Foster care

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Foster care is a system by which a certified, stand-in "parent(s)" cares for minor children or young people who have been removed from their birth parents or other custodial adults by state authority.

Responsibility for the young person is assumed by the relevant governmental authority and a placement with another family found. There can be voluntary placements by a parent of a child into foster care. Foster care is just a short term alternative while on the way to determining one of the three permanent plans for the child. According to Dorsey et al.. ^[1], the three permanent plans are:

“Reunification with the biological parent, conversion of the foster home to a legally-permanent guardianship or adoption, or placement of the child into another legally permanent family” (p. 1404).

Foster placements are monitored until the birth family can provide appropriate care or the rights of the birth parents are terminated and the child is adopted. A third option, guardianship, is sometimes utilized in certain cases where a child cannot be reunified with their birth family and adoption is not right for them.

[edit] Aspects

[edit] Reunification

Reunification with a biological parent is when the child was temporarily removed from the home then reunited back with the biological parent when the state decides the conditions are suitable. This generally includes some older foster children who may be strongly bonded to their family of origin and unwilling to pursue adoption. It also may include cases where children are placed with grandparents or other relatives, where the placement is likely to be permanent but those relatives don't want to fight the birth parents in court.

[edit] Voluntary foster care

Voluntary foster care may be utilized in circumstances where a parent is unable or unwilling to care for a child. For instance, a child may have behavioral problems requiring specialized treatment or the parent might have a problem which results in a temporary or permanent inability to care for the child(ren).

[edit] Involuntary foster care

Involuntary foster care may be implemented when a child is removed from their caregiver because it is believed such removal is necessary for his/her own safety. A foster parent receives monetary reimbursement from the placement agency for each child while the child is in his/her home to help cover the cost of meeting the child's needs. The amount of financial assistance typically varies from state to state and even city to city.

[edit] Requirements

“Foster parents are responsible, law-abiding, people who will take good care of foster children. Foster parents can be a married couple or a single or divorced person. They can be young or old, with jobs outside the home or not. They can have young children of their own, grown up kids, or none at all” (Foster Families, p. 1).

[edit] Qualities of a good foster parent

A caring foster parent needs to be willing to take on the difficulties and responsibilities that would be expected of any parent. Enjoyment with being with children, ability to handle change and manage stress, having a sense of humor, and flexibility are some characteristics of people who would make good foster parents. Providing children with structure and helping them with emotional and behavioral problems is the main focus of a foster care provider. Sometimes the foster parent is also asked to help redevelop the relationship between the child and their birth parent. (Child and Family Services, p.1).

[edit] Legal Requirements

Legal requirements to be a foster parent vary by nation and local jurisdiction, as do monetary reimbursement and other benefits foster families may receive.

[edit] Purpose

Foster care is intended to be a temporary living situation for children and adolescents. The goal of foster care is to provide support and care for the young person to facilitate either reunification with parent(s) or other family members or another suitable permanent living arrangement. This may include an adoptive home, guardianship, or placement with a relative. At times, the bond that develops during foster care will lead to the foster parents adopting the child. In some instances, children may be placed in a long-term foster placement.

[edit] Adolescents and foster care

For older adolescents, a foster care program may offer education and resources to prepare for a transition to independent living. That is not to say that older adolescents would not benefit from family placement, however, it is more difficult to recruit foster and adoptive parents for teens due to the stigma that is often attached to adolescents in foster care.

