So... a program where near to 100% of input kids are neglected or abused that ends up with a significantly lower proportion of those kids neglected or abused is a "very weak" argument that anything has become "any better"?
If you had a drug that could save 50% of terminally ill patients, would you say "we have a very weak case that this drug saves lives"?
In order for your statement to make sense, the failure rate of foster care would have to approach 100%. Again, talk to an actual social worker about how they see foster care and whether or not they choose to use it. It's an opinion that will most likely come with caveats, but foster care is also a service they use frequently.
"near to 100% of input kids are neglected or abused"
Untrue. Children end up in the foster care system for a variety of reasons, including simple loss of parents or a woman (or teenage girl) knowing she can't care for a child.
"significantly lower proportion of those kids neglected or abused"
The evidence is not as clear on this as you'd like it to be.
To correct your example, if we had a drug that caused strokes or death in a significant percentage of cases, simply saying, "Well, many of the patients we'd give it to would otherwise suffer strokes or death," would be a quick route to an FDA rejection.
This statement seems to be based on a false premise that foster care is bad care (it is often very good care where I originate from, UK) and ignores the fact that sometimes parents kill their children and that there are many children in desperate need of help.
The greater problem with the CPS or similar agencies is underfunding. This leads to families only having dealings with them when the circumstances are suspected of being dire, rather than CPS having the resources to support parents in a meaningful way over a meaningful period of time. Such meaningful support helps to reduce the need for more drastic interventions and allows social workers to have much more knowledge of the families they are helping and of when interventions are needed.
Do you have some data to support the position that foster care is at best inadequate? Do you have data to support the position that mistaken child removal is as widespread as even e.g. child abuse within the foster system? Finally, do you have data that illustrates how often children are relocated to strangers' houses, vs. with family members?
I absolutely agree that every time a child is abused in foster care, that's a damning failure of the system. But I do not share your belief that children who experience sufficient abuse to be removed from the home are permanently broken. Nor do I share your belief that the foster system is at best soul-crushing.
Those old systems were full of abuse. There are bad foster parents, but overall it is better. Until someone thinks up something better the current system is what we have.
Actually, the major driver of pushback against these diagnoses in foster care in my experience is former foster children, who object to having been diagnosed with these conditions for what they feel was perfectly reasonable behavior. But yes, let's jump to a conspiracy theory about bad social workers instead.
It seems that you are attempting to argue something completely different to your original claims, and I'm not interested in trying to follow you and your goalposts.
It's not inadequate, it just doesn't happen. I know people who were being deprived of food, beaten, subjected to chronic verbal abuse, kicked out of their house, from the age of 12-13 who had absolutely no recourse, no ability to make money, and no real way to do anything besides depend on the kindness of strangers -- who were told by the foster system that unless they felt like they were in imminent danger then they should stay far away. Do you really think that these kids are better off doing what they have to do (which many times is working under the table, or other illegal activity) to ensure their basic needs are met?
This paper generally does not say what you are implying.
This is comparing abusive homes to marginal foster care children, which means children that were repeat care kids, meaning that the failure was not in foster care, but in the decision to reunify and then have them return to care. The success rates for children that are not intervened early or that are reunified are terrible, and research like this edge case for a PHD are the exact things that get kids reunified that should not be.
To sort of hammer the point home in my brain, does the following summarize what you are saying?
In spite of all the trauma, you still think foster care is better than leaving kids with their family? E.g. the article says "more kids are removed for neglect than abuse" and only 35 percent of them finished high school. So, between the two evils (abusive family and foster care), do kids really fare better in the foster care system?
As someone who grew up outside of USA, but now live here, this is all rather shocking to me.
I have actually been a foster parent, and have had kids come to my house at 11pm, that you can smell from 7 feet away, covered in lice, with a single backpack with all their possesions. One kid called 911 because mom and dad wouldn't wake up (heroin). Some suffering from Sex Abuse, some literally starving, etc. Yes, Foster Care has its problems (and part of why I don't do it anymore) but there ARE legitimate needs in the communities. I would love to know what you think it should be replaced with?
Child abuse and neglect by parents is also something that exists. It’s easy to see problems, but context and improvements are much more difficult. The US removed sanitariums due to serious issues, but the situation didn’t improve instead dumping the mentality ill into the prison and homeless populations.
Currently the US use foster homes rather than orphanages, but is it a better system, just different, or worse simply a more efficient way to hide problems? That’s the kind of analysis that’s difficult yet essential for actual improvement.
I'm against the abuse of children and happy to use the government to accomplish that.
However, the prevalence of abuse and neglect in the foster care system - complete with cases on that order of horror - makes a very weak case for the idea that external regulation accomplishes any better.
As you seem to have a lot of insight into this topic: What do you think are the reasons for high abuse rates in foster families? I would think that the hugh number of resonable nice people interested in adoptin children in combination with the possibility to screen them would lead to an above-average care-quality in foster families. Why not? I could imagine that people apply for the wrong (financial) reasons (easy to fix), children that are difficult to deal with because of their history or a lack of social bond between the children and their parents (both hard to fix). Any insights on this issue?
To be clear, I truly believe the median foster homes is better than the median group home. Unfortunately the variance is the problem, with some foster homes and some group homes being truly abusive.
it's not the foster care that is the problem. even if the foster parents are perfect, separating children from their parents against their will is causing severe trauma to the children and often hurting them more than what the parents might do to them.
i agree with your second paragraph. the focus needs to be on supporting parents to take better care of their children.
If you had a drug that could save 50% of terminally ill patients, would you say "we have a very weak case that this drug saves lives"?
In order for your statement to make sense, the failure rate of foster care would have to approach 100%. Again, talk to an actual social worker about how they see foster care and whether or not they choose to use it. It's an opinion that will most likely come with caveats, but foster care is also a service they use frequently.
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