Problems within the Foster Care System

Children are placed in the foster care system due to them having unfortunate circumstances at home, whether it is neglect, abuse, economic issues or even by the children being in the system since birth.  In 2017, there were more than 660,000 kids who have spent time in the foster care system and 6% of kids in the system have languished there for five or more years. By there being an excessive amount of children in the system, there tends to not be a place for all of the kids to temporarily stay at. This leads to the foster care agencies to place kids in houses when there has not been proper home inspections and background checks on the parents.

Proclamation from a Foster Parent 

Blake Johnson has been in the system as a foster parent for over a decade and has had numerous foster kids temporarily stay in his home. 

 “Typically when a child is removed from a situation it’s due to some chaotic living conditions on the home front. Things aren’t going well and probably have not been going well for a long time…Foster Care gives the children a safe place to temporarily go. And on the other side, it gives their families the chance to get things together not only for themselves but for the kiddos involved,” Johnson said. 

Despite what Blake Johnson believes, the way that parents are being selected in the foster care system is corrupt, and in many cases, unfit for the child’s well being.

Scamming Resources from Children

Foremost, foster parents are often using the system for grievous reasoning. For instance, the foster care parents receive a check each month the child is with them to provide for the youth’s needs, ranging from $400 – $600 a month depending on the state. This base rate the parents receive includes clothing, food, transportation, and other personal needs based on the individual, and the child is covered under the state’s healthcare. However, in many cases, the children are not being given the resources allocated for them. In addition, Betsy Kramer, director of the public policy and special litigation project at Lawyers For Children exposes how it makes clients feel.

“For many of our clients, knowing that their parents are receiving an adoption subsidy for caring for them, and are not caring for them, reinforces the idea that they are just a paycheck,” Kramer stated.

An unethical foster care parent  could easily scam the system by keeping extra income for personal gain. On the account of foster children not receiving the proper resources for their health and education, this potentially limits the child’s future success. 

The Youth’s Wellbeing 

In the likely case that all of the needed support is not given to the child from the parent, it can lead to emotional scarring. Many prospective foster parents take the youth in but will not care for the youth’s emotional state of mind. The youth who have been exposed to intense forms of trauma including physical, sexual and emotional abuse have “higher rates” of internalizing problems, post-traumatic stress disorder and other clinical diagnoses.

The Results of Aging Out 

Approximately 400,000 youth are currently in foster care in the United States although, approximately only 20,000 of those youth are forced to leave the system because of their age without ever receiving a family connection or support. As a practicing pediatrician, Olivia Resse described the effects of youth who can no longer stay. 

“The youth who have aged out of the system, as well as those who have been in the foster care system their entire life, will not be able to experience a positive childhood, which will lead to the kids being depressed and can cause anxiety.” 

Disadvantage of Adoption Fee 

A significant reason why there is both a lack of adopted children and an excess amount of kids in the system is because the fee to adopt a child is unreachable for most families. Many people cannot pay the fee for adoption all at once.  c It costs around $15,000 to $30,000 in fees, which can be half of one’s yearly salary; by the average person’s salary in America from 2019 is $46,800, the adoption fee would be estimated to be 43% of one’s salary. By the cost of adoption being extremely high, it is leading to an excess amount of kids in the system without the correct care being provided for the children. Additionally, prospective parents tend to want to adopt those who are in the same race so that they can share similar logistics and to pass their culture down to the child. By adopting a child from a different culture, even if the child is young, there is still the chance that the child will want to explore their own culture rather than what they were raised upon . This can cause problems regarding rebellion and culture shock.

Final Thoughts 

Children and young adults not having the correct social structure growing up, can lead to inadequate consequences in their adult life as.

The foster care system is corrupt.  In many cases, the children are not being taken care of in a healthy manner. The correct procedures of accepting adults to be parents in the foster care system is important because it ensures the safety and upbringing of the children involved. Uninvolved foster parenting leads to detrimental harm to the children in regards to their mental and emotional state, which then can affect how that child performs in the future. In conclusion, the selection for parents who are chosen to look after foster kids needs to be more stern to ensure the children’s safety and overall well being.

• foster care
• government
• social justice
• Trauma