Media Project: Foster Care
What happens to the children that are removed from homes that are unsafe, abused or neglected? Foster care. It is meant to be temporary until a relative, guardian or adoptive family takes them into their custody, but with the system today there are a lot of kids that just “age out” of the system and get sent into the world when they turn 18 to do everything on their own. A blind eye tends to be turned to the tragedies and hardships that children put into foster care receive from their foster parents or siblings. Unfair and unjust, two words that I would describe the foster care system as.
Unlike what most people seem to believe, foster care is not solely a problem in the United States, but globally there are children left without proper resources to satisfy their needs or a familial support system which in turn does not allow these children to reach their full potential. In 2012, there was an approximated 399,546 children in foster care around the world according to the Children’s Bureau. What cannot be done is look at these children like they are just numbers, when in fact we need to be looking at them in a different view because they are children. In developing countries across the world, there is little room for allocation of financial assistance to the foster care system from the government due to the assistance needed elsewhere (Stabilify). These countries lack availability of health care, reliable adoption agencies, and government aid to the families. Because there are no reliable foster care and adoption agencies, the children without homes are misplaced and put into harms way.
According the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) report from 2017, the number of children in the foster care system in the United States has increased for the consecutive fourth year. The reasons for the increase in children in foster care is explained by says Steven Wagner, Acting U.S. Assistant Secretary at the Administration for Children and Families. He says, “the continued trend of parental substance abuse is very concerning, especially when it means children must enter foster care as a result. The seriousness of parental substance abuse, including the abuse of opioids, is an issue we at HHS will be addressing through prevention, treatment and recovery-support measures.” States are going through a struggle to have families become foster care trained which contributes to the growing misplacement of children into homes that do not constitute as safe (KVC Health Systems). Those children that cannot be put into a home that supplies their needs, can be put into a group home that is not always the best for some children with a harsh background. Along with the problem of a shortage of foster care families, there is also a shortage in the national social worker documents.
In Texas, the number of children that are abused and neglected that cannot be placed immediately into a foster home has increased by 20 percent (Dallas News). In May of 2017, the department spokesperson from Child Protective Services, Patrick Crimmins said, “84 children spent at least two consecutive nights in a Child Protective Services office or hotel. The increase was partly seasonal, resulting from child-welfare authorities’ reluctance to change children’s placements near the end of the school year.” Some foster families are refusing placements of children because of so-called disruptive behaviors without even giving them a second chance. With the number of children being taken out of their homes because of varying reasons increasing, we need to have more people stepping up to provide these children with a place to live, even if it is just for a night. The reason these children are having disruptive behaviors may not even be their own doing in the first place, it often spurs from the environment in which they grew up. Governor Greg Abbott says that he strives to make Texas the “number one ranking status in the USA as it concerns taking care of our children.” Governor Abbott speaks of 17 percent, $509 million, increase in the budget of Child Protective Services and foster care for the upcoming years. There are key Republican political leaders that have publicly battered the increase in expenditure to Child Protective Services investigations and funding for the raises and salaries of hired social workers.
With authorities of the foster care system redesigning the program in McLennan County, the need for foster families increases immensely. The redesigning is meant to help keep the children in the same community that they grew up in because the initial trauma of being removed from your home, no matter how dysfunctional or disruptive it is to their living, it is familiar and could significantly help with the adaptation of the children to their new home (Central Texas News Now). Their main goal is to have the children live as close of a normal life as possible even with the displacement from their homes. In McLennan County, a faith-based nonprofit called Refuge Waco Ministries is seeking donations and grants to help reduce the number of half-way houses in foster care and start living centers for young women to induce the transition from childhood to adulthood. The gap in state social services that they are trying to reduce could play a significantly important role in breaking cycles of abuse and neglect. The 74th State District Judge Gary Coley Jr. is one of the three founding members of Refuge Waco Ministries and helps explain the cycle seen. “Over almost 25 years, I can’t tell you how many kids I have seen who have gone through the system, who I see several years later as parents in the system,” Coley said. “Unfortunately, I am now seeing some of those parents becoming grandparents of children in the system, and the truth is, as they age out and they become adults, there is the tendency to believe they should be able to do those kinds of things because they are adults. They should know how to go out and get a job and raise a family. But the reality is, we removed those kids because they were being abused and neglected when they were younger. We took them out of their homes, we put them someplace else, and then we assumed that just because they are chronologically a certain age, that they are going to be able to magically support a family, have a job and know how to do those things to be a productive, essential member of our community,” (Waco Tribune-Herald).
