Foster {Don't} Care System (Blog Post#9)

Observe: In class this week we discussed the "foster care-to-prison pipeline". I decided to do a little more research on the subject and found some shocking statistics. For instance, about 66% of children who age out of foster care wind up in jail, homeless, or dead within one year.  

Reflect: The foster care system is intended to help kids by removing them from dangerous situations and placing them with people that will properly care for them. Unfortunately the system is, as most government systems are, flawed. Foster families have the potential to be abusive just like biological families. They may not feel any bond with the children they are caring for and they may not be understanding of various behavioral attributes that are more common among children in the foster care system, due to their difficult background. Children in foster care have not only been witness to or the victims of abuse, but they are also removed from the life that they have always known and forced to live with other relatives or strangers. 

It is disappointing that the foster care system has been in place for so long, but has not been altered in order to prevent such tragic statistics. Children are often times not given enough of a voice when they are in the system. They are not given the chance to say that they want to leave their families and even if that is what they want they are not given the opportunity to choose their foster family. All of these important decisions are being made for them which only adds to the frustration that most of them feel. This frustration causes some foster children to run away to a shelter or to the streets where they are likely to engage in illegal activity that lands them in jail. It's a sad journey and I would be thrilled to see the process change so that the kids affected by it can have better lives as the system intends to, but rarely does, give them.