Foster Care System
Although I was never in the foster care system, I grew up with kids who were. Some thought highly of their foster parents, and others had horror stories to tell. I was fortunate to have my mother and father in my life. And for awhile there I could not understand or even imagine the experience of not having my parents with me. Can you imagine that 60,000 children here in the United States are reported as abused or neglected. In 2004 a report confirmed that 520,00 children had ended up in the forster care, and this doubled the number 25 years ago. Many of us who grew up with our parents, and guardians who provided us a nurturing and stable environment, probably cannot understand this.
Here are the foster care statistics:
-on September 30, 2004, 5180.00 children were in the U.S. foster care system. Most children are placed in foster care temporarily due to parental abuse or negelect.
-304,00 children entered the system in 2004, and that is according to one study.
The rise was due to methamphetamine use. Experts estimate that 80- 90 percent of foster care placements can be traced to substance abuse.
-40,000 infants are placed in forster care every year.
-126,000 children are currently available for adoption.
-The average time for a child to stay in the system is 3 years (31 months) before being adopted or renewed with their family. 20 percent wait for five years or more. Children on a average are placed in three different foster care homes. They are frequently moved in and out of the homes of strangers can be unsettling for children, and it is not common to hear these children who have been in 20 or even more different homes. A lot of these children are separated not only from their parents, but from their brothers and sisters.
-more than 20,000 children each year never leave the system, they remain in the foster care until they are wht they call “age out”.
-30% of the homeless in America and some 25% of those in prison were once in the foster care system.
-44% or about 241,00 are reunited with their birth families.
-48 % were in foster family homes (non-relative) 24 % were in a relative foster home. 18% were in group homes of insitutions. 4% were pre-adoptive homes. 6% are in other placement types/
-The average age of a foster child is 10. Half are 10 and under.
-40 % of foster care childre are white. 34% are black and 18% Hispanic.
-Case workers burn out and leave the profession in high numbers. The workforce has a high turnover rate.
-The recommended number of cases for a social worker is 17. In some state the number are 2-3 times higher.
When I read these statistics It made me take notice. Its a shame how some many of these children falls through the cracks
when there are funded programs in communities, mentors, churches, and still there is no real approach or policies regarding the welfare of our children in this country.
As I look at the news each day, I see so many horror stories on the abuse of children and neglected child. Parents letting their children starve, fathers and mothers kiilling their children. I sometime sit there and cry, I feel so useless, because I wonder what could pocess