[edit] United States

[edit] Regulation, administration, and oversight

In the United States, foster home licensing requirements vary from state to state but are generally overseen by each state's Department of Social Services or Human Services. In some states, counties have this responsibility. Each state's services are monitored by the federal Department of Health and Human Services through reviews such as Child and Family Services Reviews, Title IV-E Foster Care Eligibility Reviews, Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System and Statewide Automated Child Welfare Information System Assessment Reviews.^[2]

Children found to be unable to function in a foster home may be placed in Residential Treatment Centers (RTCs) or other such group homes. In theory, the focus of treatment in such facilities is to prepare the child for a return to a foster home, to an adoptive home, or to the birth parents when applicable. But two major reviews of the scholarly literature have questioned these facilities' effectiveness.^[3]

[edit] Funding and system incentives

A law passed by Congress in 1961 allowed AFDC (welfare) payments to pay for foster care which was previously made only to children in their own homes. This made aided funding foster care for states and localities, facilitating rapid growth In some cases, the state of Texas paid mental treatment centers as much as $101,105 a year per child. Observers of the growth trend note that a county will only continue to receive funding while it keeps the child in its care. This may create a "perverse financial incentive" to place and retain children in foster care rather than leave them with their parents, and incentives are sometimes set up for maximum intervention. A National Coalition for Child Protection Reform issue paper states "children often are removed from their families `prematurely or unnecessarily' because federal aid formulas give states `a strong financial incentive' to do so rather than provide services to keep families together."^[4]

There are some children in foster care who are difficult to place in permanent homes through the normal adoption process. These children are often said to require “special-needs adoption.” In this context, "special needs" can include situations where children have specific chronic medical problems, mental health issues, behavioral problems, and learning disabilities. Governments offer a variety of incentives and services to facilitate this class of adoptions.^[5]

[edit] Recent United States foster care legislation

In 1997, President Bill Clinton signed a new foster care law, the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA), written by Dr. Cassie Statuto Bevan,^[6]) which reduced the time children are allowed to remain in foster care before being available for adoption. The new law requires state child welfare agencies to identify cases where "aggravated circumstances" make permanent separation of child from the birth family the best option for the safety and well-being of the child. One of the main components of ASFA is the imposition of stricter time limits on reunification efforts. Proponents of ASFA claimed that before the law was passed, the lack of such legislation was the reason it was common for children to languish in care for years with no permanent living situation identified. They often were moved from placement to placement with no real plan for a permanent home.

Time limits were in federal legislation as early as 1980, but they were never enforced. ASFA requires that the state identify a permanent plan for children who enter foster care.

Opponents of ASFA argued that the real reason children languished in foster care was that too many were taken needlessly from their parents in the first place. Since ASFA did not address this, opponents said, it would not accomplish its goals, and would only slow a decline in the foster care population that should have occurred anyway because of a decline in reported child abuse.^[7]

Ten years after ASFA became law, the number of children in foster care on any given day is only about 7,000 fewer than when ASFA was passed^[8] Children continue to languish in care and to be moved from placement to placement.

The Foster Care Independence Act of 1999, also created by Dr.Bevan, in association with members of Congress, AKA The Chafee Program, helps foster youth who are aging out of care to achieve self-sufficiency. The U.S. government has also funded the Education and Training Voucher Program in recent years in order to help youth who age out of care to obtain college or vocational training at a free or reduced cost. Chafee and ETV money is administered by each state as they see fit.

The Fostering Connection to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 is the most recent piece of major federal legislation addressing the foster care system. This bill extended various benefits and funding for foster children between the age of 18 and 21 and for Indian children in tribal areas. The legislation also strengthens requirements for states in their treatment of siblings (e.g., it requires states to make a reasonable effort to place siblings together) and introduces mechanisms to financially incent guardianship and adoption, among other things.^[9][10]

[edit] Problems within the United States Foster Care System

[edit] Lack of available foster parents

Based on data provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services submitted as of January 16, 2008, there are more than 500,000 children in the foster care systems throughout the United States (1). Currently the trend is showing more children entering the system than exiting, which is also known as aging out. Among the children who are currently placed, there are approximately 20,000 children who will emancipate or age out of the system this year (1). This is quite a frightening thought for these youths, who essentially have not been able to adapt a permanent and stable structure that would have prepared them for the challenges they would be facing as adults.

