencies, followed by the need of control. This “control” can easily become abuse. It would only be sensible for a higher authority to intervene and put an end to these profound
One article about the harms of aging out states, "Each year, about 30,000 foster care youth age out of the system. Many of them exit without finding a stable, affordable, permanent living arrangement" (Richards 2). After aging out, former foster children also face problems going off to post-secondary school and finding jobs. This is because to apply for a job, one must provide proof of a home address. If someone is homeless, that makes getting a job so much harder. Nevertheless, the system does try its hardest to prevent issues like this from arising. There are programs like Section 8 Housing, Family Unification Programs (FUP), and Continuum of Care services, which help foster care children and teenagers after they have aged out. This being said, not many foster care youth know about these programs. It should be the job of the caseworker involved with the child to inform them of these programs. Furthermore, there is a stigma against children in foster care and those who have aged out. This may be a factor in why some do not apply for such programs. Foster care and adopted children are a part of almost every community, so society should try its best to include them and not blame
She recently encouraged a pastor at her church to foster and now, he and his wife, have a baby whom they absolutely love. According to her, there are many important traits a foster parent must have. One of these is self-confidence because the parent must be able to leave their struggles behind in order to help the child to their best ability. The parent must also be strong mentally. Although it may be tough to raise children, but one must need strength to get through it. The foster parent must also understand that they will not always feel rewarded with this role. Another ability a person must have is to be able to grow a strong relationship in order to help the child thrive. A foster parent must be able to set a routine, however, they can not be a perfectionist because in raising children, there is no perfection. The most important trait of a good foster parent is the ability to love unconditionally. The child may not be able to love their foster parent at the current point in their life. But overall she encourages anyone who is thinking about foster care to try it. “Do it! Things will be a challenge, but don’t pass it up because it will end up being rewarding. It will be hard to have them leave, but they have a plan, God has a
According to the International Foster Care Organization “Foster care is a way of providing a family life for children who cannot live with their own parents.”(2004) Foster care is supposed to provide temporary care while parents get help dealing with problems, or to help children or young people through a difficult period in their lives. Children will return home once their parents are able to provide a safe enviorment for them. However if parent are unable to resolve the issues that cause their child in foster care their children may stay in long-term foster care, some may be adopted, and others will move on to live independently. (IFCO, 2004) Foster care has been a problem for many years and although there have been many attempts to improve it; it there still seems to be negatively impacting