SHAME! SHAME ON ALL OF US! (Disposable Children)

I would like to have this image in my head of what a child looks like while in the foster care system, but the reality is far, far different. When the courts remove a child from their parents it's usually due to abuse or neglect. When a relative can't be found for them to live with, the child enters a foster home. The ultimate goal is reunification with parents.

THAT'S WHAT THEY SAY ANYWAY!

Due to their treatment, children often enter the foster care system with medical, behavioral, and emotional problems. Children removed from their homes feel isolated and depressed. Foster children are more likely to do poorly in school, have behavior, physical and mental problems. They are also at risk for drug and alcohol use, and delinquency.

SO, WHAT IF THE HOME THEY GO TO IS NO BETTER THEN THE ONE THEY LEFT? WHAT IF THEY ARE FORGOTTEN AND LANGUISH IN FOSTER CARE AND ARE NEVER ALLOWED TO REUNITE WITH THEIR FAMILY OR GET ADOPTED!

The challenge is especially hard for those at age 18 who get pushed out of the system. While some may lead successful lives, others face a risk of homelessness, substance abuse, emotional problems, involvement with the legal system, lower educational levels and lower paying jobs. Some challenges are from the lack of a support system to aid in the transition to adulthood.

HOW DO WE EXPECT THEM TO BECOME PRODUCTIVE ADULTS, WHEN WE DIDN'T PROTECT THEM AND NURTURE THEM AS CHILDREN?

It's appalling to me that 54% of the children in foster care spend from 18 months to 5 or more years in limbo, away from their birth families and not being adopted by anyone. My husband and I were interested in adopting and tried to through our local foster care agency, but after working with them for a year we were no closer to adopting then the day we started.

They give these messed up "parents" a YEAR, each time they screw up, to get their acts together. To me that is a major disservice to all children. Why should the children have to suffer because their parents don't want to be parents. I don't want to hear about how they made a mistake, boo hoo, poor me....give me a break...if you loved your children that much, you would get your act together and fly right, to keep them. And if you can't, then do the mature, loving, unselfish thing of signing over your parental rights so that someone who does want to be a parent can give them a proper home and make them feel loved and wanted.

I bet most people would be amazed by what it takes to become a foster parent.

* 21 years or older, but not older then 65
* have room for a child in their home
* have the financial resources to provide for their own family.
* provide a home that meets certain safety standards
* be in good physical and mental health
* Request an information packet on becoming a foster parent.
* Attend an orientation session organized by the local foster care agency.
* Fill out a foster parenting application.
* Begin a home study. The home study includes visits to your actual home, for various safety inspections, as well as fairly extensive background checks into you and your family. The agency will fingerprint everybody in your home over 12 years old and check their criminal record. This process can take several months, and it requires a lot of work from you and your family.
* While the home study is in progress, you will enroll in a foster care training course taught by the local foster care agency. In this 30-hour, 10-week course, instructors cover a range of issues, focusing on good parenting, dealing with children with special needs and working with the foster care agency.
* If the home study goes well and you successfully complete the training program, you will become a certified foster parent.

HERE'S A CRAZY IDEA...HOW ABOUT WE REQUIRE THESE SAME THINGS TO BECOME A PARENT?!

I also found this article, about how messed up the child welfare system is. Here are just a few statistics from that article:

* incorrect addresses listed in the official record for 20 percent of the foster children in its care
* Five percent of the children were listed as living at the headquarters, even though more than half of those children had been in foster care for more than two years.
* 84 children may never have been recorded at all
* 1,103 children were discharged from foster care, but their records did not reflect this action
* Auditors found children's case files lying on floors and in unlabeled and haphazardly arranged cartons
* one agency lost track of fully 25 percent of the children in its care
* court backlogs leave children's lives dangling from childhood to adolescence
* many children are placed in "marginal homes" only slightly better than those from which they were removed
* foster parents not receiving vital information about the children they accepted, often resulting in less than adequate care

How about his case?! In Missouri, pediatrician Dr. Susan Pittman became a foster mother to two young sisters, and had been told virtually nothing about the children's past when they were assigned to her. Hers was their second foster home, and they had been assigned five different social workers in the 17 months they were in the system. Only one of them had ever visited her home, despite state rules requiring monthly visits. "I could be killing these children, for all the state knows," she said. "The system has lost its focus, to do what is best for the kids. All it seems to want to do is get a kid into a foster home, no matter whether it's a good home for that particular child, and then forget about him."

These are just a few lines from this article. The rest is even more unimaginable.

REFORMING THIS SYSTEM SHOULD BE PART OF THE NO-CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT! HOW LONG ARE WE GOING TO CONTINUE TO ALLOW OUR CHILDREN TO BE FORGOTTEN, MISTREATED AND RAISED WITHOUT MORALS? WHY ARE WE THEN SURPRIZED WHEN YEARS LATER THEY SHOW UP IN OUR JAILS!? I'M SURPRIZED THEY SURVIVE AT ALL!

SHAME! SHAME ON ALL OF US!