In recent days, more media coverage has been seen about the foster care system and the neglect that is seen within the system. The whole reason that children are being taken out of their original homes was because of some sort of neglect or abuse, and then when we throw those children into random homes without proper prior surveillance of the foster family, the abuse and neglect could be magnified. When trying to increase the number of foster families available to house children, certain aspects get overlooked and swept under the rug. There is even a popular television show, The Fosters, on almost all streaming websites that highlights the neglect and harsh conditions of some foster homes. The main family that this drama is about, is one of the luckier homes, but even with that the children that they foster go through problems that normal children do not go through. With the start of the series, the main character Callie is seen as a at risk foster child because the last foster home she was in, the father was abusing her and her little brother, so she decided to fight back through self-defense. The foster father had nothing done to him, yet she was the one sent to jail. Even though this is a television show, there are many true conflicts that a lot of foster children go through just because of the system we have in place today.
Aside from the physical abuse faced in the foster care system, the amount of psychological turmoil that the children in the system face is outstanding. In Volume 7, Issue 3 of the Journal of Child and Family Studies, they compared the rates of mental health problems present in children of foster care to children not in foster care. One of the main reasons of these mental problems is the maltreatment that placed them in foster place originally. The mental backlash and anxiety of the trauma that these kids have been through is debilitating. The second reason for the higher risk of mental health problems deals with the separation from their family. The movement from their original home to a random place could incite feelings of rejection, guilt, hostility, anger, abandonment, shame and dissociative reactions (e.g., Katz, 1987). The likeliness of children entered into foster care sharing common elements in the environments that they were raised developed the generation of mental health problems. Because of traumatic conditions and maltreatment of them as well as poverty of the family.
Although there is significant light shed onto the physical abuse of children in foster care, the amount shed onto the emotional abuse is notably less. We always hear about when someone harms someone else, but almost never hear about when that person is harming themselves in their mind. Even when finding my research for this media project, the lack of documentation of mental illnesses and foster care children was ever present. I believe that if people heard the whole story, how the kids are being affected forever through psychological barriers, then there would be more done about the foster care system in general. However, a lot of children in the foster care system do not report the happenings inside of the homes because they do not wish to be forced into relocation, which, in turn, could leader to a harsher situation with even more abuse. They would rather tough it out where they are at than risk being thrown somewhere worse. With this compromised system, a lot of foster care agencies are more concerned with the physical paperwork being filled out in time rather than scheduling regular visits to the homes. And with the statute of limitations into play, the prevention of prosecution has a short time limit. For example, the Pennsylvania statute of limitations in most civil assault cases is two years from the date of the injury but, if the injured victim is under the age of eighteen, they must file suit before they reach the age of twenty. This time limit may not be achievable to those children in foster care.
Many foster care children are placed in home based on their behavior and emotional growth, resulting in the placement into group homes which are not as safe as they may seem seeing as they are state-run. Each time the foster child changes a behavior and emotional level, they are placed into a different state-run group home with a completely new environment, therapists, and a new life with new classmates and roommates. Because of the constant movement, these children may be unable to develop attachment to others and result to isolation as a defense mechanism (Psychology Today). With this new development of a defense mechanism, they may be keen to keep it as their default mechanism for the rest of their life inhibiting normal relationships in the friend and romantic sense. Isolation in moderation is healthy, but to lead a life with isolation at the core, the development of that human will be hindered. Foster care children are taught and conditioned to not trust which results in emotional detachment, because of the past hurt that these children have gone through, they think that protecting themselves from further hurt by remaining reserved is the best way to live.
