Kristiina Tam Evaluation Paper English 2010 10.09.

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Each week, nearly 60,000 children in the United States are reported as abused or neglected. About 520 of those children end up in foster care each year, Double the number 25 years ago (ABC News). The system is failing these children. Social workers are overwhelmed by the cases coming in, and there simply are not enough homes to cater to the growing number of children being taken into the states care everyday. A portion of the homes that are available are not any better than the homes they left. They are often being physically, emotionally and sexually abused in extreme cases they are killed. As a result these children are left with the constant reminder of their past and some parents never see their children again. These examples help show why the foster care system is indeed failing the children. Case workers are at the forefront of everything. They are the ones who take children away from caregivers who are not fit to raise them. They are responsible for checking up on kids and making sure they are safe and reuniting families when the conditions chance and the child can be in a safe environment with responsible parents. Most of the caseworkers in this country are inadequately trained, do not have an educational background to do the job, and have caseloads too high for any human being to handle, no matter how well-trained they are, said Marcia Lowry, the director of Children's Rights Inc. (McFadden). In the state of California, caseworkers at anytime have had up to 54 cases they needed to tend to. This includes two visits a month and paper work. (McFadden). Its impossible for them to make sure every child is getting

Kristiina Tam Evaluation Paper English 2010 10.09.13 what they need and to make sure they are being treated well. This only put more weight on an already weighed down system. It seems like everyday the number of children coming into the system goes up and the number of homes available to send them to dwindle. In an interview done by Raith with Alex Morales, The CEO of the Childrens Bureau of Southern California Morales says The issue is, there are ply about 3,000 foster homes, not more than five years ago, their were twice as many homes. The children have no place to go when they come into the care of the government or courts. Where do we put them? Morales goes onto say Look, the family has failed them, the system has failed them, and were going to try to step in and be the last solution to catch this child before they go off the cliff into homelessness and jails. As of now the youth that have no placement or relatives either stay in over crowded group homes or are housed in correctional facilities where the wait can be unbearable. When children are taken from their homes and put into foster care it is with the intention that they will go into homes where they will be safe and in a better situation than they were in. It seems ridiculous to think that a foster parent would ever abuse a child but it happens more often than one might think. Logan Marr was just 5 years old when she was found dead on January 21st 2001. Her foster mother, Sally Schofield tightly bound the little girl in duct tape for a time out she dies of asphyxiation as a result (Goodman). The Los Angeles Times did a report in July 2013, on a sex trafficking sting where 105 children as young as 13 were rescued, 60% of them were foster children (Koseff). Staca Shehan, director if the FBIs case analysis division spoke to reporters in a telephone interview and said that the circumstances that put these children into the

Kristiina Tam Evaluation Paper English 2010 10.09.13 foster care system make them vulnerable to becoming victims of sex trafficking crimes (Koseff). Claudia Felder now 21 years old entered the foster care system at the age of 3. Although she has been living happily with an adoptive family her past experience of abuse and being shuffled around still effects her. By the age of 6 she had lived in 5 foster homes, all of them were sexually abusive to her but one. Felder said that this was all she knew; always moving , never knowing when she was going to leave (Raith). Although Claudia Felder now lives a happy life, her experience of being abused mimics that of many that are in the foster care system today. These occurrences should never happen under the systems care. The child care system is set into place to take these children out of abusive situations, train families how to be a better family unit, take preventative measures and giving families the tools they need so that there arent a flood of children coming into the system everyday and to reunite families back together. The outcomes speak volumes about the foster care system. It takes a special type of person to open their home to a child in need. Maybe thats why there are less and less people stepping forward to take on the challenge. Its easier to donate funds to save the whales and feed the children in third world countries that to look in out own yard. Though all of the struggle that these children go though anything would be better that what they had. If that were the general thought then it is time to change the way it is thought of. These things that these children have witnessed in their short lives are not the things any child should have to go though. If we are taking these children out of unsafe and abusive situations only to put them into other abusive and unsafe situations the system is not giving these children a chance at

Kristiina Tam Evaluation Paper English 2010 10.09.13 all. It is said that the youth are our future. If the youth are out future we are not doing a very good job of making the future bright.

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Works Cited Facts on Foster Care in America ABC News Network, May 30, 2006. October 2013. Web Goodman, Barak. The Taking if Logan Marr. PBS October 15, 2013. web Koseff, Alexei. Sex-trafficking Sting Highlights Vulnerability of Foster Children. LA Times July 29 2013, October 16 2013. Web McFadden, Cynthia. More From Cynthia. Foster Care System Stretched too Far. ABC News July 2, 2013. October 15, 2013. Web Raith. Strained Foster Care System A Meter of Our Social Problems All things Considered NPR, September 25, 2013. October 8, 2013. Web

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