The End of June: Reaction Paper

The American foster care system has been hailed as one of the best systems in the world, hosting close to half a million children (Rosenfeld, Pilowsky and Fine). In fact, most countries will benchmark against the standard that is set by Americans in making sure that the children are well taken of. The morality of the question whether biological parents or the parents that took care of the child should have access to the child is a question that has long had insufficient answers. Beam brings together instances where there are conflicting interests when children are being raised in foster homes. This paper is a reaction to the reflections in Beams book on the decision on the right way to raise children.

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Beam notices the special place of teenagers in the American foster care system. These are the hardest to place in the system. Teenage boys that have become subjects of the foster system are more likely to be in jail before 19, while teenage girls are very likely to become pregnant once they are out of the foster system. In fact, the majority of foster care children are twice as likely to develop post-traumatic stress disorder as compared to war veterans. The situation for foster children is thus grave. Furthermore, they are subjects of poverty as the majority of them are likely to end up without a home. Indeed, this is true as research shows that foster care has interplay with low education and poverty later in the childs life (Barth, Wildfire and Green).

Additionally, children who have had several placements with homes that have failed experience different feelings including those of rejection, being unwanted or unloved, and a string of ruptured attachments. These instances have adverse effects on the children, making them non-responsive to intervention mechanisms. The Greens, the example family that Beam uses, reveal that a number of the children that they have received have gone through this cycle and have experienced its adverse effects. Thus, the example of Dominique Welcome is given an angry child who thinks that every time an attachment is formed, that person would leave and therefore they prefer to be angry.

Having such an orientation to the foster care system, the dilemma in the book revolves around attachment issues between foster parents and foster children. While the foster parents responsibility towards the foster child is only temporary, attachments and bonds are created over time especially where the parent and child will create a favorable relationship. The temporary nature of this relationship would limit the fact that the foster parent can have any claim on the child. State regulation of the foster care system has been seen in two views, namely to provide security for children or to provide children an experience of parenthood, regardless of the nature of such parenting. Research has shown that attachment exists for children of all ages for loving caregivers. However, it is easier for younger children (below the age of 2) to adjust to other caregivers. Nonetheless, it becomes harder with advancing age to change the caregiver (Dozier, Stoval and Albus). This research suggests that it would be more appropriate to allow for adoption of older children from the foster care system, where they are in an amicable relationship with the parents (Haight, Kagle and Black; Herrick and Piccus).

In conclusion, my view is that necessary steps are required to ensure that children whose stay in foster care is more beneficial than that with their biological parents should have the opportunity to choose their preferred caregivers. The state is obliged to provide children with adequate care for their optimal growth and development. Provision of healthcare for children should not only be limited to hospital admissions, but also to the reduction of instances of care-related diseases.

Works Cited

Barth, R. P., J. Wildfire and R. L. Green. "Placement into foster care and the interplay of urbanicity, child behavior problems, and poverty." American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 76(3) (2006): 358-366.

Dozier, M., et al. "Attachment for infants in foster care: The role of caregiver state of mind." Child development, 72(5) (2001): 1467-1477.

Haight, W. L., J. D. Kagle and J. E. Black. "Understanding and supporting parent-child relationships during foster care visits: Attachment theory and research." Social work, 48(2) (2003): 195-207.

Herrick, M. A. and W. Piccus. "Sibling connections: The importance of nurturing sibling bonds in the foster care system." Children and Youth Services Review, 27(7) (2005): 845-861.

Rosenfeld, A. A., et al. "Foster care: An update." Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 36(4) (1997): 448-457.