Module 2: Injustice in the Foster Care System
Section 1: A Short-Term Plan Being Used As a Long-Term Solution
1.1: The Original Intent
The US Foster Care System was seen as a permanent safe and healthy harbor protecting children with a family crisis. For example, 415,000 children spent time in the U.S. Foster Care System after being rescued in 2014 alone. Then, the system will take care of these children until they turn 18.
However, the mirage of this warm and imperishable harbor named the Foster Care System never lasts long because it was never created as a long-term solution in the first place:
The Foster Care system has always been and will only be a short-term alternative for the children when living in their original home was dangerous or impossible.
The mission is to find them an appropriate and permanent foster family or reunite them with their biological parents quickly.
Children of all ages should not stay in the system for over two years.
1.2: The Reality of the US Foster Care System
Opposed to the Foster Care System's idea of providing a short-term, safe and efficient alternative for the children in need, the system, in reality, was not operating as a short-term plan---nor was it safe and efficient.
The statistics show that most children no longer stay in the system until they have found a new or better home; they stay in the system until it no longer accommodates them.
To extend the 2014 example, at least 64,300 children had been stuck in the foster care system for more than three years, 28,000 of them for five years or more. Sadly this 2014 example is not separated; what happened seven years ago is the current situation of roughly 123,000 children in the U.S. today. As more and more foster children are overwhelming the system, fewer and fewer of them are getting out with a foster family. Additionally, the Covid-19 has aggravated the situation. For example, a few months ago in Texas, over 230 children had to sleep in the DFPS office due to bed shortages.
These resource shortages are only one of the direct results of growing cases of long-term fostering in the U.S. Foster Care System. In an age needing love and attention, millions of children have to endure frequent changes in foster placements, sleep in crowded rooms with strangers, and lack awareness and care for years until they age out of the system.
1.3 Mental & Physical Harms of Long-Term Fostering
The constant switch in location, difficulties in establishing stable relationships in life, and the lack of love and attention leave foster children of all ages more vulnerable to physical and mental problems than other children their age. Compared to the general population, including the socially and economically disadvantaged family, all foster children are twice as likely to have developmental delays, mental disabilities, asthma, obesity, and speech problems. They are three times as likely to have ADD/ADHD, hearing problems, and vision problems, five times as potential to experience anxiety, six times as likely to have behavioral issues, and finally, seven times as likely to suffer depression.
The previous statistics do not expose the most severe harms of the current foster care system. Not only do these mental and physical issues exacerbate the longer the fostering lasts, but these foster children, some of whom are only infants, will suffer from the aftermath of these issues even in adulthood.
Section 2: Further Discriminations in the Foster Care System
2.1 Racial Discrimination
Professor at Northwestern University's School of Law, Dorothy Roberts, admits that "The number of black and Latino children in state custody is a national disgrace that reflects systemic injustices and calls for radical reform."
The Federal statistics did not prove Dorothy wrong. Black children experience twice the chance to be put in foster care as white children in the child welfare system. Minority children, particularly African American children, are more likely to be in foster care placement than adopted, even when they have the same problems and characteristics as white children.
Most children in the foster care system are permitted to stay with foster families to avoid emotional damage and physical risks during foster care placement. Still, most black children do not—the U.S. The Department of Health and Human Services conducted a national study and found out that black children stay in foster care longer after being removed from their homes, are being transferred more, receive fewer services, and are less likely to be either returned home or adopted by other children.
2.2. Sexual Discrimination (LGBTQ+)
As they evolve from babies to teenagers, children in foster care start acknowledging their emotions and sexual preference. A 2019 study concluded that 30.4 percent of youth in foster care identify as LGBTQ+ and 5 percent as transgender. However, foster children who recognized themselves as part of the LGBTQ+ family are more likely to experience abuse, discrimination, risk of harm, and neglect from peers and adults. Several dangerous efforts are waiting for them that falsely claim to change their orientation or gender identity (for example, "conversion therapy"). These incidents are widespread in transgender youth, whose very identities are rejected in state care. When bullied and abused in the system, in school, or even in foster families, they are often criminalized for acting in self-defense.
Moreover, LGBTQ+ youth experience poorer school functioning, higher substance use, poorer mental health, more fights in school, more victimization, and more mental health problems than heterosexual youth in foster care.
2.3. The Discrimination Against Resource Families
Despite the overcrowding situation in the current Foster Care system, many adequate, safe, and loving resource families are being turned away simply because of their religion or sexual orientation.
South Carolina allowed agencies to turn back foster families because of their religions, leading to rejections toward qualified Jewish and Catholic families.
Additionally, at the National Prayer Breakfast in February 2019, former President Trump alluded to support for a Michigan organization that rejected same-sex couples to become foster parents.
Section 3: Age-out, a Crime Called “Turning 18”
3.1. What is the crime?
Most foster children would stay in the system until they get "kicked out" on their 18th birthday, which means government and society no longer take responsibility for their safety and future. Every year, at least 24,000 American teenagers age out of the system. They are expected to start their lives, find a job, maintain a living space, find affordable transportation, and many more while still in high school.
3.2. What is the punishment?
Nearly 25% of youth aging out did not have a high school diploma or GED, and a mere 6% had finished a two- or four-year degree after aging out of foster care despite the fact 70% of all youth in foster care have the desire to attend college. Sadly, there is less than a 3% chance for children who have aged out of foster care to earn a college degree at any point in their life.
After reaching the age of 18, 20% of the children in foster care will become instantly homeless. Only 1 out of every two foster kids who age out of the system will have some form of gainful employment by the age of 24. Almost 60% of young men had been convicted of a crime, 48% were employed, 75% of women, and 33% of men received government benefits to meet basic needs.
Within the next two to four years of these teenagers aging out of the system, according to National studies, 40% will be homeless, 40% will be receiving public assistance or be incarcerated, 40% will experience drug or alcohol abuse, 46% will not finish high school, 51% will be unemployed and 84%.
There are numerous irreversible impacts too.
Children involving in the Foster care system are more likely to be sex trafficked because the lack of love and attention during their developmental age makes them more vulnerable to groomers and traffickers’ traps. As California Against Slavery (CAS) published in 2012, between 50-80% of commercially sexually exploited children in California are or were formally involved with the child welfare system.
25% of children age out of the foster care system and still suffer from the direct effects of PTSD.
7 out of 10 girls who age out of the foster care system will become pregnant before the age of 21, way before they or their father, if any, to be present at all, to be ready for the coming social and economic pressure of raising children.
Few pages of words are more than lacking to list out the aftermath of the unsuccessful Foster Care System, as numbers and statistics are equally insufficient to measure million’s lives into values. The little we can do, is by giving attention and action to make a difference in the U.S. Foster Care System.