Why The Foster Care System Needs to Be Improved

When I was eight years old, my siblings and I entered the foster care system in Florida. Being in foster care, I saw and had to overcome the daily problems and flaws of this broken system, which is why I'm going to inform people about the issues that need to be changed. I will be providing information on who’s involved, the problems with the foster care system, the problems with the foster parents, and why there ultimately needs to be change.

As stated by the American Academy of Pediatrics, children entering foster care have frequently suffered social, emotional, and medical neglect, and physical abuse. Obviously, there are horrible parents, great parents, and then parents who just need help and guidance on how to become a better parent. For those people who should never have kids, it is a huge relief to be out of those homes; but while some kids may feel that feeling immediately, many of those children can be in shock with being removed from their parents' homes and put with random people they don't know. Also, foster care was supposed to be a temporary service provided by states for children who cannot live with their families, but since its creation it has become less of a temporary service and more of a permanent service because the people working in these positions aren't pushing for rehabilitation of these broken families or looking at other sources to help make these children who have no option but to sit and wait for better. According to Administration for Children & Families, there are currently more than 400,000 children in foster care in the United States.

The second issue is that there are problems with the system. One of the biggest problems I faced and that many others have to face is overcrowding. Many foster homes just pack rooms with beds to be able to get more kids, which can not only be a huge health problem to the children in these situations but can lead to other problems as well, such as fighting and food shortage. Fighting occurs when children from different backgrounds merge in these packed rooms, which makes them more irritable and even jealous, which results in arguments and fights. Food shortages can happen in homes with a lot of kids when the foster parents, out of spite or by accident, give some kids less food than others, which can cause problems between the children. Other than overcrowding, the biggest issue with the system starts with the staff. Many the workers are usually young people who just graduated college and at first are happy for awhile, but after they actually start working with these broken families who have problems it becomes a lot and they end up quitting, which leads to a high turnover rate in this field; as for the others, who are older, they barely care about their jobs. Another effect on these workers is that since many of them have heavy caseloads, many of the children under their care often go unheard, which can cause more problems for these children.

The third issue with the foster care system is that there are problems with the foster parents. According to the University of Illinois, in cases of abuse or neglect in non-related foster family homes, the perpetrators were most often the foster parents. Many don't know, but in many homes these kids face sexual, physical, and emotional abuse. People think that when these kids are removed from their biological family's home the trauma ends, but in reality it can continue or get worse when they live with certain families who are only foster parents to victimize the kids. Along with the abuse some of these kids deal with, they also have to deal with foster parents who are only in it for personal gain. One of the biggest ways is when many of these parents pack their homes, like I said earlier, filled with children to be able to receive more money or just do the bare minimum for these kids. What I mean by the bare minimum is just providing food, shelter, and clothing and not loving or actually caring about these children to any further extent.

Finally, why does there need to be change? Well, there needs to be change because no child should go through abuse or neglect with their biological families then continue to be treated badly when they didn't ask to be put in this situation to begin with. Another reason is that when most of these kids spend their childhood moving from home to home with people who most of the time don't care to teach them life skills or raise them on the right path it, in turn, hurt them once they age out of the foster care system because they have no support or any idea how to survive and thrive in the real world. So, there has to be some improvement there. There has to be a better system, whether that be a matching system where when they are placing children into homes it matches them with the best fit so there aren't constantly moving from home to home, or maybe the government, along with state officials, can work harder in trying to reunite these families so that they aren't forever broken, growing up developing problems, which in the end can save the government some more money.

In conclusion, today I just hopefully persuaded you on why the foster system needs to be improved. I have told you about why the foster system needs to be improved by informing you on who’s involved, the problems with the foster care system, the problems with the foster parents, and why there needs to be change. I chose this topic to write about and share because my siblings and I were foster children and we witnessed firsthand the abuse people, including myself, had to face, and I believe that with the help of people who care, we can help fix this broken system these kids have to live in daily.