Does Foster Care Still Matter Today?
Written by: Hannah Adkison
What comes to mind when you hear the term ‘foster care’? Do you think of orphan Annie singing “Tomorrow, Tomorrow, I’ll love ya, Tomorrow?” Do you think of little Roger in ‘Angels in the Outfield’, asking his dad when they’ll be a family again? Maybe you watched the Simone Biles documentary and were surprised to find out that our beloved gymnast spent time in care as a child.
Some of us have no idea what happens in foster care, some grew up with parents or communities who fostered children, and some of us come to the table with lived experience in the foster care system. Foster care may feel like a distant cause to one person and a very urgent matter to another, depending on their experience.
You might be surprised at the long history Child Welfare has in our country and how some of the most recent developments affect kids and families. Let’s take a look at some of that history together and figure out if there really is still a pressing need today!
1700-1800’s
Back in the 1700’s and 1800’s, children who had been orphaned for any reason were typically indentured to other families or forced to learn a trade. Going into the late 1800’s, we saw the rise of private, religious orphanages to meet the needs of the increasing number of parentless children. These institutions advocated for children’s rights in many ways and were able to pull many of them from the factories and poor working conditions they had been subject to. Some individual families also began taking in children around this time, but there was little to no government oversight.
1900’s
Tragically, the early 1900’s saw the mass relocation and separation of Native American families, many of whose children ended up in foster care and orphanages. By the mid 1930’s, the first federal grants for child welfare services were enacted, followed by a more structured federal payment system to the states. This and other policies helped strengthen the court’s authority to remove children as needed and even terminate parental rights, while increasing accountability of their caregivers.
It was not until 1974 that the first federally mandated child abuse reporting law, “The Child Abuse and Prevention Treatment Act (CAPTA),” passed in Congress.
This meant that professionals like doctors, teachers, and law enforcement were required by law to report any concern for abuse or neglect. CAPTA also established national definitions for child abuse and neglect and provided federal funding to states to support the prevention, assessment, investigation, prosecution and treatment of child abuse and neglect. It has been amended several times since it’s creation and continues to be integral to the child welfare system.
2000’s
Throughout the last 25 years, we’ve seen the more modern version of foster care: families trained through states or private agencies, acting as temporary parents to children in the care of the state.
In the early 2010’s, research was showing that we had swung the pendulum too far: the US was removing children from their homes at a rapid pace and not doing enough preventative or maintenance work within family units, causing rising recidivism within the system. Generation after generation could not seem to exit this cycle of abuse, neglect, and poverty because help was not being given at the right points. Our kids were languishing in care with little connection to their family of origin and the outcomes were bleak. Additionally, group homes had gotten a bad rap for abusive and negligent practices, a few bad apples poisoning the whole bunch.
So, our pendulum swung wide again. At both a federal and state level, new laws were enacted that limited group home funding and increased the standard for how child welfare agencies advocate for and help biological families. This had both positive and negative consequences.
In California, for instance, 2017 brought massive overhauls to the child welfare sector. Funding for most long-term group homes shut down, the hope being that relative care and foster families would take their place.
Today
Unfortunately, many of these types of laws took effect nation wide without adequate funding or training given to the constituents and it was our teenagers in foster care who suffered the most. The statistics are staggering:
Teens who enter foster care average 3-10 different placements within their time in care and tend to be in care much longer than their younger counterparts.
Foster youth are nearly 25% less likely to graduate high school than their peers, which has a grave effect on their ability to provide for themselves adequately into adulthood.
According a recent study on former foster youth by Chapin Hall (CalYOUTH), 10% of youth reported they have no one to turn to for advice or guidance, with those who did note supports primarily turning to peers or romantic partners.
Foster Care is still a living, breathing, evolving cause that urgently needs the help of its local communities.
We have thousands of children, and more specifically, teenagers, with a history of abuse and neglect, who are in desperate need of belonging, care, and guidance. Youth Connected Program FFA was created to meet this very real, very pressing need.
Youth in the dorms at Youth Connected Program FFA, 2023
A New Vision
At YCP, we envision a world where all youth in care can graduate high school well-supported and loved throughout their teenage years and into adulthood, ready to take on college, careers, relationships, and daily living with confidence and security. We believe there is hope for our youth and want to equip families with the tools to see that hope realized.
What’s Next?
Here, in our new blog space, we plan on releasing monthly blogs to help educate our local community on the need at hand. We’ll cover topics like how to become a foster parent, mental health, holidays, relative care, and more. We look forward to sharing our passion for these wonderful kids with you!