Question #1: What is the history of the Foster Care system in the US?
“The idea of foster care can be traced as far back as ancient Greek and Roman societies.[...] Indeed, references to fostering a child can be found in the Bible, the Torah, and the Qur’an.” (Foster)
“In the United States, the system of foster care began as an offshoot of the English Poor Law of 1562. Essentially a form of indentured servitude, the law permitted well-to-do families to take in poor and/or orphaned children and use these children for service until they came of age.”(Foster)
1636- “The first instance of this form of “foster-servitude” can be traced to a seven-year-old boy named Benjamin Eaton, who lived in the nation’s first colony of Jamestown.” (Foster)
1853-”Charles Loring Brace founded a program that would become the foundation of modern day foster care. New York in the mid-19th century saw thousands of children living homeless and neglected in the streets.” (Foster)
1854-1929- 200,000 orphaned, abandoned, abused, or homeless children were transported by train across the United States to rural areas, where they were adopted by families with little to no checking of their background or references, some without even the knowledge of their name. Despite the abrupt adoptions the “Orphan trains were said to have an 87% success rate of placement. ( Summary of Orphan Train)
1885-” Pennsylvania passed the first licensing law, requiring all placement families to be licensed by the state.” (Foster)
1935-”The federal government took notice and in 1935 passed the Social Security Act. The act authorized the first federal grants for child welfare services with the stipulation that state inspections of all foster families’ homes must take place prior to placement. The modern day foster care system was born.” (Foster)
1980-”The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 established federal procedural guidelines for children entering foster care and required courts to regularly review child welfare cases.”(Foster)
1997-the landmark Adoption and Same Families Act (ASFA) was passed. The law led to sweeping change with less emphasis on reuniting biological families and more focus on putting the child’s health and safety concerns first. The law established state accountability systems wherein states had to prove a child’s life was improving in the current placement and for the first time ever encouraged states to expedite permanency decisions.”(Foster)
Question #2: What injustices are being inflicted on Foster Care youth?
“Studies find one in five [Foster Children] will become homeless after 18; at 24, only half will be employed; less than 3% will have earned a college degree; 71% of women will be pregnant by 21; and one in four will have experienced post-traumatic stress disorder at twice the rate of United States war veterans. And too often, many are at risk of moving back into government systems — from juvenile centers to prison.” (We are Abandoning Children in Foster Care)
“A study of foster care kids age 2-14 showed 50% with clinically significant mental health problems.”(Scheid)
“Sex trafficking is a major problem in group homes. Within 48 hours 80% of runaways are approached and coerced into the sex trade. Once in they are sold 15-20 times a day for up to 7 years.” (Foster Shock)
“ Reviewing 58 cases of sex trafficking of girls in foster care in Florida between 2007 and 2014, it is alarming to note that in 74 percent of the cases, the girls were exploited in sex trafficking AFTER placement in foster care.”(Reid)
Foster Children’s normal teenage behaviors are being treated as if their criminals or extremely dangerous mental patients, leaving them targets of the state. (Paraphrase of statements made in Foster Shock)
Sexual assault is ridiculously common in foster homes, and the kids are not often believed.[...] After one child was taken out of a home, because of sexual assault another child was placed into that home and was sexually abused within the first week. No one was ever charged in either case. (Paraphrase of statements made in Foster Shock)
“National news stories often report on the burden the growing need for foster care services has placed on local systems around the country, leading to stories of children sleeping in child welfare offices for lack of available foster families, overuse of group home care when a family setting is more appropriate, or children unaccounted for by the welfare agencies entrusted with their care and oversight.”(NCFA)
“The increase in the number of children in foster care comes at a time when states’ retention rates of foster families are frustratingly low. NCFA has found that more than half of foster families quit fostering within the first year, with many states seeing another double-digit percentage decrease in year two. These low retention rates mean fewer qualified foster families are available, result in the all-too-common practice of children transitioning more frequently between foster families, and require states to invest limited resources into the recruitment of new foster families.”(NCFA)
““One of the tragic outcomes from this year’s AFCARS report is that 19,945 youth were emancipated from the child welfare system last year without family reunification or being adopted,” says NCFA’s president and CEO Chuck Johnson. “The youth who exit foster care without permanency are denied the protections that come from being a part of family, impacting their education, housing, involvement with the criminal justice system, and much more.”” (NCFA)
Question #3: What injustices are currently being addressed and how?
