Preview

Foster Care Abuse

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1846 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Foster Care Abuse
Introduction
There are several reasons why children enter foster care such as abandonment, caregiver’s death, domestic violence, medical neglect, parent’s incarceration, physical abuse, sexual abuse, truancy, and voluntary placement. Sadly, many homes have more than one of the following issues and a child enters the foster care system for numerous reasons. Annually tens of thousands of children in the United States are placed in foster care. These children are often burdened by the unprecedented levels of domestic violence, physical, emotional, and mental abuse in their homes.
Oftentimes, seeking a more nurturing environment amongst relatives for the child is unsuccessful and the foster care system is a last recourse. This paper discusses the
…show more content…
Neglect has very profound and long-lasting consequences on all aspects of child development to include the lack of ability to form attachment, delayed physical development, and antisocial behaviors. Children that are subjected to an environment that limits the amount of emotional support creates difficulties for a child to develop the brain connections that facilitate language and vocabulary development, and therefore may impair communication skills.
Researchers also have begun to explore why, given similar conditions, some children experience long-term consequences of abuse and neglect while others emerge relatively unscathed. The ability to cope, and even thrive, following a negative experience is often referred to as “resilience.” It is important to note that resilience is not an inherent trait in children but results from a mixture of both risk and protective factors that cause a child’s positive or negative reaction to adverse experiences. A number of protective and promotive factors individually, within a family, or within a community may contribute to an abused or neglected child’s resilience. These include positive attachment, self-esteem, intelligence, emotion regulation, humor, and independence (Shaffer,
…show more content…
In regards to emotional abuse, conducting new studies would give more insight that relates to the various forms of behavior disorders and developmental delays in children that are placed in foster care. Conducting in-depth research that examines the timing, duration, severity, and nature of effects over the life course in a variety of cultural environments would be quite beneficial to the social work

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    The issues of neglect and abuse in the foster care system is a subject you do not hear about every day. However, this is a real problem that affects millions of children living in foster care or some kind of transitional care system. 75% of children in foster care prior to leaving the system will have experienced sexual abuse (Sexual Abuse: An epidemic in Foster Care Settings). According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, nearly 475,000 U.S. youth reside in foster care, close to 30,000 leaves the system annually (Braciszewski & Stout, 2012). Research shows that 1.5 million children in America live in families that have experience domestic violence and 7 million of them live in families that have experienced some severe form of domestic violence (Ogbonnaya, 2012). Even though research indicates that the identified incidents of child sexual abuse has declined 47% from 1993 to 2005-2006, this is an issue of concern that the public is not fully aware of the magnitude and effects it has on young people. While the public is not aware of the depth of this problem, child sexual abuse is a prevalent health problem children face with an array of consequences to follow (Child Sexual Abuse Statistics).…

    • 345 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Foster Care Research Paper

    • 5387 Words
    • 22 Pages

    The number of children in foster care continues to rise each year, reflecting the flaws and problems within the system. It is a known fact that children who have been abused or neglected often have a range of unique physical and mental health needs (First Focus, 2008). The Massachusetts foster care systems seems to be struggling with the following issues: providing safe homes for the children, reducing the length of stay in foster care by increasing the adoption rates, improving the education system and health care systems for both children in and those transitioning out of foster care and a plan to provide adolescents with better life skills to foster independence after foster…

    • 5387 Words
    • 22 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Which means, they are involved with foster care because they may not be able to have children of their own, their own children are grown, religiously motivated, or they were once in the foster care system themselves. Non-related foster care providers have more resources available to them for children in recovery. There is also extensive training for non-related foster care providers, so that they know how to handle children in recovery. The disadvantage of nonrelated foster care is that “when children are placed in nonrelative care, both the children and caregivers will require time to forge attachment bonds.”(Font 2076) These relationships are even more difficult to formulate due to the fact that the children in non-related foster care tend to move around more often and have a less stable environment than that of children in kinship programs. Caregivers in non-related foster care may not be invested in the overall outcome of the…

    • 465 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Data was collected from two adolescents, one currently in foster care, the other previously in foster care. Each completed an online interview, lasting under an hour, that consisted of six questions (see fig. 1). Some personal details were edited with the subjects’ consent to protect their identities. The aim of the interview was to gain insight into individual experiences in the foster care system and compare them to popular conceptions and research. Subjects were asked to describe, to the best of their ability, their experience in the foster care system, ways in which its structure had impeded them, and their experience with mental health. Lastly, they were asked what changes they felt could be made to improve the system.…

    • 208 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Neglect can affect the child’s development. An example of how neglect can affect a child’s health is poor nutrition, if the correct nutrients are not are not available to children the child’s growth development will not follow the normal pattern and developmental stages will be delayed. ‘Common physical and psychological reactions to neglect include stunted growth, chronic medical problems, inadequate bone and muscle growth, and lack of neurological development that negatively affects normal brain functioning and information processing.’ (http://www.minddisorders.com/Kau-Nu/Neglect.html#ixzz2HxRH2n98) see appendix …. This negativity affecting the brain can make processing problems difficult for the child understand social relationships or harder for the child to complete academic tasks without assistance or intervention from others. Lack of medical care and attention may result in long-term or life threatening illnesses or disabilities.…

