NCCD Now: National Foster Care Month

May 1, 2013 | Danielle Stewart, Communications Coordinator, NCCD

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This May, NCCD, along with thousands of individuals and organizations across the nation, will observe National Foster Care Month. Join us as we honor the ongoing contributions of foster parents, volunteers, educators, researchers, policymakers, social workers, and other leaders who work to improve outcomes for children and young people in foster care.

This May, NCCD, along with thousands of individuals and organizations across the nation, will observe National Foster Care Month. Join us as we honor the ongoing contributions of foster parents, volunteers, educators, researchers, policymakers, social workers, and other leaders who work to improve outcomes for children and young people in foster care.

At this moment, there are over 400,000 foster children in the US who face the multiple hardships of what it means to have no legal parents and no permanent home.[1] In many cases, challenges begin even before a child is placed in foster care. The most common reason a child is placed into foster care is because he or she is a victim of one or more forms of abuse or neglect.[2]

Once a child is in foster care, he or she will spend, on average, two to four years within the system, typically transferring location from group homes and temporary foster homes about 3 times [1]. The goal for each child is that he or she will be able to return to the home and live there, safely and permanently. However, each new foster home is a potential adoptive home. Until the child returns home or finds a new permanent home, the foster child must adjust, yet again, to new temporary parents, new homes, and new schools. Multiple research studies show that foster children experience a greater degree of emotional problems, learning disabilities, and social problems than the average population. According to one study, 54.5% of alumni had significant mental health problems that include depression, social problems, anxiety, and PTSD.[3]

Finding the stable home and childhood these children deserve is not easy; about 30,000 foster children “age out” of the system without ever having been adopted. Once a foster child ages out of the system, he or she is no longer cared for by the state―and life presents a whole new set of challenges. Research shows that only 3 to 11 percent of alumni of the foster care system complete college, and only 21 percent of alumni are employed by age 21.[4,5]

Despite the challenges faced by children and families involved in the foster care system, there are also many outcomes and efforts to celebrate. Thousands of foster parents across the country provide safe, caring, and stable homes for children who need them. Foster parents often make great efforts on behalf of the children they care for. They may attend extra trainings to learn how to address a child’s special emotional or physical needs; travel across town every day so that their foster kids can stay in the same school; or provide extra transportation so that a foster teen can meet with friends.

Foster families bond with children and meet their needs, often with the knowledge that the situation is only temporary. The goal, after all, for many children is to reunify with their biological family. Many foster parents do adopt children, providing them with permanent, loving homes. Both fostering experiences are valuable and contribute to the well-being of a vulnerable group of children.

The National Foster Care Month campaign urges caring individuals, volunteers, educators, and policy makers to spread the word, make a contribution, volunteer with a local foster care program, or become a respite care provider for a foster child. The achievements of the foster care system undoubtedly rely on the powerful collaboration between families, social workers, foster care organizations, and the state.

National Foster Care Month only lasts a month, but the system is in urgent need of support the entire year. NCCD is proud to be part of this effort. NCCD and its Children’s Research Center work with child welfare agencies to help protect children from abuse and neglect, and to improve permanency in the home. NCCD’s Structured Decision Making® (SDM) decision-support system for child protection assists agencies and workers in making better decisions for and with foster and kinship families. The SDM® system for placement support is an evidence- and research-based system which identifies the key points in the life of a foster care placement and uses structured assessments to improve the consistency and validity of each decision. The system works to reduce placement disruption through four instruments: the support assessment, the placement assessment, the provision of care assessment, and the placement safety assessment.

On the blog this month, we will hear from participants and stakeholders, providers, and experts in the field who will share their thoughts on and experiences with the foster care system. Click here for the first in the series, a post about why you should care about foster care, by Daniel Heimpel, the founder of Fostering Media Connections. Click here to read the second blog in the series by guest blogger Kristin Kelly, on strategies for improving educational outcomes in foster children. To read about how Safety-Organized Practice makes a difference in child welfare, click here. In this guest blog, Karen Worthington discusses what questions we should be asking in order to fill the gaps in child welfare research. To read Worthington’s second guest blog where she discusses girls in the foster care system, click here. In this blog we hear from Dr. William Bell, president and CEO of Casey Family programs about building communities of hope for our foster children. In a recent post, Antron McCullough, a former foster child and guest blogger writes about the difficulties foster children may face when trying to maintain intimate relationships with others. Guest blogger and filmmaker Stephanie Wang-Breal talks about her documentary and the role of parent advocates in the child welfare system in this blog. In this blog, Charles Wilson discusses dealing with trauma in the Child Welfare system.

Click here to read President Obama’s official proclamation of this year’s National Foster Care Month.

Danielle Stewart is the Communications Coordinator at NCCD.

                                                                                                                                                          

[1] Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS). Retrieved April, 23, 2013, from http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/stats_research/afcars/trends_june2011.pdf

[2] Bruskas, D. (2008). Children in foster care: A vulnerable population at risk. Journal of Child and Psychiatric Nursing, 21(2), 70‒77.

[3] Pecora, P., et al. (2005). Improving family foster care: Findings From the Northwest Foster Care Alumni Study. Seattle, WA: Casey Family Programs. Retrieved April, 29, 2013, from http://www.casey.org/resources/publications/pdf/improvingfamilyfostercare_fr.pdf

[4] McMillen, C., Auslander, W., Elze, D., White, T., & Thompson, R. (2003). Educational experiences and aspirations of older youth in foster care. Child Welfare, 82(4), 475‒495.

[5] Courtney, M. E., Dworsky, A., Cusick, G. R., Keller, T., Havlicek, J., Perez, A., et al. (2007). Midwest evaluation of adult functioning of former foster youth: Outcomes at age 21. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, Chapin Hall Center for Children.