The Experiences of Youth After Foster Care - Term Paper Example

Section Children in foster care are a part of one of the most vulnerable sectors of NYC. It has now become a widely accepted fact that children in foster care suffer from mental health problems, which in turn produces negative impact in every sphere of their life. Foster care has been found to be very injurious to the mental health of a child. Several researches have established this fact. Researches on the children who are raised in foster care have found that the children who are not in touch with their families and raised in foster care are more likely to experience compromised outcomes in their mental development process than the children who are not placed in foster care by their parents or other family members. These children who are placed in foster care are likely to develop severe behavioral, educational, and emotional problems. The more interesting thing that the researches have found out is that the mental problems of the children who are raised in foster care are more severe than even those children who are raised by very high risk and abusive parents. It is not only the mental problems that the children in foster care have to suffer, but they are also found to suffer a lot of physical health problem also. All these have contributed to make foster children one of the most vulnerable groups in the U.S. society. Their vulnerability becomes more serious when they age out of foster care and start to live independently. During the period when the foster children are raised in foster care and during the tome when foster children age out of foster care and start to live by their own faces lots of social, economical, political, and psychological problems. All these problems contribute in making them a vulnerable group. One of the most vital factors that badly injures a child’s psychological development and consequently leads to negative outcomes in the area of mental development is the inconsistent nurturing. Very often, when a child is placed in a foster care, the primary caretaker provides inconsistent as well as inadequate care. Every human being craves for love and affection since their birth. The extent of this hunger is generally found to be very high among children. They want warmth and affection from the people who are close to them, but the caretakers in the foster care center do not take adequate measure to fulfill this need of the children. The children in foster care most of the time are deprived of required love, affection and care, which automatically resulted in several behavioural disorders among the children. For example, a study has found out that when children in foster care receive inadequate and inconsistent care, the children exhibit a kind of indiscriminate connection to the adults around them. They do not demonstrate any kind of attachment not only to their primary caretakers but also to every adult they come across. Children with “‘disordered’ or ‘disorganized’ attachments may also have many other adverse outcomes that persist throughout childhood, such as poor peer relationships, behavioral problems, or other mental health difficulties.” (Harden, 2004). Second, the children in foster care are subjected to some kind of social exclusion, particularly from their family. This exclusion results in decrease in the level of attachment with their family members, particularly with their mothers. This causes serious damage to their mental health. Apart from this exclusion from own family also resulted in a feeling of powerlessness. “This exclusion may create the feeling of having no control over ones life. Although it may not be practical to include small children in the decision-making process, they can still be included in this process through the provision of explanations of care. The powerlessness of children in foster care is dramatically increased when knowledge and information about their future is withheld.” (Delilah, 2008, p 5) Third, children in foster care are not provided frequent opportunities to interact with one another. In the society, the group of foster children is considered to be abnormal. As they are assigned a tag of abnormal from their peers and other family members they grow a feeling of inferiority. As a result when they come out of foster care they fail to interact normally with others. Due to this abnormal tag, many children aging out of foster care experience a feeling of discomfort and shame. When the foster children to realize what other people think about them, it hugely affects their sense of identity. Fourth, the foster children are forced to experience the trauma of being excluded from their family “without the basic provision of systemic explanations and assistance to help them adjust” (Delilah, 2008, p 6). Fifth, once the children age out of foster care, they start to grow a feeling that their future would be uncertain, as it would be very difficult for them to make them financially strong. This kind of feeling hurt their mental state badly. This feeling grows from the fact that they are not absorbed into good jobs due to their lack of skills. Fifth, the foster children have to tolerate violent activities that are conducted by others of the society over them. “In states from California to New York, and in counties and cities from Santa Clara County and San Jose, to New York City and Maryland, it has been reported that over 20% of children placed in Foster Care are sexually and physically abused or suffer from profound neglect while in Foster Care” (Joseph, n.d.) According to two studies, one of which was conducted by the National Foster Care Education Project in the year of 1986 and the other by American Civil Liberties Unions Childrens Rights Project in 1993, it was found that “Foster Children are 10 times more likely to be abused than children from the general population” (Joseph, n.d.). Section 2: The children who are raised in foster care and after a certain period are asked to live by their own