INTRODUCTION:
I choose to do my paper on foster care. The reason why I choose this topic is because my father was in foster care when he was a teenager. This is why I am very excited in finding out a lot of information on foster care and its policy. Here are some things I Want to find out what is the procedures to become a foster parent. What is the requirement do a child has to have to become a foster child? I want to look and find out what is the policy of foster care. We will look at the history of foster care. I hope you will be as interested in finding out this information as much as I am. I know that it will help you and I understand the process of foster care. So I am asking you to be patient with me because I might go too deep on this subject for you.
What is foster care? To me foster care is a place or the system that a child (minor)is place in which consist of a group home and a certified care giver provider that is assign by the state which is known as a foster parent. I almost forgot to say that a minor is also place in a ward too. You might ask how is a child place in these places that I have mention? Well, a child is place by the social services agency or the government where the stat or government plays for the child to be taken care by the instution or a family. They are paid for the expenses that the child occurred. Now let’s looked at the history of foster care. “It was English Poor Law, however, that lead to development and eventual regulation of family foster care in the United States. In 1562, these laws allowed the placement of poor children into indentured service until they came of age.” (National Foster parent Association- history of foster care) Would you like to know who was the first foster child in...
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...e approved as a foster parent. Individuals and/or couples must have the time and energy to give to a child and must meet all the approval requirements.” (Foster Care (FC) - Virginia Department of Social Services) Now this is the following things that you must do: “1. Attend a one-time orientation meeting to learn what foster parenting is all about. 2. Successfully complete pre-service training. 3. Complete a home study. 4. Participate in at least three (3) face-to-face interviews. 5. Submit a national Fingerprint Criminal Record check, a child abuse and neglect history check, and a DMV check. 6. Provide a physician’s report verifying that you are physically and mentally capable of caring for a child.7. Verify that you have enough income to provide for your family. 8.Submit the names of three references.” (Foster Care (FC) - Virginia Department of Social Services)
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.
This paper will contain research done about foster care, including a brief history and progressing along to the system today. This research interested me because it is a professional career option after graduation. I found both positives and negatives about the foster care system that children and foster parents go through on a daily basis. As the paper progresses I will be explaining these positives and negatives in more detail. Throughout the paper I will be referencing different scholarly sources that explain foster care in different ways. Overall, this paper will show different aspects that the general public may never know about foster care.
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...
Copyright (c) 2005 Virginia Journal of Social Policy & the Law Virginia Journal of Social Policy & the Law, 2005, 12 Va. J. Soc. Pol'y & L. 371, 13986 words, SYMPOSIUM: THE STATE CONSTRUCTION OF FAMILIES: FOSTER CARE, TERMINATION OF PARENTAL RIGHTS, AND ADOPTION: FROM ANTICIPATION TO EVIDENCE: RESEARCH ON THE ADOPTION
Some parents in the world do not discipline their children and do not care what the children. All they care about are them selves. At that point the social workers take the child and put them in foster homes with complete and total strangers. Some companies just put kids with people who do not care about the children just what they get paid. They just let the children go off and do what they want and do not supervise the children’s activities. The social workers should do more thoroughly background checks. There should also be more supervision in foster homes instead of little supervision, and the workers should visit the home and the children more often than they actually do.
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
There’s a high rate of homelessness among the children who was been in the foster care but age out. Many children are going to the foster care because of many tragedies they already had before they even understand what is life all about. Fortunately, for them, there are some people who try to help them out and give them a second shot at life. And having a child of my own gives me a full understanding how much a parent 's guidance and love mean to their lives and I am trying to introduce adoptuskids.org to help raise awareness of homelessness and adoption to all the people and hoping that the children in the foster care system will get a lot of help, support, and love.
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.
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.
Imagine waking up everyday in a home where there is nobody you can call mom or dad. Foster care is a system in which a minor has been placed into a ward, group home, or private home of a state-certified caregiver referred to as a "foster parent". The placement of the child is usually arranged through the government or a social-service agency. The institution, group home or foster parent is compensated for expenses. The state will inform through the family court and child protection agency stand in loco parentis to the minor, making all legal decisions while the foster parent is responsible for the day-to-day care of the minor throughout the time the child is in the system.
Foster care is an agency that takes in more than 250,000 children EVERY year. With this many children entering the system every year; the amount of problems on finding the right caregiver for the child increases tremendously. When these problems are created there are many effects that can happen to the child that can last short-term and unfortunately long-term. Fortunately, there are multiple solutions for these problems that everyone can do so that everyone's position is improved. Foster care agencies can create negative situations due to the selection of the caregiver and the plethora, deluge, profusion, surplus, vast, prodigious, immense of problems that are created; however, there are several pathways that either party can take to improve the unpleasant situation and its effects.
To many outsiders, the foster care system may appear to be a safe haven for those children that are abused or abandoned by their birth family. This is correct, but the system with which it is based, has many flaws. A background check is mandatory for all foster parents, but a test to see if a child 's temperament matches that caregiver 's parenting style, is not. Now, this is seen as a minor issue, but there is not enough evidence to support this. Plus, there are many other, much worse reasons, why the system is not perfect. Altogether, the foster care system and a multitude of its rules are flawed and may actually be negatively affecting foster children.
How do they differ from group homes? Foster homes are a type of non-secure confinement that may or may not be associated with an offense. If a court finds that a youth's parent or guardian is unfit, that youth may be placed into a temporary household. Not all youths placed in foster care are criminals, some are orphaned or in need of supervision. Foster homes do prove useful in helping children who have mental, developmental, and emotional disabilities.
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