In order to have a working, not compromised and just foster care system, the foster families need to exemplify two leadership models, team leadership and servant leadership. The problem is not only within the social workers and the foster care system itself, but it is also codependent of the families fostering the children. With exemplary leadership skills and correct facilitation of the children without any sense of favoring or neglect, the physical, psychological and emotional health of the children could be enhanced immensely.
The six enabling conditions for team effectiveness identified by Hackman (2012) can be applied to the foster parents in order to provide an egalitarian society to all foster children. Foster parents with a compelling purpose towards the betterment of the foster children that get placed in their homes, is something that should be present in the first place because why would you agree to foster a child and not plan to give the child the support they need. Team-focused coaching is also extremely important to the homes with more than one child in it because working with these children is kind of like working with a team, discovering their individualities and working to develop them to the greater good of the whole family. Real team and right people can be applied to the make-up of the foster family and working out the kinks of the team with the right people. Supportive organizational context of team leadership relates to foster families in the sense that with what the children have previously gone through, the foster parents or group home leader needs to be unconditionally supportive to each and every individual. Lastly, with clear norms of conduct in place, this allows zero tolerance to backlash of any kind and can give the foster children some sort of normality in their lives to get them where they need to be. With the norms, there needs to be social group norms of honesty, respect, consistency and openness.
The five servant leadership behaviors in the Liden et al. (2008) model can also be applied to the foster care system. First being putting followers first, we can say that the foster children are the so-called followers and that we need to put their needs first because more than likely, they were never meant in their previous situation. Helping follower, the foster children, grow and succeed is also extremely important because without a support system, they may not be able to grow to their greatest potential. Behaving ethically is imperative for the foster parents because before the children did not have a stable, ethical figure to look up to and model after so when they are put into the care of the foster family, there needs to be ethical behavior. Empowering also goes along with behaving ethically and helping the child grow and succeed. Without empowerment to the foster children, they may have a tendency to lash out and feel that they are confined to a certain lifestyle. Lastly, creating value for the community of your foster children. Having a set of morals and values that embrace community, respect, love, honesty, and commitment between the foster family could help the children develop those values that would later help them flourish in other relationships. Servant leadership inspires through a ripple effect in those that follow, it shows other people to put others first.
The foster care system is a controversial subject that can be seen as compromised or perfectly fine. The way I see it, is that the leadership of those who are becoming foster parents do not exemplify a commonality between working as a team to serve and better the children. With serving towards the greater good of the children, there should not be any problems in the system. The available homes that the children will be placed in would not only help them psychologically, but there would be no physical abuse present and the children would reach their full potentials.
Works Cited
Babbel, Susanne. “The Foster Care System and Its Victims: Part 2.” Psychology Today, Sussex
Publishers, 2012, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/somatic-psychology/201201/the-foster-care-system-and-its-victims-part-2.
Clausen, J.M., Landsverk, J., Ganger, W. et al. Journal of Child and Family Studies (1998) 7:
DeGarmo, John. “Problems with the Foster Care System Are Worldwide.” Stabilify,
www.stabilify.net/industry-news/international-experts-gather-help-foster-care/.
“Growing Need for Local Foster Parents.” Central Texas News Now – KXXV Central Texas News
Now, 10 May 2012, www.kxxv.com/story/18285243/growing-need-for-local-foster-parents.
Julieburdick. “Foster Care in America: Realities, Challenges and Solutions.” KVC Health
Systems, 26 Jan. 2018, www.kvc.org/blog/foster-care-in-america/.
“More Texas Foster Children Sleep in State Offices, While CPS Struggles to Speed Initial
Checks of at-Risk Kids.” Dallas News, 8 June 2017, www.dallasnews.com/news/child-protective-services/2017/06/08/texas-foster-children-sleep-state-offices-cps-struggles-speed-initial-checks-risk-kids.
Northouse, Peter Guy. Leadership: Theory and Practice. 7th ed., SAGE Publications, Inc., 2019.
Witherspoon, Tommy. “New Group Forms to Help Former Foster Kids.” WacoTrib.com, Waco
Tribune-Herald, 30 May 2017, www.wacotrib.com/news/nonprofits/new-group-forms-to-help-former-foster-kids/article_c6ead892-9190-56b6-9dcd-6a0fa15a7b60.html