[edit] Foster children not being prepared for adulthood

Nearly half of foster kids in the U.S. become homeless when they turn 18.^[11][12]

According to William Dudley, most foster care childen should be placed in adoptive homes. "One of every 10 foster children stays in foster care longer than seven years, and each year about 15,000 reach the age of majority and leave foster care with out a permanent family-- many to join the ranks of the homeless or to commit crimes and be imprisoned. Current Controversies: Issues in Adoption. Ed. William Dudley. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2004.

[edit] Agency and Housing disregard for human rights of Foster children

Although foster care is one solution to protecting children from abuse, it is an imperfect system which is also associated with relatively high rates of abuse and risks. In Texas, the Family and Protective Services Crisis Management Team was created by executive order after the critical report Forgotten Children of 2004. Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn made a statement in 2006 about the Texas foster care system.^[13] In Fiscal 2003, 2004 and 2005, respectively 30, 38 and 48 foster children died in the state's care. The number of foster children in the state's care increased 24 percent to 32,474 in Fiscal 2005, while the number of deaths increased 60 percent. Compared to the general population, a child is four times more likely to die in the Texas foster care system. In 2004, about 100 children were treated for poisoning from medications; 63 were treated for rape that occurred while under state care including four-year old twin boys, and 142 children gave birth.

The report stated that children were being unnecessarily neglected and abused and dying. A 12-year-old boy died in December 2005, suffocated while being restrained from behind by an employee of the facility. Another died May 30, after drowning in a creek during a bicycle outing. A three-year old was treated for poisoning from an atypical, mind-altering antipsychotic drug.

According to liftingtheveil.org, 28% of children in state care were abused in Baltimore. 21% of abuse or neglect cases involved foster homes In Louisiana. 57% of those in Missouri placed in foster care settings in 1981 were at a high risk of abuse or neglect. 25% of children in Kansas City foster care were the subject of abuse or inappropriate punishment. In Arizona, over 500 of an estimated 4,000 foster children, a figure representing at least 12.5 percent of the state's foster care population, have been sexually abused while in state care.

In the Wenatchee sex ring of the mid 1990s, a foster child who accused nearly every adult she knew placed with a detective sparked the one of history’s most extensive child sex abuse investigations. The investigations later fell apart with accusations of abuses by police and state social workers, and false confessions, child witnesses, and the discredited “recovered memory” theory.

[edit] Example: NYC foster care

Throughout the 1990s experimental HIV drugs had been tested on HIV foster children at Incarnation Children’s Center (ICC) in Harlem. "Since then, ACS has been under fire from charges of inappropriately enrolling as many as 465 foster children in HIV clinical trials. The agency has also been accused of racism, some comparing the trials to the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, as 98 percent of children in foster care in New York City are persons of color."^[14]

[edit] Example: Texas YFZ Ranch Raid

This section has multiple issues. Please help improve the article or discuss these issues on the talk page. It needs additional references or sources for verification. Tagged since May 2008. Its neutrality is disputed. Tagged since June 2008.

In the largest action of its kind, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services in 2008 entered the YFZ Ranch in Eldorado, Texas with armed police. Although the search warrant was based on a tip that is believed to be fraudulent, enough evidence was gathered for a judge to rule that every child of the single shared residence was either a victim of or at risk of abuse in danger of eventually becoming or marrying child "spiritual brides". Over 400 children were ordered to be forcibly removed to shelters, and many separated from their parents, pending placement in the Texas foster care system. Legal barriers for child protection were much lower than for criminal cases as mothers and children were interrogated without lawyers, and the removal of every child under CPS procedures which classify a complex community of 700 as a single household has been compared to arresting every child in a town and placing them in a makeshift prison camp. Family members were separated and isolated from one another, communications and in many cases visitation rights were forbidden. No charges or arrests were made against any adults, though CPS later admitted they had taken an adult, because she appeared to be a minor, under custody of the state. The Texas foster care system has recorded a number of poisonings, deaths, rapes and pregnancy among children under its care in state reports since 2004, with a death rate four times the general population of children. While there was much public support and legal justification for the action, one witness who attested at the shelter testified that "wonderful loving women and children are being treated like convicts in a concentration camp by the state of Texas".^[15]

