What is Foster Care?
The foster care system is intended to help children whose parents cannot care for them. It’s meant to be a temporary solution and the majority of children spend one month to one year in the system. The goal of foster care is reunification: the child will return to their parents when the time is right. However, adoption is also an option if that is in the child’s best interests.
A minor may be placed in a foster family, a group home, or in kinship care. Kinship care is an arrangement in which children are placed with family members who will care for the child until reunification with the parents. If kinship care is not an option, foster families are considered to be best, as the child receives the most attention and care. Group homes are the most unfortunate option, as they are often impersonal and institutional.
The foster system is currently overcrowded, as the number of children in the system is reaching 500,000 and there are not enough foster parents in the United States to care for them. The retention rates for foster parents are low and there is not enough funding to sustain the foster system. The recent opiate crisis is making the problem worse, as even more children are entering the system because of substance abuse. This lack of available foster homes is why we hear of foster children staying in hotels with caseworkers or sleeping on the couch in a caseworker’s office.
Studies show that children who stay in a reportedly abusive or neglectful home demonstrate better mental health and perform better in society. They perform better in school, are more likely to get a stable job, and are less likely to act out. Why is the foster system, which was created to help dependent children, so woefully inadequate and what can we do to improve it?
Well, as a society, we need to focus on helping children in need, whatever the reason; from abuse, from human trafficking, from neglect.
"
-Dr. John de Garmo
HISTORY of FOSTER CARE
1
Francis, Lizzy. “How Many Kids Are in Foster Care? Too Many, Thanks to the Opioid Crisis.” Fatherly, 23 Jan. 2020, www.fatherly.com/love-money/adoption-foster-care-opiate-crisis/.
2
Shilhavy, Brian. “New Study Confirms Foster Care System Harms Children.” Health Impact News, 5 Jan. 2017, healthimpactnews.com/2017/new-study-confirms-foster-care-system-harms-children/.
3
“Foster Care: Background and History.” Findlaw, 14 Nov. 2018, family.findlaw.com/foster-care/foster-care-background-and-history.html.
4
Stouffer, Tere. “The Displaced Child: Eighty Years of U.S. Adoption and Foster Care.” Children’s Literature: Annual of The Children’s Literature Association and The Modern Language Association Division on Children’s Literature, vol. 35, Jan. 2007, pp. 218–222. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1353/chl.2007.0020.