The Foster Care System: A Charted Path

-- By JenniferGreen - 16 Apr 2010

Life Chances

The irony of the child welfare system is that while it removes children from unhealthy living situations with their biological parent, purporting to do so to increase the child’s life chances, in reality, the statistics that reflect this so-called strategy demonstrate a pattern of exactly the opposite. A study published this month, reported by the New York Times, shows that young adults who have aged out of the foster care system lag behind their counterparts across several major categories. These include homelessness, educational attainment, reliance on public assistance benefits, and interactions with the criminal justice system. These differences should come as no surprise; however, it begs the question, do the costs of removing a child from their biological family – barring clear cases of abuse, neglect, and endangerment – outweigh the benefits of having them raised in the foster care system?

To be fair, there are some living situations that are so egregious that no child should have to endure the stress and potential harm. Notwithstanding the moral obligation to remove children from such situations, the state also faces potentially liability for failing to intervene when it has truly compelling reasons to do so. However, where the causes for removal do not reach this level of harm to the child – such as parenting skills that are less than ideal, but where no substantial and immediate harm is inflicted upon the child – separating a child from their biological family should be a final resort, not an initial option.

A Balancing Act

From a human perspective, the analysis turns, at least in part, on determining the value of separating a child from their biological parent – again, in cases where there are no clear signs of abuse and neglect – versus providing support services to improve home life. This, in fact, would be more efficient and cost-effective in the short- and long-term. The statistics suggest that it is more cost-effective for the state to provide support services for struggling families, in an effort to keep them together, since the alternative amounts to higher costs in the short term by placing the child in foster care or a group home, as well as long-term, by subsidizing social welfare programs and paying for the increasingly expensive prison system. However, determining whether it is in the child’s best interest to be removed from the home with their biological parent versus allowing them to remain there – with the state intervening only to provide support services – is a balancing act. The decision should balance between considerations about the likelihood of an increase in the child’s life chances in the short-term versus the long-term. The reality is that, absent this type of assessment, the system could be, in effect, grooming children for exactly the opposite of its stated aim – this includes illiteracy, unemployment, poverty and a life of crime.

System Reform

To suggest that by remaining in the home with their biological parents, would-be foster children automatically fair better in the long term, would be overly-simplistic. After all, statistics across the categories already discussed point in similar directions – crime, homelessness, and lack of education are closely linked to poverty and race. And, poverty is inextricably linked to one’s ability to adequately care for a child and correlates with the likelihood that the system will intervene and remove the child from the home. However, as the study suggests, 79% of study participants felt “very close”, and another 15% felt “somewhat close” to their biological families – indicators of former foster children re-integrating themselves back into their biological families’ lives or simply maintaining strong ties over the years. Given the statistics, the system should rethink its strategy by committing itself to keeping the family intact, seeking to place children with biological relatives where it is not possible for the child to remain with their parent, and actively facilitating relationships between the foster child and the biological apparent in an effort to reunite them where appropriate.

Several policies have been enacted to attempt to narrow the gap between young adults who have aged out of the system and their peers. For example, in some states, foster children “age out” of the system at 21 instead of 18. Also, several states offer free tuition for post-secondary public education within the state to former foster children. Both of these policies, which are not exhaustive, are admirable, especially considering the budgetary constraints many states are experiencing. Still, these, and many other such programs, may intervene in the child’s life when it is too late. And, to a certain extent, no amount of intervention can account for the emotional trauma a child experiences when they are removed from the only family and environment they have ever known – regardless of how “unhealthy” the system may deem it. This, perhaps, is the “pink elephant” in the room; the system should be guided by recognizing this, which may underlie the disparities between former foster children and their counterparts.

A Case for Keeping Families Together

There is still great opportunity for reform in the system, notwithstanding the policies already enacted, that will help ease the transition of young adults out of the foster care system and into mainstream society. However, the principle reform that is needed is simply a mentality shift; the state’s primary objective should be maintaining the family unit when at all possible. Making the determination about whether the situation would best be served by such efforts is not formulaic; it can only effectively be done on a case-by-case basis. Failure to consider this as an option can and does have dire consequences, as demonstrated by the study. By failing to do so, the state effectively takes on the role of grooming a constituency for social welfare programs and prison systems – bearing exorbitant costs now and in the future – both of which are morally undesirable and fiscally unsustainable.

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