Foster Care a Trapped Door Is foster care a safety net or a trapped door? Children come into foster care needing a safe place. They need to be able to either find a adopted home, be reunified with their parents or parent, or live in a stable home with a family member. Instead, children come into the foster care system in which they move from foster home to foster home, without loving parents or a permanent family. While in foster care, if they have not been adopted by the age of 9, they will most likely be in foster care until they reach age 18 and “age out” of the system. Once this has happened they receive little if no help at all. They are left to be an adult on their own with hardly any support from the system. Federal funding
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Children placed in a family setting are more successful, according to statistics. Group homes are more than ten times more expensive per child than placement with foster families or biological families. There are many obstacles when it comes to getting children out of a group setting. There are rarely enough foster families available. Teenagers are the most common children to be placed in a group homes, as it is hard to find foster parents who will take then into their care. Many families are not willing to adopt a teenager. One of the ways they get out is to age out of the system. Since they lived in the group home instead of a home-based care, they are unable to connect with a permanent adoptive family. Without these connections, they will age out without any of these supports, or a network in place. Misty Stensile, a former foster child who discusses her life aging out of the foster care system. She was in the system since she was the age of 12. She lived in approximately thirty homes including foster homes, relatives, group homes, and psychiatric facilities. She was always bouncing from one place to the next. She explains how one day you have a social worker, a judge there looking out for you, On Tuesday you are a kid, and on Wednesday you are an adult and no one is there for you. All children, even eighteen-year-olds, want a safe, loving, and permanent family. These eighteen-year-olds foced out of foster care do not have this support. A lot of them can’t go to a family member or ask advice on how to do trivial things we take for granted. These things may include being able to pay bills on time. Being able to open a bank account might be very difficult for someone who has never done it before. Even as simple as making a doctor’s appointment might be hard for them. 30% of homeless people in the United States were previously in
Children placed in a family setting are more successful, according to statistics. Group homes are more than ten times more expensive per child than placement with foster families or biological families. There are many obstacles when it comes to getting children out of a group setting. There are rarely enough foster families available. Teenagers are the most common children to be placed in a group homes, as it is hard to find foster parents who will take then into their care. Many families are not willing to adopt a teenager. One of the ways they get out is to age out of the system. Since they lived in the group home instead of a home-based care, they are unable to connect with a permanent adoptive family. Without these connections, they will age out without any of these supports, or a network in place. Misty Stensile, a former foster child who discusses her life aging out of the foster care system. She was in the system since she was the age of 12. She lived in approximately thirty homes including foster homes, relatives, group homes, and psychiatric facilities. She was always bouncing from one place to the next. She explains how one day you have a social worker, a judge there looking out for you, On Tuesday you are a kid, and on Wednesday you are an adult and no one is there for you. All children, even eighteen-year-olds, want a safe, loving, and permanent family. These eighteen-year-olds foced out of foster care do not have this support. A lot of them can’t go to a family member or ask advice on how to do trivial things we take for granted. These things may include being able to pay bills on time. Being able to open a bank account might be very difficult for someone who has never done it before. Even as simple as making a doctor’s appointment might be hard for them. 30% of homeless people in the United States were previously in