“Up to 80 percent of children in foster care have significant mental health issues, compared to approximately 18-22 percent of the general population. As a result of these increased mental health issues, foster youth are prescribed psychotropic medications at a much higher rate than non-foster youth.”(McCann)
“Psychotropic medication is used for the treatment of behavioral and mental health problems of children and youth in foster care. Psychotropic medications generally include mood stabilizers, antipsychotics, anti-anxiety medications and stimulants. Over the past decade, psychotropic medication use in children and youth in foster care has increased dramatically. A multi-state, 2009-2010 study by Tufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) estimates that youth in foster care use psychotropic medications at a much higher rate (ranging from 13-52 percent) than youth in the general population (4 percent).Recent research has identified major concerns surrounding the administration of psychotropic medications for children and youth in foster care, including the use of multiple psychotropic medications simultaneously, the use of multiple psychotropic medications before the use of a single medication, and the use of such medications in young children between 3-6 years of age. Additionally, research has demonstrated a great deal of variation in rates of medication use for youth in foster care in different geographic communities. Consequently, there is rising concern about the appropriate use of psychotropic medications for youth in foster care.” (McCann)
“The Child and Family Services Improvement and Innovation Act of 2011 (Public Law 112-34) includes new language concerning the social-emotional and mental health of children who have experienced maltreatment. State Child and Family Services Plans (five-year strategic plans that set forth the vision and the goals to be accomplished to strengthen the States’ child welfare systems) must now include details about how emotional trauma associated with maltreatment and removal is addressed, as well as a description of how the use of psychotropic medications is monitored.” (McCann)
“The knowledge that these specific risks – running away or recruitment by other foster care youth – are the two most common routes into exploitation in sex trafficking should be used to inform the sex trafficking prevention strategies of child welfare agencies. Mandating the development of individually-crafted safety plans, with a plan of whom to contact and where to go to get away from danger, would encourage the youth to think about their safety and recognize that their personal safety is extremely important to everyone. Foster care facility managers should not accept new youth without being provided information regarding any prior involvement in human trafficking to reduce the likelihood of placement of potential victim-recruiters for sex traffickers in the same facility with girls who could become new victims. To accomplish this, we need to create a database of suspected and verified child or adolescent victims of sex trafficking that would be accessible to child welfare case managers and facility intake supervisors or managers.”(Ried)
“Two additional actionable findings emerged from the cases of girls who were trafficked out of foster care. First, group homes were in very high crime areas. Placing girls who are known to be chronic runaways in high crime areas seems morally negligent. Every group home for foster children goes through an approval process and must be licensed by the state. Evaluation of the neighborhood crime rate where the group home is located should be included in the approval process. Licensed group homes located in high crime areas should be closed or relocated. Second, there was evidence of poor training and preparation of staff at group homes to meet the task of protecting vulnerable girls from sex traffickers, with placement descriptions such as: “no/little supervision, youth come and go as they please;” “men came into the group home … caught in room with young man;” and, “young men seen jumping the fence of the group home.” Sufficient resources and training for group home staff and managers are urgently needed to ensure that these state-appointed caregivers are adequately equipped for the task of protecting youth from sex traffickers. We can and must provide better protection for girls and boys in foster care.”(Reid)
Question #4:How are these injustices a social issue?