[edit] Research on effects of foster care

A recent study by Dr. Joseph J. Doyle, Jr., suggests that, in America, foster care placements are detrimental to children who are near the margin of needing to be placed out of home. These children, especially when they are older, seem to fare better with their birth parents.^[16][17]

[edit] Australia

[edit] Nature and Purpose

Home-based care, which includes foster care, is provided to children who are in need of care and protection. Children and young people are provided with alternative accommodation while they are unable to live with their parents. As well as foster care, this can include placements with relatives or kin, and residential care. In most cases, children in home-based care are also on a care and protection order.^[18]

In some cases children are placed in home-based care following a child protection substantiation and where they are found to be in need of a safer and more stable environment. In other situations parents may be incapable of providing adequate care for the child, or accommodation may be needed during times of family conflict or crisis.^[18] In the significant number of cases substance abuse is a major contributing factor.

Respite care is a type of foster care that is used to provide short-term (and often regular) accommodation for children whose parents are ill or unable to care for them on a temporary basis.^[18] It is also used to provide a break for the parent or primary carer to hopefully decrease the chances of the situation escalating to one which would lead to the removal of the child(ren).

As with the majority of child protection services, states and territories are responsible for funding home-based care. Non-government organizations are widely used, however, to provide these services.^[18]

[edit] Philosophy of administration

There is strong emphasis in current Australian policy and practice to keep children with their families wherever possible. In the event that children are placed in home-based care, every effort is made to reunite children with their families wherever possible.^[18]

In the case of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in particular, but not exclusively, placing the child within the wider family or community is preferred^[18] This is consistent with the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle.^[19]

[edit] Noted successes

The Centre For Excellence In Child & Family Welfare has found that in Victoria the number of foster carers is declining while the number of children in care is increasing.^{[citation needed]} This is putting a great strain on the foster care system of the state.

In Victoria, the largest provider of foster care is Anglicare Victoria, providing respite, emergency, long term and short term foster care, disability foster care and teenage foster care for children and youth up to age 18. Anglicare Victoria is currently involved in the Victorian Government’s pilot program in a move towards therapeutic approaches to foster care.

[edit] Effects of chronic maltreatment and treatment in Foster Care systems (Intl)

A study by Dante Cicchetti found that 80% of abused and maltreated infants in his study exhibited symptoms of disorganized attachment.^[20][21] Children with histories of maltreatment, such as physical and psychological neglect, physical abuse, and sexual abuse, are at risk of developing psychiatric problems.^{[22][23][24][25]} These children may be described as experiencing trauma as the result of abuse or neglect, inflicted by a primary caregiver, which disrupts the normal development of secure attachment. Such children are at risk of developing a disorganized attachment.^[24][26][27] Disorganized attachment is associated with a number of developmental problems, including dissociative symptoms,^[28] as well as depressive, anxiety, and acting-out symptoms.^[29][30]

The effects of early chronic maltreatment are seen in various domains which may require a multi-modal approach that directly addresses the underlying causative trauma and which seeks to build healthy and secure relationships with permanent caregivers. These children may require specialized treatment.

[edit] See also

• Adoption and Safe Families Act
• Attachment theory
• Child Welfare
• Crown ward
• Complex post-traumatic stress disorder
• Elevate (organization)
• Foster care adoption
• Legal guardian
• Reactive attachment disorder
• Aging out
• Fosterage
• Travis Lloyd A foster care alumnus who advocates through inspirational hip-hop music and motivational speaking
• Pound Pup Legacy

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

• Hurley, KendraLL (2002). "Almost Home" Retrieved Jun. 27, 2006.
• Carlson, E.A. (1998). A prospective longitudinal study of disorganized/disoriented attachment. Child Development 69, 1107-1128
• Knowlton, Paul E. (2001). "The Original Foster Care Survival Guide"; A first person account directed to successfully aging out of the foster care.