Article
Each day individuals from every walk of life do the
extraordinary: take children who have been abused or neglected
and need a safe haven into their homes. As foster parents they
provide for the children’s safety and well being for days and
sometimes years, introducing some sense of stability into
fragile lives. It sounds simple but is the most important,
courageous and potentially life-saving work in which these
individuals can engage.
The children who come into their care have been exposed—at
best—to some form of neglect and—at worst—to multiple forms of
violence. They often bring with them symptoms of depression and
post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as a history of school
related problems, an unstable family life and a lack of
consistent positive peer relationships. These three
anchors—family, school and peers—are necessary for children to
experience a safe and nurturing childhood. We rely on foster
parents both to serve as a safe haven and to help a child begin
the healing process and reconnect to these anchors. Foster
parents don’t assume this challenge alone, but do play a
significant role in beginning to change the norms in a child’s
life and build their trust in the world around them.
Child welfare systems across the country are replete with
success stories that involve the life-altering impact of a
foster parent. In some instances the journey, even when ending
happily, is a difficult one. Disruptive and violent behavior,
truancy and school failure, running away and self-harm are often
the symptoms of the damage that has been done in their young
lives.
In more extreme situations, children and youth in foster care
may require special services or end up in the juvenile justice
system. It is at these times that we are most challenged to
maintain the course and work creatively and strategically to
avoid the possibility of a young person spiraling out of
control.
This phenomenon happens every day. When children in the foster
care system are arrested, they are labeled as delinquents and
their cases are taken over by the delinquency system. It should
not be this way, nor does it have to be. I suggest that foster
parents have a continuing role to play—even at this point of
engagement with the justice system—and should be encouraged and
supported to maintain their important role in the life of the
child in their care. Sticking by a child gives the foster parent
a special role in that child’s life: that of someone who did not
turn away from the child when the going got tough.
How can we build on the incredible demonstration of love and
kindness offered by foster parents who take their commitment to
the children in their care seriously and ask only for the
support of the system that is charged with the care of the
children who they have taken into their homes? We start by
building the capacity of foster parents by providing them with
the wrap-around services they need. We mandate, as has been done
in some jurisdictions, that every child who is arrested while in
foster care benefits from a multi-system response in which the
child welfare and juvenile justice systems work together to
determine why a particular child is not succeeding and then
mobilize their collective efforts to prevent them from
penetrating further into the juvenile justice system. We then
marshal the resources necessary to enable foster parents to
provide for that child’s safety and well -being, including
success in school, positive connections to family and exposure
to positive peers.
We know that being a foster parent means being there for a child
who has been abused or neglected. I suggest that it also means
showing up at a detention hearing to avoid the “detention bias”
children in foster care experience and, when appropriate, taking
them “home.” However, I am also suggesting that it means that
our child welfare and juvenile justice systems also must “show
up” to work in concert with one another and match the
extraordinary efforts made by this country’s army of foster
parents. Our children in foster care and the foster parents who
serve them deserve no less.
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