form one of the most vulnerable group in the U.S. society. Children and youth are considered to be the future for any country. But when a significant number of children are placed in foster care and therefore forced to suffer a lot of psychological, and physical health related problem, it becomes a major thing of concern for the people of the country as well as of the government. According to Harden (2004) "Many studies have pointed to the deleterious impact of foster care on childrens physical health, cognitive and academic functioning, and social-emotional wellbeing. In the area of physical health, pediatric and public health scholars have documented that foster children have a higher level of morbidity throughout childhood than do children not involved in the foster care system." Foster children go through a number of transitions in their life. The section will focus on one of the most crucial transition in their life and what kind of problems they encountered in this transition phase and how these problems can be solved to some against. The most important and vulnerable transition phase that the foster children go through is the period when they are asked to leave foster care centers and live independently. During this period, they face numerous challenges. They found it very difficult to lead a normal life. They face so many problems during this transition phases that their mental health damaged severely and make their future quite uncertain in personal as well as professional fields. The adolescents who leave the foster care system very often receive those kinds of services from the society as well as from the government that are actually aimed at adults. For example, the criminal justice system, the welfare system etc tend to treat these adolescents as adults. Every year around 20,000 children in foster care are discharged in United States and are asked to live their lives by their own without providing any kind of support. During the time of discharge, they are assumed to be productive, self reliant and self-sufficient. But in practice, these young people who have already suffered a lot of trauma in their very early ages find it very difficult to lead their life. They are discharged from foster care without adequate amount of knowledge, skills, appropriate habits and attitudes, which are essential for living a normal healthy life. As a result they do not get proper placements in any industry, suffers from joblessness, and therefore are subjected to huge financial instability. Having been burdened childhood experiences with abuse, exclusion and lack of care, they posses untreated physical and mental health needs. Many become completely houseless. Above all, none of these children have any role model from their family from whom they can seek expertise that are essential to live life by own. The problems that affect mental health of foster children during this transition phase can be discussed in detail as follows. First, the feeling of social exclusion and the realization of inadequate love, affection and attention by the adults around them among the children in foster care, make them quite unsocial as well as cause a severe decline in the sense of attachment to any adult. This in turn results in decrease in the volume of qualitative interaction with other members of the community. (The children’s aid society, 2005). Second, once adolescents leave their domestic care, they face a severe problem regarding their housing. They suffer from homelessness on most of the occasions. During the transition to independent living, adolescents assume one of the most important responsibilities of life, making arrangements for their own housing. But most of the time, these adolescents suffer from homelessness. Many studies have found the evidences of homelessness of the foster children during this transition phase. Most of the studies have defined homelessness as a state of living at least one night on the streets or any shelter other than their own. These homeless adolescents, who have been abandoned or rejected by their family members, very often get their accommodation in some group homes or treatment centers run by some government or private organizations. Most of the time they fail to arrange for their own accommodation, which they do not need to share with anyone else. Very often state is found to take some initiatives to provide some shelter to these children. But these shelters provided by the state are unsuitable and inappropriate for living a standard life. Some times these shelters become so much intolerable that the children are forced to go to streets. (Barth, 1990), Third, once children are discharged from foster care they have to search for their livelihood. But finding a suitable job for leading a standard life becomes a big challenge for them. Studies have found out that significant proportion of the adolescents who have been discharged from foster care have not found suitable job for themselves due to their lack of knowledge and skills. In many foster care centers little attention are paid on developing knowledge and skills of the children by providing them adequate education. Even if in some centers measures are taken to educate the foster children to the extent that are essential for obtaining a good job in future and therefore achieving financial self sufficiency, the mental condition of the foster children forbid them to equip themselves with proper skill and knowledge as they find it very difficult to concentrate on their studies. As education level of foster adolescents is lower than the other young people, it becomes very difficult these adolescents to find a suitable job in the competitive job market of the country. (Barth, 1990), Fourth, when the adolescents are discharged from foster care, they are found to be in great need of physical and mental health treatment. But in most of the states of the country, appropriate treatment or their damaged mental and physical health are either largely unavailable, or