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9.3: Foster Care and Adoption

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    216722
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    Foster Care and Adoption

    Foster Care

    Ideally, every child would be able to be raised by their own parents in a loving, caring home. Unfortunately, that is not always possible. Some children are removed from abusive or neglectful situations, others are orphaned when their parents die, and yet others are voluntarily relinquished by parents who cannot care for them properly. What happens to these children? They used to be placed in orphanages... group facilities that housed many children and were staffed by paid or volunteer adults. Orphanages provided for the basic minimal needs of food and clothing but did not fulfill the familial sense of belonging that children need. They were often overcrowded, underfunded, and lacking love. Our country decided that we could do better for our children; we started placing children with families who would provide for their needs in smaller groups, placed in family homes. We called these families "Foster Families". Foster Care is provided for in every state and is administered through the state's social services department.

    In the United States, on any given day, there are more than 400,000 youth living in foster care (out-of-home care) primarily due to abuse and/or neglect. And, more than 100,000 of these youth are waiting to be adopted from foster care. This means that these parents have lost permanent legal rights and custody of their children, leaving their children without any permanently legal caregivers (the government assumes this responsibility until someone adopts the children). The average age of youth waiting to be adopted from foster care is eight years old. This is one way that a child may be adopted into a permanent family.

    Foster Care Basics

    Foster care is defined as, “a temporary living situation for kids whose parents cannot take care of them and whose need for care has come to the attention of child welfare agency staff.” The ultimate goal is for children and youth to live in stable families, so foster care is meant to end once the parent or another relative can raise the child, or it is determined that the family cannot or will not care for the child.

    Quote about childhood trauma

    When children are removed from their parents by public officials, the government assumes responsibility for their well-being. Specifically, caseworkers for child welfare agencies are responsible for children in foster care. The caseworker focuses mainly on the safety and basic needs of a child – such as schooling, medical care, shelter, and daily care. Caseworkers also monitor foster homes, reunite families, and find adoptive homes. Each foster child’s case is overseen by a judge.

    Foster care is usually divided into three categories of placement.

    1. Non-kinship care is when a vetted and trained foster family that is dedicated to caring for children steps in temporarily to raise them. To become foster parents, individuals must be selected, trained, and certified by their state’s Department of Social Services.
    2. Kinship care when children in foster care are placed with their own relatives.
    3. Group care involves specialized homes and other institutional settings. This is the least common path, but serves a need for youth that require certain mental or physical health services.

    Being removed from their home and placed in foster care is a difficult and stressful experience for any child. Many of these children have suffered some form of serious abuse or neglect. About 30% of children in foster care have severe emotional, behavioral, or developmental problems. Physical health problems are also common. Most children, however, show remarkable resiliency and determination to go on with their lives. Children in foster care often struggle with the following issues:

    • blaming themselves and feeling guilty about removal from their birth parents
    • wishing to return to birth parents even if they were abused by them
    • feeling unwanted if awaiting adoption for a long time
    • feeling helpless about multiple changes in foster parents over time
    • having mixed emotions about attaching to foster parents
    • feeling insecure and uncertain about their future
    • questioning positive feelings for foster parents

    Foster parents open their homes to children in need of temporary care, a task both rewarding and challenging. Unfortunately, there has been a decrease in the number of foster parents (non-relative) available to care for children. This results in larger numbers of children remaining in institutional settings. Fortunately, the number of relative caregivers (kinship foster care) has increased.

    Attribution: 9.2: Foster Care is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts

    1. To learn about stories of a few youth who were in foster care, watch the first 9 minutes of the documentary below:

    9.3: Foster Care and Adoption is shared under a not declared license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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