As any parent or childhood educator knows children thrive when they are in a safe, stable and nurturing environment sadly there are so many children who are deprived of these basic building blocks. Last year in Kentucky alone 7, 162 children lived out of their home and away from their families. I have heard the quote “only to be a child” so many times in my life this is typically used in the context that this person believes it to be easy to be a kid. Many people don’t even consider the thousands of children who are away from their home and suffering the consequences of another’s actions. We all hear the good parts of foster care, when people get adopted finding their forever homes, the truth is that it’s actually an extremely flawed system
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I once read a book for an English class in highschool “ A Boy Called It” in this book you fall in love with little Dave Pelzer, this poor little boy is brutally beaten, tortured and starved by his mentally unstable alcoholic mother. The terrible reality is that 1out of 3 children placed into foster care are there because of abuse, many abuse caused by a parents addiction to drugs or alcohol. Placing child who has been abused open a whole new plethora of issues for instance a young girl who has been raped may only be able to be placed in a female only …show more content…
The sad reality is that the older you get in foster care the lower your chance of finding a loving long term home is, most people want little kids or babies not a troubled teenager especially somebody looking to adopt. There becomes a point where a foster child “ages out” in some areas this is eighteen and for others it can be as young as sixteen, a child placed into foster care can spend their entire stay in a group home instead of a stable family situation. Think about it were you ready at eighteen to be tossed out on your own, finding your own place to live and your own way in the world with little to no support for a teen who has spent their time in a group home that’s what happens. From personal experience I know that group homes are not all bad but for a child already being bounced possibly from one family to another living in an environment where the ratio is perhaps one adult per 15 children is just far too unstable. The realities of aging out of the system without any support in place are forever detrimental to youth statistics prove this; one in five children who age out of the system will become homeless, one in four will be involved with the justice system within two years of leaving and more than 40% of these youth won’t finish high school. How is it fair that when most high school seniors are worried about, prom dresses, college applications, and following their dreams these
I once read a book for an English class in highschool “ A Boy Called It” in this book you fall in love with little Dave Pelzer, this poor little boy is brutally beaten, tortured and starved by his mentally unstable alcoholic mother. The terrible reality is that 1out of 3 children placed into foster care are there because of abuse, many abuse caused by a parents addiction to drugs or alcohol. Placing child who has been abused open a whole new plethora of issues for instance a young girl who has been raped may only be able to be placed in a female only …show more content…
The sad reality is that the older you get in foster care the lower your chance of finding a loving long term home is, most people want little kids or babies not a troubled teenager especially somebody looking to adopt. There becomes a point where a foster child “ages out” in some areas this is eighteen and for others it can be as young as sixteen, a child placed into foster care can spend their entire stay in a group home instead of a stable family situation. Think about it were you ready at eighteen to be tossed out on your own, finding your own place to live and your own way in the world with little to no support for a teen who has spent their time in a group home that’s what happens. From personal experience I know that group homes are not all bad but for a child already being bounced possibly from one family to another living in an environment where the ratio is perhaps one adult per 15 children is just far too unstable. The realities of aging out of the system without any support in place are forever detrimental to youth statistics prove this; one in five children who age out of the system will become homeless, one in four will be involved with the justice system within two years of leaving and more than 40% of these youth won’t finish high school. How is it fair that when most high school seniors are worried about, prom dresses, college applications, and following their dreams these