Emma Kenney

“Foster Care” is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “a situation in which for a period of time a child lives with and is cared for by people who are not the child’s parents.” Each year thousands of children make their way through the American foster care system. The point of foster care is to remove children from situations that could be potentially disastrous and place them within a safe and secure environment; however, each year hundreds of these children are placed in environments that are equally as bad, if not worse, than the ones they were previously removed from.

Statistics show a proven 28% of children within the foster care system face abuse each year. However, it is estimated far more are abused each year and are simply conditioned not to speak up about it. According to an article written by psychologist Susanne Babble:

Amy (name altered), an adult client who spent over seven years in the foster care system, told me that roughly nine out of ten fellow foster children she crossed paths with claimed that they had been abused by their foster parents.

She also expressed that foster children are often taught by their circumstances not to speak up and are conditioned to think abuse is “normal.” Additionally, Amy felt that it was not in their best interests to report abuse and risk being relocated, where they might be subject to yet more “unknown” abuse … and also have to endure another drastic change. She explained, “A foster child is already taught that you don’t speak up. It’s dangerous.”

It’s no easy task to find homes for thousands of children, and often the amount of children in the system far outnumbers the amount of foster homes able to care them. This leads to social workers potentially ignoring regulations and requirements for who is legally able to foster a child and allowing men and women with criminal charges of various sorts, including but not limited to drug use and domestic abuse, to become foster parents. While this creates more opportunity for a child to have a home it ultimately defeats the whole point of the system — to ensure the safety of children who have nowhere else to go! This is one of the biggest causes of child abuse within the system.

In 2010 a former foster child, who wishes to be known as John Doe to protect his identity, sued his former foster father John H. Jackson. Jackson had criminal charges for drunken driving, drug abuse, child molestation, and domestic violence when he was approved to foster children. Doe faced hundreds of episodes of sexual and physical abuse while in the care of Jackson. He lived with the man for 4 years until his birth father was able to reclaim him. Other children weren’t as lucky and were forced to remain with Jackson until they aged out of the system or ran away. Jackson now faced life in prison, but the emotional trauma Doe was left with still remains.

Yet another example of this is the story of 17-year-old Jada. Jada and her younger sister Faith, as well as an older girl named Monica, were placed in the care of  Audrey Chatmon when they were 2, less than a year, and 15 respectively. When Chatmon received the three children there had already been multiple cases of child abuse filed against her, all of which had been overlooked and ignored by the social workers who placed the children within her care. In fact, the Department of Children and Family Services even advised Chatmon to formally adopt the three girls. According to Garrett Therolf, a writer for the Los Angeles Times, “The children noticed that Chatmon was often drunk and spent her days buried under her covers. She was surrounded by bottles of drugs to treat her bipolar disorder and was under the care of a county psychologist, according to court records.” It should have been obvious to social workers that Chatmon was unfit to care for foster children, yet they were placed within her care anyway. Unfortunately, neglect wasn’t the worst thing Jada would face while in the care of Chatmon. When Jada was four she was found crouching in the road by local police officers. Over half of the girl’s body was found covered in burns so severe she had to be sedated in order for them to be treated by doctors. However, like Doe, this is not where the damaging effects of her time in foster care ends. The girl, now a teenager, still faces daily emotional trauma as a result of the time she was left in the care of Chatmon. Her adoptive mother, who wishes to remain anonymous to protect Jada’s identity, explained it is obvious the 17-year-old still struggles to live as a normal child, even within a safe environment.

However, more factors exist in Jada’s case than might first meet the eye. When Jada and her two foster sisters were asked if their social workers had ever checked in on them like they were legally required to, all three girls denied ever seeing their social workers after they first left them with Chatmon. There are thousands of children in the American foster care system and not enough social workers to properly keep track of them. This means oftentimes after children are placed into a home, whether fit or unfit, their social workers never come back to make sure they properly adjust and their foster parents are treating them in the right way. Children are being left alone to face scary and potentially dangerous situations. The lack of social workers is one of the contributing factors as to why unfit homes even exist. Periodically, homes and families approved to foster children are supposed to be re-examined to ensure they are still fit and safe for the children being placed in them. However, without a proper number of social workers to manage the workload needed to make the American foster care system succeed, the homes within the system can be left unchecked for much longer periods of time than proper or even indefinitely.

