In
previous issue papers, we discussed the danger of physical and sexual abuse
inherent in amending "reasonable efforts" and severely restricting or
abolishing family preservation. But there is another danger that is even more
widespread: the emotional abuse that often is an inevitable part of the
investigation and placement process.
Even
when foster parents do not physically or sexually abuse the children in their
care, and the children do not abuse each other, the child has been taken not
only from his or her parents, but often from friends, neighbors, teachers --
and even brothers and sisters.
And
because the parents rarely are the monsters that critics of family preservation
say they are, this can have devastating consequences for children.
Worse,
the first move often is not the last. Children are bounced from foster home to
foster home, emerging years later unable to love or trust anyone. As one such
child put it: "I felt I was in a zoo and I was being transferred to
another cage."[1]
Unfortunately, the emotional
devastation of foster care sometimes is written off as mere collateral damage.
The assumption is “well, at least they’re not being brutally beaten and
tortured by their parents.” But, of
course, few parents who lose children to foster care brutally beat and torture
their children. And it is often the emotional harm of foster care that leaves
the deepest scars; the ones that never heal.
A study released in 2005, based
on a random sample of 659 case records and interviews with 479 foster-care
survivors, documented the rotten outcomes.
When compared to adults of the same age and ethnic
background who did not endure foster care:
· Only
20 percent of the alumni could be said to be “doing well.” Thus, foster care failed for 80 percent.
· They have
double the rate of mental illness.
· Their rate of Post-traumatic
Stress Disorder was double the rate for Iraq War veterans.
· The
former foster children were three times more likely to be living in poverty –
and fifteen times less likely to have
finished college.[2]
A 2006
study compared children placed in foster care to children left in their own
homes. The children left in their own homes suffered just as much
maltreatment. The overall psychological
health of the two groups was the same - -before foster care.
But
even though the children left in their own homes were identified by the
researchers, not child protective services, so in most cases the children got
no help at all, they still did better than the children placed in foster
care.[3]
And
then came the largest, most comprehensive comparison done to date. In a study of 15,000 cases, MIT researcher
Joseph Doyle found the same thing the Minnesota researchers found: Children
left in their own homes typically fared better than comparably-maltreated
children placed in foster care – even when the birth families got only the
ordinary “help” provided by child welfare agencies.[4]
Boyd
A. lived in five different foster homes over five years between the ages of
seven and twelve. His mother had been forced to place him in foster care. But
it was not because she had beaten him, or neglected him or sexually abused him.
It
happened when she was hospitalized after being beaten by Boyd's father. But
when she was well, the agencies that had control over the children wouldn't
give Boyd, his two brothers, or his sister back -- because they weren't
satisfied with the housing his mother was able to find.
Critics
of family preservation say agencies bend over backwards to keep families
together. They say agencies do this because the law requires "reasonable
efforts" to keep families whole. But there were no "reasonable
efforts" in Boyd's case. There were no efforts at all.
Critics
also say family preservation causes children to languish in foster care. In fact, as Boyd's case and many others make
clear, it is the lack of family preservation that causes children to languish
in foster care.
It
took five years -- and a class action lawsuit -- before the family was
reunited.
"The
worst fear was never seeing my mother again," Boyd told a Congressional
hearing. "I have nightmares. I had a nightmare that a cop came and took me
back to foster care and I never got to see her again.
"It's
hard for me to tell you how bad foster care is. My mother used to come visit me
a lot when I was in care, and when she left, it felt like the whole world was
leaving me."[5]
Here
are some other voices from the system:
Anne.
Nine homes in nine years: "When you spend your life going from place
to place and knowing you're not going to be in any place for very long, you
learn not to reach out, not to care, not to feel ... My bitterness is not that
I went through what I did ... my bitterness is that I don't think it should
have had to happen. There was no reason why my family's life should have been
destroyed ... The people that I've seen, the kids that have emerged, [from
foster care] are ... dead. Their hearts are functioning. The ol' heart's
pumping the blood around. But they're basically dead inside. It's been killed.
Either they had to kill it to survive physically, or somebody else killed it in
them. Whatever it is that makes people human."[6]
Michael. 16 placements in six
years: “In my
opinion, foster care destroyed our whole sense of family in the end. We can’t sit down together and feel like
siblings. … If the state had invested the same money they spent putting us in
all those placements into weekly visits with our mother and had given her skill
lessons, it might not have escalated to us needing to go into permanent foster
care.”
