Foster Children

The care of needy children in out-of-home placement has a long history within the United States and has received substantial support from the community of faith. In 1727 French Roman Catholic nuns founded the first orphanage in the United States in New Orleans. By the mid-nineteenth century orphanages could be found in almost any major city, and a movement (called orphan trains) developed to transfer children from large dormitories in cities to suburban or rural family homes. Many of the largest child welfare agencies trace their roots to Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish religious concerns.

By the turn of the twentieth century the welfare of children became a government responsibility. The sectarian interests of various religious groups became problematic and states began enacting laws to protect the religious preferences of families. Each state now has child protective services responsible for ensuring the safety and welfare of all children. When children live in abusive conditions, they are removed from their families by state child welfare agencies and are placed with relatives or in foster care. In 1990 it was estimated that approximately 2,500,000 million children in the United States were victims of abuse and that approximately 500,000 were removed from their homes by child protective agencies.

Children in foster care are at greater risk of underachieving in school, suffer poor physical health, and manifest a greater degree of problem behaviors. Most of these conditions are attributed to the living conditions that warranted removal from their biological parents as opposed to consequences of being in the child welfare system. Furthermore, these children show negative outcomes as adults: unemployment, welfare dependence, homelessness, marital dissatisfaction, and poor quality of life.

Foster families are recruited by either public or private nonprofit agencies to care for children in their own homes. These families receive a small subsidy for the support of the child in addition to the state and federally funded Medicaid program. Foster parents frequently come from large families and became involved through friends and relatives who also provide foster care. Research has shown that the most important trait is flexibility. The child's experience of victimization leads to a desire for nurturing support but also a fearful distrust of adults. Because children come with a unique combination of experiences and coping responses, they require sensitivity, commitment, and a broad range of adult caring responses.

Foster children have some unique problems that require special consideration by foster parents and community caregivers. The trauma of prolonged separation from parents gives rise to emotional conflicts such as distrust of adults, aggressive or withdrawn behavior, mood swings, irritability, and poor concentration. In some instances large sibling groups must be separated because foster parents cannot receive two or more children. Isolation from siblings who may have provided significant support and comfort may emotionally overwhelm a child's available coping responses.

Foster parents are sometimes not prepared for the challenges of foster children, and this leads to a placement breakdown. Multiple placements of foster children with difficult behavioral problems is a major concern of child welfare agencies. New programs called treatment foster care are being developed to meet the needs of these children. These foster parents are professionally trained, financially compensated, and provided more extensive services so that a child can be maintained within their home. Some institutions provide care in group homes, a setting in which a team of adults supervises six or more children. Group homes are utilized to end a cycle of moving a child from one foster family to another. Large institutions, formerly known as orphanages, may provide care for several hundred children, such as Boys Town in Omaha, Nebraska.

Children with physical disabilities, neurological disorders, or severe emotional problems require specialized foster parents, such as those who can use sign language or whose homes are wheelchair-accessible. A large number of these children remain in the foster care system for extended periods of time because the biological parents are unable to gather the resources they need to resume care.

K.C. Brownstone

K.C. Brownstone is an independent scholar who believes that critical thinking and spiritual reasoning should not be mutually exclusive. She received theological education from Dallas Theological Seminary and Asbury Theological Seminary. Personal subjects of interest are psychology and counseling.

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