The Flaws Of Foster Care System In America
Many people question the Foster care system by calling it, modern day slavery and child trafficking. According the the article What You Need to Know About Foster Care and Human Trafficking it states; “According to the National Foster Youth Institute, it’s estimated that 60 percent of child sex trafficking victims have a history in the child welfare system.” This shows the system is obviously corrupt and it desperately needs to be fixed. According to The American SPCC, “What if you accepted that foster care was not a decision made “in the best interest of the child” but rather a financial decision made in the best interest of the state?” Does that not sound in the slightest bit like child slavery? If they are being removed from loving families because of money it makes sense, however is there not better ways to go about this situation? Children need loving families in their lives. And by taking them away, nothing good usually comes of it.
It is not a surprise that many teenagers are having problems with the Foster care system. Many teenagers grow out of the foster system without proper support. An article on mashable.com by Katie Dupree says this: “At a certain point, a decision is made that a child is old enough that we can let them age out,' Feild says. 'Now, we are realizing that that’s a mistake.' And the realities of aging out of the system are devastating for youth.” It seems that the system rather than setting up the youth with a promising future, the Foster Care System is doing the polar opposite. The underlying cause of this is that many foster care children do not receive loving families. Love plays a huge part in everyone's lives, and families give a lot of that love. Not receiving enough love changes people, usually not in a good way. Another main reason for this happening is that there is not enough foster families out there, and many of the ones out there do it just for the money; which is wrong.
Some people say that not all Foster homes are corrupt, which is correct, however the amount of Foster children is far too huge compared to the amount of Foster houses/parents. An article by Dr. John DeGarmo on the Huffington Post says this: “Other areas of the nation face the challenge of both recruiting foster parents and of retention, or of keeping strong foster parents. Indeed, the turnover rate of foster parents ranges from 30% to 50%. Thus, 30% to 50% of foster parents make the decision to no longer be a foster parent home for children in need.” It’s a sad reality, but it’s the truth. Many kids in the Foster care system have no loving, caring family. This connects back to the topic of children being removed from families in extreme poverty, what is better? Being with your family in bad circumstances, or bouncing from family to family, feeling no love at all? The system has serious problems that need fixing.
The Foster Care system and other child welfare organizations are in need of serious fixing. “Many of America’s child welfare systems are badly broken — and children can suffer serious harm as a result. Some will be separated from their siblings. Others will be bounced from one foster care placement to another, never knowing when their lives will be uprooted next.” Children need loving permanent families. Being transferred from family to family doesn’t do good things to kids. It can make there self confidence go down, and more depressing feelings. “In 2017, more than 17,000 young people aged out of foster care without permanent families.” The research shows that without Foster children finding permanent families their chances of homelessness and unemployment increases. Just what the world needs more of right? No we need strong, intelligent, and creative children to power the future, which seems what the foster care system isn’t producing.
Overall the Foster Care system has many flaws, and in some ways is corrupt. Many children are abused in many ways through this system. Children are not the only people being affected by this, teenagers are also. They are not finding loving families, causing their futures to be put in doubt. With some certain fixes the Foster Care system can be fixed, but we have to do something about it.
