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Children, Families, and Foster Care: Analysis and Recommendations
(page 1 of 7)Sandra Bass, Ph.D., Margie K. Shields, M.P.A., and Richard E. Behrman, M.D.
All children do best
when they live in safe, stable, and nurturing families, yet far too many
children lack this fundamental foundation. Every year, millions of children
are abused or neglected—close to 300,000 so egregiously that they
are removed from their homes by the state and placed in foster care. For
too many of these children, foster care is no safe haven. Instead, the
children drift from foster home to foster home, lingering in care while
awaiting a permanent, “forever family.” In 1998, The Future
of Children examined the problem of child maltreatment and offered recommendations
for preventing abuse and neglect. This journal issue focuses on the challenges
of helping children after abuse and neglect has occurred by strengthening
the web of supports for children and families in foster care.
Public opinion polls reveal that the public is largely uninformed about
foster care, yet highly critical of the system. In a 2003 poll of voters
by the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care, most respondents were
generally unfamiliar with the child welfare system that administers foster
care, but more than 50% believed it needed major changes, if not a complete
overhaul.1 These impressions are no doubt fueled by media accounts of
tragic incidents, such as the death of 2-year-old Brianna Blackmond in
Washington, D.C., two weeks after a judge returned her to her mother's
custody without reviewing the child welfare agency's report recommending
that she not be reunified;2 or the inability of child welfare workers
in Florida to find 5- year-old foster child Rilya Wilson and 500 others
like her over the past decade;3or reports of Brian Jackson, a 19-year-old
adopted foster youth in New Jersey who weighed only 45 pounds and was
found rummaging through a garbage can for food because he and his brothers
were apparently being starved by their adoptive parents.4
Media reports of system failures are tragic, heartbreaking, and at times,
chilling. In their wake, public calls to “do something” about
foster care are made, and changes in organizational leadership, policy,
and practice often follow. Yet policymaking in the aftermath of tragedy
is often over reactive and piecemeal. Effecting enduring change requires
a thoughtful understanding of the inherent challenges the child welfare
system faces on a daily basis. As Judge Ernestine Gray states in her commentary
in this journal issue, truly understanding the child welfare system and
pursuing meaningful and lasting reform require a close examination of
how the system works “when the cameras are off and the reporters
are gone.”
This journal issue
examines the current state of the foster care system and finds that it
is really not a cohesive system but a combination of many overlapping
and interacting agencies, all charged with providing services, financial
support, or other assistance to children and their families. Lack of coordination
among agencies, chronic underfunding, and low morale have led to a system
that exacts a toll on everyone it touches. Children may suffer, as the
incidents described above suggest. But so do foster parents and the relatives
who step in to care for children who cannot remain with their birth parents;
so do harried caseworkers; and so do birth parents who would like to reunite
with their children but find the path difficult.
Too few of the players in the system have adequate training for their
responsibilities and, as a result, children and families frequently do
not receive the services and supports they need. Instead, the child welfare
system labors in an atmosphere of distrust, impending failure, and reflexive,
uniform solutions that rarely succeed for anyone. Recent reforms have
shifted some of the priorities within the system, but much more needs
to be done. This article discusses the major challenges faced by the child
welfare system and offers policy and practice recommendations that can
improve how children and families experience foster care.
Future of Children FULL JOURNAL ISSUE: Children, Families, and Foster Care
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