    • 496 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Foster Care Barriers

    • 173 Words
    • 1 Page

    This paper reviews several articles that explore and attempt to explain reasoning and barriers for difficulties regarding foster care children receiving adequate and appropriate health care. Although all similar in context, the articles vary in methods and delivery in addition all of the articles share similar statistics and attempt to maintain recommendations laid out by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). Various strategies for fixing the barriers are proposed throughout the readings with the same end goal in mind, to provide better medical care for children in foster care. Key terms used frequently throughout the readings include: placement, referring to a child’s location in foster care, child welfare systems and child protective…

    • 173 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    When taking a look at all of the social issues we face in our society, it is child welfare and the foster care system that engrosses me the most. This issue has been near and dear to my heart for a very long time and is the reason I decided to go into social work. Growing up with an Aunt who raised and adopted foster care children allowed me to see a lot of issues that I would not have otherwise seen. One of the first issues is the number of children that are in the foster care system. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported that 402,378 children were living in foster care in 2013. Outside of this enormous number the issues that these children face extend a lot deeper. These issues include but are not limited to depression,…

    • 305 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Equipping Foster Parents

    • 590 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The results of the literature demonstrate implications for best practice and improving how professionals can ease the strain on foster parents. Foster parents are in a role where they are required to frequently engage with children who have experienced crisis need additional training and support (Taylor-Richardson, Heflinger, & Brown, 2006). Children coming out of crisis often externalize their trauma through emotional and behavioral responses, child welfare professionals should be effectively preparing foster parents to experience these behaviors and to cope with the experience. These implications place responsibility on the professional to properly prepare foster parents for their role and inform them of the risks as well as strategies to minimize risk of compassion fatigue.…

    • 590 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Child In Foster Care

    • 340 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The biggest reason for all of these negative outcomes would be placement instability. As a child in foster care, they are never ensured that they will live in one home. More often than not, youth are bounced through several different homes. Transitioning to many different homes brings the emotions of feeling unloved to an all time high. The more a…

    • 340 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Risk and Resilience

    • 413 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Exposure to significant risk factors can greatly affect a person’s resilience. Some people are born into wealth, while others are born into poverty. While high success is usually a person’s main goal in life, they may have many, many obstacles in their way of their goal. Risk factors may be cumulative so that the more risk factors a child or family is exposed to over the course of a child’s development, the greater the potential for problems to arise. The risk and protective factors in a child or family’s life may also interact with each other. One of the major risk factors in a child’s life is neglect. Neglect can come from family, the community, or lack of social support. Risk factors can also be child behavior, mental or physical health, neglected childcare substance abuse, social isolation, and everyday stress. Protective factors are family strength, supportive childcare relationships, social support and integration.…

    • 413 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Foster Care Challenges

    • 535 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Every year more that 20,000 children will “age out” of foster care. These youth face extreme obstacles including the expectation that they are now adults and able to self-manage out in the world. Many of us are lucky enough to be raised by supportive parents who we can turn to long after the age of 18 for encouragement, reassurance and direction in our lives. The majority of these children have not finished high school and are unemployed. How can we expect them to go out into the world without the tools they need to succeed? These kids have been dealt a rough hand in life and many times they have no type of family connections or even reliable friends. They end up facing challenges that the majority of youth with families will never know. They have a higher risk of ending up on public assistance, homeless, as young parents or incarcerated.…

    • 535 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    For all the kids in abusive, neglected, or abandoned home situations, the foster care system is there to help. It gives kids a temporary stable home until a permanent home can be found. Foster parents dedicate their time and open their home up to children they do not know just to try to better that child’s life. Even though this system has done numerous great things for children throughout America, there are any issues with the foster care system. Children that age out of foster care need more guidance and support to have a chance at a successful future. Additionally, the foster parents need support through this process. They try their best at creating a stable home for these children, but they face hurdles just like the foster children do.…

    • 196 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Foster Care is designed as a temporary service that responds to crises in the lives of children and families, giving the help that they need to have a happier healthy life. Most children develop a positive relationship with their parents as they get older to become a better person and do the same thing; giving support to other children who are willing to be a part in your family, like they are your own. You can have a tremendous impact on a child in need by opening your home and your heart. Foster Care takes extra care to place children in just the right homes and provides specific training and support to assist each child in developing positive social, educational and emotional skills and discovering their strengths and potential for future…

    • 454 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Children In Foster Care

    • 1720 Words
    • 7 Pages

    When foster parents still cared for their foster kids and the kids run away, then that means that something is wrong. The kids think and see things that most of us are not able to see. So they wanted to look into it more and they found out that studies show foster cause health problems, homelessness, early pregnancy, and arrest. In the U.S. every 45 seconds a kid is being abused or neglected in 2012 there were 3.3 million reports of child abuse and child welfare reported more than 500,000 cases of abuse. This info explains that there was a lot of kids that have been abused or they ran away from home while they were in…

    • 1720 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    According to the Alliance for Children’s Rights in Los Angeles County, nearly half of two-thousand youth, who age out of foster care, end up homeless or incarcerated. Social welfare policy in this country is in desperate need of repair and reform. This analysis is not only based on the Alliance for Children’s Rights statistics but on my own personal experiences and testimony, as a product of the foster care system. Foster parents and group home staff should not only be required to take educational courses for dealing with behavioral and emotional conditions but be educated in other child developmental studies as well as the reunification of the family.…

    • 559 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays