Foster Care—

Over 500,000 children in the U.S. currently reside in some form of foster care. Placements in foster care have dramatically increased over the past 10 years. Despite the increasing numbers, children in foster care and foster parents are mostly invisible in communities and often lack many needed supports and resources. In situations of abuse and neglect, children may be removed from their parents' home by a child welfare agency and placed in foster care. Other reasons for foster placement include severe behavioral problems in the child and/or a variety of parental problems, such as abandonment, illness (physical or emotional), incarceration, AIDS, alcohol/substance abuse, and death.

African-American children make up approximately two thirds of the foster care population and remain in care longer. Two out of three children who enter foster care are reunited with their birth parents within two years. A significant number, however, can spend long periods of time in care awaiting adoption or other permanent arrangement. Making decisions about the future for a child in foster care is called permanency planning. Options include: returning the child to his/her birth parents; termination of parental rights (a formal legal procedure) to be followed, hopefully, by adoption; or long-term care with foster parents or relatives. Most states encourage efforts to provide the birth parents with support and needed services (e.g. mental health or drug/alcohol treatment, parent skills, training and assistance with child care and/or adequate housing) so their child can be returned to them. When parental rights have been terminated by the court, most states will try to place children with relatives (kinship foster care or relative placement) which may lead to adoption by the relative.

Being removed from their home and placed in foster care is a difficult and stressful experience for any child. Many of these children have suffered some form of serious abuse or neglect. About 30% of children in foster care have severe emotional, behavioral, or developmental problems. Physical health problems are also common. Most children, however, show remarkable resiliency and determination to go on with their lives.

Children in foster care often struggle with the following issues:

• blaming themselves and feeling guilty about removal from their birth parents
• feeling helpless about multiple changes in foster parents over time
• feeling insecure and uncertain about their future
• feeling unwanted if awaiting adoption for a long time
• having mixed emotions about attaching to foster parents
• reluctantly acknowledging positive feelings for foster parents
• wishing to return to birth parents even if they were abused by them

Foster parents open their homes and hearts to children in need of temporary care, a task both rewarding and difficult. Unfortunately, there has been a decrease in the number of foster parents (non-relative) available to care for children over the past 10 years. This results in larger numbers of children remaining in institutional settings. The number of relative caregivers (kinship foster care), however, has increased. Reimbursement rates for foster parents are lower in most states than the true costs of providing routine care for the child.

Important challenges for foster parents include:

• dealing with the child's emotions and behavior following visits with birth parents
• dealing with the complex needs (emotional, physical, etc.) of children in their care
• finding needed support services in the community
• recognizing the limits of their emotional attachment to the child
• recognizing their difficulties in letting the child return to birth parents
• understanding mixed feelings toward the child's birth parents

Some foster children develop Reactive Attachment Disorder. If a child experiences any of the following in the first three years of life, that child is at risk for Attachment Disorder:

• Caring for the infant on a timed schedule, or other self-centered parenting
• Drug or alcohol use by mother during pregnancy
• Inconsistent/inadequate care or daycare
• Mothers with depression
• Neglect of physical or emotional needs
• Physical abuse, sexual abuse, or emotional abuse
• Several family moves and/or daycare or foster placements
• Sudden abandonment or separation from mother (death of mother, illness of mother or child, or adoption)
• Undiagnosed or painful illnesses (ear infections, colic, surgery)
• Unprepared mothers, poor parenting skills, inconsistent responses to child
• Unwanted pregnancy

FOSTER CARE RESOURCES—

Abused Foster Children Win $3.3 Million Settlement
The Associated Press, May 25, 2001

Chicago Jury Awards $3.3 Million to Abused Foster Children
The National Law Journal, June 14, 2001

Advocates Criticize Medicating Foster Kids
The Miami Herald, April 12, 2001

Foster Workers Can't OK Kids' Pills
The Miami Herald, May 1, 2001

Advocates Alarmed By Drugs Used For Kids
The Miami Herald, May 7, 2001

Report Decried Giving Drugs to Kids
The Miami Herald, May 11, 2001

'Cadillac' Plan New Foster Kid Approach
The Miami Herald, June 2, 2001

Attorney General: Child Abuse Reports Are Public Record
Sun-Sentinel, July 25, 2001

Boy May Eventually be Returned to His Family if Certain Conditions Met
The Standard-Examiner, November 27, 2001

Children Who Return Home From Foster Care: A 6-Year Prospective Study of Behavioral Health Outcomes in AdolescenceA report from PEDIATRICS, Volume 108, No. 1; July, 2001.

City Agency's Psych Drugs Imperil Foster Kids
New York Post, April 16, 2001

DCF Aide is Found Drunk, Cops Say
The Miami Herald, July 27, 2002

Developmental Issues for Young Children in Foster Care
Policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics, November 2000

Feds: Woman Trafficked Vermont Girls to NYC
ABC News, December 14, 2001

Fla. Caseworker Charged in Abuse Case
The Associated Press, July 13, 2002

Foster Care Fast-Forwarded
Traverse City Record-Eagle, May 2000

Foster Care Independence Act of 1999
Final version of the Bill, as passed by both Houses, as well as links to prior versions, references in the Congressional Record, and Bill Summary.

Foster Kids May Fare Worse After Returning Home
Reuters Health, July 3, 2001

Foster Parent Adoption: What Parents Should Know
Fact sheet from the National Adoption Information Clearinghouse.

Foster Parent Adoption: What Professionals Should Know
Fact sheet from the National Adoption Information Clearinghouse.

Fostering Parenthood at Harvard
Harvard Crimson, December 2, 2002

I.N.S. Both Jailer and Parent to Children Without Nation
The New York Times, June 24, 2001

Nigerian Girl, 8, Released After Year in INS Custody in Miami
The Associated Press, August 11, 2001

Move Afoot to Change INS Handling of Children Who Are Illegal Immigrants
The Associated Press, February 15, 2002

Judge Allows INS to Hold Teen
Sun-Sentinel, March 8, 2002

Kids in Captivity
The Village Voice, February 27 - March 5, 2002

Identification and Care of HIV-Exposed and HIV-Infected Infants, Children, and Adolescents in Foster Care
Policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics, July 2000.

Little Refugees: King County's Foster Care Crisis
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, September 1999

Lost Children
The Washington Post, September 2001

Lost in the System
Sacramento Bee, June 10, 2001

Permanency Planning: Sword or Shield?
by Andrew Vachss, Adoptalk, Spring 1984

Placement Decisions For Children in Long-term Foster Care: Innovative Practices and Literature Review
Report from the Washington State Institute for Public Policy, February 2001. [PDF]

Psychiatric Care of Children in the Foster Care System
Policy statement from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, September 20, 2001.

Safety Net Sought for Former Foster Kids as They Enter Adult World
Sun-Sentinel, May 24, 2001

Strained System Often Splits Up Siblings in Foster Care
The Associated Press, July 22, 2001

State Agency to Pay $5 Million to 6 Sexually Abused Children
Sun-Sentinel, May 17, 2002

Toddler's Death Ruled Homicide
The Washington Post, January 9, 2000

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