unreliable. (Barth, 1990) Among all these problems the third and the fourth one can be solved in effective manner if proper steps are undertaken. What these young people actually need is a strong support from the society and thorough counseling so that they can regain their mental strength and also get the opportunity to enhance their skill so as to get absorbed by the industries. Section 3: It is not that in the NYC, there is no child welfare service that could help in mitigating the problems of adolescents during their most crucial transition phase. But the problem is that most of the time these child welfare system fails to address the problems of these children. The thing, which these children need most, is a strong mental support system so that they no longer feel socially excluded abandoned or neglected. As long as they would not become able adjust them to the rest of the society, it would be difficult for them to shape their future in a proper way so that in long run they achieve a stable life in personal as well professional field. To solve these problems some indirect client and community service program can be undertaken. First, some arrangements can be made for providing mental health services to the adolescents who age out of the foster care centre. Very often the adolescents indulge themselves in excessive drinking and taking drugs and illicit activities without realizing what harms these activities can do to their lives. To make them able to follow a normal path of life, appropriate counseling is needed which can be provided by initiating some community services that would aim at mitigating mental stress of these young people and dictating the ways through which they can be able to live a stable life. But instead of directly asking them to stop drinking and involving in illicit acts, they can be indirectly persuaded to live a normal life by telling them the advantages of a normal and stress free life. It would be of great help if some people can establish themselves as role models, who without dictating right path of life can inspire them by their own life style to adopt a healthy life. Apart from all these effort, to increase the extent of social support for these adolescents who have aged out of foster care, a very fruitful indirect effort could be to initiate the programs of finding the families of these foster children along with working in several mentoring programs in collaboration with public or private organizations. (Lenz-Rashid, 2006) Second, some appropriate programs of indirect client advocacy or community services can be undertaken to educate the foster children about their rights and privileges so that they no longer suffer from inferiority complex and begin to think themselves as an integral part of the society. In most of the cases, adolescents who are discharged from foster care do have little knowledge regarding their own rights and privileges. This mainly happens because foster care centers do not pay adequate attention in making them learn about their rights and privileges. Like others foster adolescents also have right to lead a normal life after their emancipation from foster care. They have right to get admitted in colleges, they have right to augment their skills through various skill generating programs, and they also have right to become financial stable by getting suitable employment and consequently to make their own home. Unless they appropriately understand these rights, they would not get an inspiration from their inner self to come out of their mental trauma and to direct their life in right path like others. (Lenz-Rashid, 2006) Third, for making the adolescents financially self sufficient, some community services or indirect client counseling can be initiated for making them capable of getting appropriate and respectful jobs for themselves. It is not always possible to find appropriate jobs for these adolescents, but measures can be taken to equip then with required skills that would be adequate enough to get placements in the current competitive job markets. Very often adolescents are reluctant to join colleges because of the inferiority complex, a feeling of shame and discomfort that they have grown during their early childhood, which have been spent in foster care. But it is a widely accepted fact that college education is very necessary for enhancing knowledge and skill. Therefore some client advocacy system and community services can be initiated for making them agree to pursue college education. Apart from these, different attractive tutorial programs, financial literacy programs, and scholarship workshops can be built to attract these adolescents to college education. If some children still seems to reluctant to go to colleges, for them some employment programs can be initiated which should aim at providing adequate training, career counseling as well as some internship programs so that in their future life they can easily get employment in some suitable place. Apart from these programs like summer job placement can also offer some opportunities of obtaining on-the-job skills and consequently making the chances high for future employment.