Babbel, who was also a social worker herself, explains:

During my own time working with foster care agencies and group homes, I often witnessed the agency staff become overwhelmed with the number of children they were required to monitor — not to mention the pressure of completing mountains of paperwork. The paperwork would often trump the actual visits in priority because it was required in order to keep the agency funded and our jobs intact. There seemed to be incentives in place to keep children with foster families they were assigned to, which sometimes led to lenience when evaluating conditions. (Foster agencies receive money for each placement. If a child is removed from a placement, the agency can lose the commission. Although foster agencies and social workers usually have the child’s best interests at heart, these factors may contribute to a less than efficient system of properly monitoring foster homes.) Many of the caseworkers (like myself) were fairly young, inexperienced recent graduates of psychology school putting in their time to accumulate enough hours to get their state licensing. Having little experience, we did not always know how to detect abuse or handle the enormous emotional volatility that is inherent in such a job. Other caseworkers were older adults with years of exposure to the failures of “the system” and defeatist attitudes that did not help them in their jobs. Ex-foster children I’ve spoken with reported jaded caseworkers who always seemed to “turn a blind eye,” never asking probing questions or visiting the sleeping areas of their charges. Making things even trickier, there are statutes of limitations and other restrictions in place to prevent prosecution of perpetrators or state agencies too long after-the-fact. In Pennsylvania, for instance: “…the statute of limitations in most civil assault cases is two years from the date of the injury. If the injured victim is under the age of eighteen (18), the victim must file suit before they reach the age of twenty (20).” (This information is according to the law firm Andreozzi & Associates, who specialize in foster care abuse claims.) However, there are sometimes ways around these restrictions. They say that “One exception to the statute of limitations for sexual abuse and molestation in Pennsylvania surrounds what is known as the common law ‘discovery rule.’ The application of this rule allows victims to file suit within two years of the time: (1) they discover the injury; and (2) they discover the source of the injury.’”

This leads to yet another problem with the American foster care system: group homes. Children are placed in group homes with any number of other children in an attempt to compensate for the lack of available foster care families to take care of them and as an alternative to placing them in an unfit home. Unfortunately, these group homes are often just as bad as the unfit homes social workers are trying to avoid. In these homes children often face abuse when they get into fights with other children or don’t follow the rule. Even if children don’t face abuse, these group homes often leave them dealing with emotional detachment disorder. Babbel explains it as follows:

Within the group home system, children are moved around to facilities with varying levels of security and structure depending on their behavior and psychological/emotional growth. A change in level often means a child is immersed in yet another strange new environment. Each time a child is moved to another level, he or she gets new teachers, new therapists, new classmates, new roommates, and a new life. Foster children who have moved multiple times often develop detachment disorder: they become unable to attach to others as a defense mechanism. Sadly, this often results in a child who is not able to form normal long-lasting relationships that are crucial to success later in life.

Foster or group home children generally lack the childhood experiences that teach other children to trust authority figures. What can seem like a lack of emotion or attachment ability in these kids may often be a veiled protection mechanism: they may remain reserved within relationships in order to protect themselves from further hurt. They might innately be aware of the sad truth that they are viewed by caseworkers and foster parents as potentially “troublesome,” and that — unlike most children — they must prove themselves to be trustworthy before they will be fully loved. This can seem like an overwhelming task for an already overly stressed child with compromised coping mechanisms. One former foster care client expressed: “What one has to consider is that foster kids are taught to not trust … so while it seems that we are detached, the truth is, often we know full well what is going on. But yes, we do have to protect ourselves, and hence, what seems like detachment to the clinical eye is simply what a ‘normal’ individual would call ‘reserved.’”

It should be blatantly obvious the American foster care system is broken and in desperate need of reform. A system intended to protect children, to give them their best chance in life, is currently the cause of those children being placed in danger. Hundreds of children are being neglected, beaten, and sexually abused by their foster families as well as ignored by their social workers within a system that promised to make things better for them. Until these children are protected by the American foster care system, it will always be flawed, corrupt, and detrimental to the wellbeing of a future generation.

Works Cited

Babbel, Susanne, Ph.D, M.F.T. “The Foster Care System and Its Victims: Part 2.” Psychology Today. N.p., 03 Jan. 2012. Web. 24 Oct. 2016.

“Estey & Bomberger Announces Jury Awards $30 Million in San Jose Molestation Case.” Business Wire. N.p., 05 Aug. 2010. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.

Gomez, Mark, and Linda Goldston. “South Bay Sex-abuse Lawsuit: Ex-foster Child Awarded $30 Million.” The Mercury News. N.p., 05 Aug. 2010. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.

Therolf, Garrett. “Jada’s Case Highlights Problems in Foster Care System.” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 18 Dec. 2013. Web. 27 Oct. 2016.