“HOW FOSTER YOUTH ARE TIED TO SOCIAL ISSUES:
Tied to High Incarceration Levels and Costs, High levels of homelessness ,Higher pregnancy rates, Higher unemployment rates and the need for social welfare programs, Higher rates of Sex Trafficking Victimization -- Foster kids are at a much higher risk of being exploited by sex traffickers. For example, half of sexually trafficked minors in California come from the foster care system. By comparison, fewer than 1% of all children in California are foster children.Being over-prescribed or unnecessarily prescribed psychotropic medications -- An investigation by (San Jose Mercury News) has found that drug makers, anxious to expand the market for some of their most profitable products, spent more than $14 million from 2010 to 2013 to woo the California doctors who treat this captive and fragile audience of patients at taxpayers’ expense. Part of the Opioid/heroin addiction epidemic – more children entering the system because more people (their parents) are addicted. Some states have been hiring more social workers and judges to deal with the problem.”(Burdick)
“The idea of foster care can be traced as far back as ancient Greek and Roman societies.[...] Indeed, references to fostering a child can be found in the Bible, the Torah, and the Qur’an.” (Foster)
“In the United States, the system of foster care began as an offshoot of the English Poor Law of 1562. Essentially a form of indentured servitude, the law permitted well-to-do families to take in poor and/or orphaned children and use these children for service until they came of age.”(Foster)
1636- “The first instance of this form of “foster-servitude” can be traced to a seven-year-old boy named Benjamin Eaton, who lived in the nation’s first colony of Jamestown.” (Foster)
1853-”Charles Loring Brace founded a program that would become the foundation of modern day foster care. New York in the mid-19th century saw thousands of children living homeless and neglected in the streets.” (Foster)
1854-1929- 200,000 orphaned, abandoned, abused, or homeless children were transported by train across the United States to rural areas, where they were adopted by families with little to no checking of their background or references, some without even the knowledge of their name. Despite the abrupt adoptions the “Orphan trains were said to have an 87% success rate of placement. ( Summary of Orphan Train)
1885-” Pennsylvania passed the first licensing law, requiring all placement families to be licensed by the state.” (Foster)
1935-”The federal government took notice and in 1935 passed the Social Security Act. The act authorized the first federal grants for child welfare services with the stipulation that state inspections of all foster families’ homes must take place prior to placement. The modern day foster care system was born.” (Foster)
1980-”The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 established federal procedural guidelines for children entering foster care and required courts to regularly review child welfare cases.”(Foster)
1997-the landmark Adoption and Same Families Act (ASFA) was passed. The law led to sweeping change with less emphasis on reuniting biological families and more focus on putting the child’s health and safety concerns first. The law established state accountability systems wherein states had to prove a child’s life was improving in the current placement and for the first time ever encouraged states to expedite permanency decisions.”(Foster)
Question #2: What injustices are being inflicted on Foster Care youth?
“Studies find one in five [Foster Children] will become homeless after 18; at 24, only half will be employed; less than 3% will have earned a college degree; 71% of women will be pregnant by 21; and one in four will have experienced post-traumatic stress disorder at twice the rate of United States war veterans. And too often, many are at risk of moving back into government systems — from juvenile centers to prison.” (We are Abandoning Children in Foster Care)
“A study of foster care kids age 2-14 showed 50% with clinically significant mental health problems.”(Scheid)
“Sex trafficking is a major problem in group homes. Within 48 hours 80% of runaways are approached and coerced into the sex trade. Once in they are sold 15-20 times a day for up to 7 years.” (Foster Shock)
“ Reviewing 58 cases of sex trafficking of girls in foster care in Florida between 2007 and 2014, it is alarming to note that in 74 percent of the cases, the girls were exploited in sex trafficking AFTER placement in foster care.”(Reid)
Foster Children’s normal teenage behaviors are being treated as if their criminals or extremely dangerous mental patients, leaving them targets of the state. (Paraphrase of statements made in Foster Shock)
Sexual assault is ridiculously common in foster homes, and the kids are not often believed.[...] After one child was taken out of a home, because of sexual assault another child was placed into that home and was sexually abused within the first week. No one was ever charged in either case. (Paraphrase of statements made in Foster Shock)
“National news stories often report on the burden the growing need for foster care services has placed on local systems around the country, leading to stories of children sleeping in child welfare offices for lack of available foster families, overuse of group home care when a family setting is more appropriate, or children unaccounted for by the welfare agencies entrusted with their care and oversight.”(NCFA)
“The increase in the number of children in foster care comes at a time when states’ retention rates of foster families are frustratingly low. NCFA has found that more than half of foster families quit fostering within the first year, with many states seeing another double-digit percentage decrease in year two. These low retention rates mean fewer qualified foster families are available, result in the all-too-common practice of children transitioning more frequently between foster families, and require states to invest limited resources into the recruitment of new foster families.”(NCFA)
““One of the tragic outcomes from this year’s AFCARS report is that 19,945 youth were emancipated from the child welfare system last year without family reunification or being adopted,” says NCFA’s president and CEO Chuck Johnson. “The youth who exit foster care without permanency are denied the protections that come from being a part of family, impacting their education, housing, involvement with the criminal justice system, and much more.”” (NCFA)
Question #3: What injustices are currently being addressed and how?