( Lenz-Rashid, 2006; Barth, 1990). Fourth, providing helps to aging out foster adolescents in augmenting their skills and knowledge and in offering proper channels through which they can be absorbed in good jobs is not sufficient enough to make then financial stable in long run. Since they are very young, they posses little knowledge regarding the importance and impacts of saving, budgeting, banking, borrowing, etc. even if they get employed and become financially independent, still they fail to manage their financial situation in a proper way. Hence, it would be a very wise idea to provide some community services that would aim at providing some practical instructions regarding saving, banking, debt management, budgeting etc so that they can be able to maintain their financial sustainability. These services thus indirectly helps in making the adolescents who have aged out of foster care financially stable for longer run. (Lenz-Rashid, 2006; Barth, 1990 Fifth, indirect community services can be utilized in providing peer education and leadership training may also indirectly help in addressing issues like violence, victimization, racial discrimination and other types of social discrimination that the children who age out of foster house have to face. These types of efforts are capable of building healthy and long-term relationships. (Lenz-Rashid, 2006; Barth, 1990) Sixth, indirect community services can also be used to ensure that no adolescent leave foster house without proper housing as this houselessness may cause further damage to their mental and physical health. Some efforts can be taken even at individual level to assist these adolescents in locating apartments, providing list of brokers, and learning legal steps for solving any legal disputes. In most of the occasions subsidies are needed for a number of initial years after they leave foster house in order to ensure that housing is maintained for them. (Lenz-Rashid, 2006; Barth, 1990) Section 4: A manger of an indirect client advocacy and community service program that aims at providing all those services mentioned in the earlier section is required to be capable enough of handling those adolescents who are suffering from huge mental trauma and behavioral disorder. If the manager assumes that the children will immediately follow what he is asking them to do, would not at all be an appropriate thinking on the part of the manager. He is required to be very calm and should exercise adequate amount of patience in handle this children, otherwise situations may become worse. The most important thing that is needed to help them come out of their mental ill state is to make then realize that they are not alone, they have a support system to help them achieve a bright future. For this, the manager has o be very cordial and need to show that he/she really cares for them. According to my opinion, I have the skill to build cordial relationships with these mentally hurt children. I think I would be able to make them relies that they are also a part of our society and that they are not socially excluded. And I believe in hard work, so I think would be able to work hard to make fruitful connections with different public and private organizations that are aimed at providing adequate education and job training to these young people. I think I have a very good convincing power, and therefore I would be able to make these children convinced that education is very much needed for their future development and would be able to make them agree to go to schools and colleges for enhancing their knowledge and skill. I would also be able to make them realize the importance of financial stability for leading an independent life. However, although I am honest in my intentions, I lack required amount of connections with high ranked people in our society so that I can be able to enhance their chances of their future placements. I am not sure whether I will be able to make close connections with these people. The reason is that I cannot open up before these high ranked officials, so I have a fear that I may not be successful enough to make them realize the need of these children and why the assistance of these people is required in building up bright future for them. Section 5: To implement my plans of building an effective and helpful indirect client advocacy and community services to bring the adolescents who have been aged out of foster care I would like to take the following steps. As far providing proper education for augmenting skill necessary for future employment is concerned, I would take a serious initiative to work with local school superintendents for providing more support to the foster youth programs that are aimed at providing good platform for providing foster children with adequate education. I would also try to ensure that private schools take necessary steps towards meeting educational standard of foster children. I will initiate some job placement programs with help of former foster youth who are expected to have grown some relationships with higher ranked people in several industries. The connections of these former foster youth with high ranked people can be utilized for initiating some effective programs of job training, career related counseling, internships etc. the aged out foster youth can also be provided with updated listing of job vacancies, training for writing attractive resume, training for making them prepare for interviews and so on. I will put serious effort to search family members of these adolescent to provide them great mental support in the post aging out period. I will take some steps of providing peer education so that they no longer treat the adolescents who have aged out of foster care as inferior to them this would help in making these adolescents quite comfortable among their peers. References 1. Barth, R. P. (1990), “On their Own: The Experiences of Youth After Foster Care,” Child and Adolescent Social Work 7(5), 419-440; 2. Delilah, B. (2008). Children in Foster Care: A Vulnerable Population at Risk. Retrieved on 17th april from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3892/is_200805/ai_n27900730/. 3. Harden, B. (2004). Safety and stability for foster children: a developmental perspective. The Future of Children, 14(1), 30-47. 4. Joseph, R. (n.d.) NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF FOSTER CARE ON EMOTIONAL, INTELLECTUAL & PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT Retrieved on 17th april from http://brainmind.com/FosterCareInfancyChildhood.html. 5. Lenz-Rashid, S. (2006). Emancipation From Foster Care in the Bay Area. San Francisco State University. 6. The children’s aid society. (2005). Aging Out of Foster Care. Retrieved on 17th april from http://www.childrensaidsociety.org/about/whatwethink/agingoutoffostercare. Read More