Rob, Age 18: “To take a child away from his
family is one of the most heartbreaking things you can do to him. Then to put him back with his family is one
of the greatest things you can give him.”
Linda, Age 25: “I felt like my heart had been
ripped out of me when they took us all away.”[7]
Kathy.
Age 18. Grew up in foster care: "When you're in foster
care, you can't find no love."[8]
Many
people know about the emotional trauma of foster care, at least intellectually.
But even when people know, they tend to think "Yes, but..." As in,
"Yes, but, didn't we have to do this to these children because their
parents are so dangerous and brutal?"
In
the overwhelming majority of cases, the answer is no. Because most of the
parents don't fit the stereotypes. (See Issue Paper 5).
And even when the parents have problems, helping those parents often
is the best way to help the child.
In a University of Florida study of so-called “crack babies,” one group was placed in foster
care, the other group with birth mothers able to care for them. After one year, the babies were tested using
all the usual measures of infant development: rolling over, sitting up,
reaching out. Consistently, the
children placed with their birth mothers did better. For the foster children, being taken from their mothers was more
toxic than the cocaine.[9] Those infants are
trying to tell us something. We owe it
to them to listen.
We
seem to understand the emotional trauma of being taken away from parents only
when the parents are white, middle class -- and foster.
In
the case of "baby Jessica" for example, a birth mother surrendered
her child for adoption after having "consent" forms thrown at her
right after birth, in violation of state law.
She changed her mind five days later, but the foster parents stalled and
stalled and stalled, dragging the case through courts in two states. They lost every time. When they finally ran out of ways to stall,
two-and-a-half years had passed. But
the foster parents won enormous sympathy when they condemned the birth parents
for trying to take the child from "the only parents she has ever
known."[10]
In
contrast, because we have so stereotyped birth parents, we react with
indifference or even relief when thousands of poor, often black, children are
needlessly taken from the only parents they have ever known.
These problems can’t be solved
by “fixing” foster care. The authors of
the study cited earlier estimate that even if every problem that besets foster
care were miraculously fixed tomorrow, it would reduce rotten outcomes by only
22.2 percent.[11]
And they can’t be solved by
warehousing children in orphanages. As
is discussed in detail in Issue
Paper 15, more than a century of research shows the outcomes for orphanages
are even worse than for family foster care.
The only way to fix foster care
is to have less of it.
Intensive
Family Preservation Services and other safe, proven programs to keep families
together, are among the most promising innovations in child welfare in
decades. Abandon these approaches and
thousands more children will have "the whole world" taken from them.
Updated
January 1, 2008
1. Michelle Gillen, "Florida: State of
Neglect," WPLG-TV, Miami, 1987. Back to Text.
2. Peter Pecora, et. al., Improving Family Foster Care: Findings
from the Northwest Foster Care Alumni Study (Seattle: Casey Family
Programs, 2005).
3. Catherine R. Lawrence, Elizabeth A. Carlson, Byron
Egeland, “The impact of foster care on development,” Development and
Psychopathology, Vol. 18, 2006, pp. 57–76.
4. Joseph J.
Doyle, Jr. , “Child Protection and Child Outcomes: Measuring the Effect of
Foster Care” American Economic Review: In Press, 2007.
5.
Testimony of Boyd A., Foster Care, Adoption, and Child Welfare Reforms, Joint
Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Public Assistance and Unemployment Compensation
of the Committee on Ways and Means and the Select committee on Children, Youth,
and Families, U.S. House of Representatives, April 13 and 28, May 12, 1988. Back to Text.
6. Personal communication. Back to
Text.
7.
Michael, Rob and Linda: North American Council on Adoptable Children, Promote
Permanent Families: Reform Foster Care Now, Press Packet, March 12, 2007.
8. Ray Nunn (producer), "Crimes Against Children:
The Failure of Foster Care," ABC News Close-Up, Aug. 30, 1988. Back to Text.
9. Kathleen Wobie, Marylou Behnke et. al., To Have and
To Hold: A Descriptive Study of Custody Status Following Prenatal Exposure to
Cocaine, paper presented at joint annual meeting of the American Pediatric
Society and the Society for Pediatric Research, May 3, 1998.
10. Alice Bussiere,
“’Baby Jessica Case Highlights Old Conflict,” Youth Law News, 14, No. 4,
(July-August 1993, p.15) and Olya Thompson, “Motherhood Myopia: Blowing the DeBoer
Story,” New York Newsday, Aug. 11, 1993, p.85.
11. Pecora, note 2,
supra.