“Up to 80 percent of children in foster care have significant mental health issues, compared to approximately 18-22 percent of the general population. As a result of these increased mental health issues, foster youth are prescribed psychotropic medications at a much higher rate than non-foster youth.”(McCann)
“Psychotropic medication is used for the treatment of behavioral and mental health problems of children and youth in foster care. Psychotropic medications generally include mood stabilizers, antipsychotics, anti-anxiety medications and stimulants. Over the past decade, psychotropic medication use in children and youth in foster care has increased dramatically. A multi-state, 2009-2010 study by Tufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) estimates that youth in foster care use psychotropic medications at a much higher rate (ranging from 13-52 percent) than youth in the general population (4 percent).Recent research has identified major concerns surrounding the administration of psychotropic medications for children and youth in foster care, including the use of multiple psychotropic medications simultaneously, the use of multiple psychotropic medications before the use of a single medication, and the use of such medications in young children between 3-6 years of age. Additionally, research has demonstrated a great deal of variation in rates of medication use for youth in foster care in different geographic communities. Consequently, there is rising concern about the appropriate use of psychotropic medications for youth in foster care.” (McCann)
“The Child and Family Services Improvement and Innovation Act of 2011 (Public Law 112-34) includes new language concerning the social-emotional and mental health of children who have experienced maltreatment. State Child and Family Services Plans (five-year strategic plans that set forth the vision and the goals to be accomplished to strengthen the States’ child welfare systems) must now include details about how emotional trauma associated with maltreatment and removal is addressed, as well as a description of how the use of psychotropic medications is monitored.” (McCann)
“The knowledge that these specific risks – running away or recruitment by other foster care youth – are the two most common routes into exploitation in sex trafficking should be used to inform the sex trafficking prevention strategies of child welfare agencies. Mandating the development of individually-crafted safety plans, with a plan of whom to contact and where to go to get away from danger, would encourage the youth to think about their safety and recognize that their personal safety is extremely important to everyone. Foster care facility managers should not accept new youth without being provided information regarding any prior involvement in human trafficking to reduce the likelihood of placement of potential victim-recruiters for sex traffickers in the same facility with girls who could become new victims. To accomplish this, we need to create a database of suspected and verified child or adolescent victims of sex trafficking that would be accessible to child welfare case managers and facility intake supervisors or managers.”(Ried)
“Two additional actionable findings emerged from the cases of girls who were trafficked out of foster care. First, group homes were in very high crime areas. Placing girls who are known to be chronic runaways in high crime areas seems morally negligent. Every group home for foster children goes through an approval process and must be licensed by the state. Evaluation of the neighborhood crime rate where the group home is located should be included in the approval process. Licensed group homes located in high crime areas should be closed or relocated. Second, there was evidence of poor training and preparation of staff at group homes to meet the task of protecting vulnerable girls from sex traffickers, with placement descriptions such as: “no/little supervision, youth come and go as they please;” “men came into the group home … caught in room with young man;” and, “young men seen jumping the fence of the group home.” Sufficient resources and training for group home staff and managers are urgently needed to ensure that these state-appointed caregivers are adequately equipped for the task of protecting youth from sex traffickers. We can and must provide better protection for girls and boys in foster care.”(Reid)
Question #4:How are these injustices a social issue?
“HOW FOSTER YOUTH ARE TIED TO SOCIAL ISSUES:
Tied to High Incarceration Levels and Costs, High levels of homelessness ,Higher pregnancy rates, Higher unemployment rates and the need for social welfare programs, Higher rates of Sex Trafficking Victimization -- Foster kids are at a much higher risk of being exploited by sex traffickers. For example, half of sexually trafficked minors in California come from the foster care system. By comparison, fewer than 1% of all children in California are foster children.Being over-prescribed or unnecessarily prescribed psychotropic medications -- An investigation by (San Jose Mercury News) has found that drug makers, anxious to expand the market for some of their most profitable products, spent more than $14 million from 2010 to 2013 to woo the California doctors who treat this captive and fragile audience of patients at taxpayers’ expense. Part of the Opioid/heroin addiction epidemic – more children entering the system because more people (their parents) are addicted. Some states have been hiring more social workers and judges to deal with the problem.”(Burdick)