Imagine you are a minor, you have just escaped an abusive home, and you are put in the system. You are scared and confused with numerous health issues. You have no one to talk to, and you’re being moved from home to home. The scenario above has happened to an astonishing number of children. Children are our future, and if foster care children are treated as if their feelings do not matter, they can rely on unhealthy coping mechanisms. A multitude of children in foster care have deteriorating mental health because of the conditions. Counseling or therapy in every foster care institute can help fix the negative outcomes that foster care produces that destroy the health of a child. The Children’s Bureau in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is responsible for making this happen. This essay will argue that the mental health of children in foster care and how they are treated in foster care is important.
Many children in foster care struggle with mental health because of the conditions. According to Penny Lane Centers in California, of people who went through foster care, 31% ended up homeless, and according to the National Institutes of Health, 45% of foster care have been reported as abusing alcohol or drugs. Foster care is a program that has proven to have several problems, such as not providing training for foster parents, not providing free therapy for the foster children, and not helping the children that age out become stable. These problems exist alongside the other failing welfare programs.. Furthermore, Cathy Chun states in “No Place Like Home: The US Foster Care System is Broken” that “This national crisis in the search for foster parents stems from inadequate training and a lack of support that drive approximately half of all foster parents to quit fostering children after their first year.” This conveys how the lack of foster parents can cause fewer children to have a home to go to, causing them to be placed in a group home or institute. Lastly, according to the article “Foster Care: How We Can, and Should, Do More for Maltreated Children,” “As the dozens of active class action lawsuits against state foster care systems demonstrate, too many children in foster care are deprived of the safety, stability, and connectedness of family life.” This exhibits how the safety of children in foster is not guaranteed. Consequently, not advocating for the mental health of foster children causes a problem in the mental health of the child. These three resources have illustrated the mistakes that foster care makes that impact a child negatively.
The Children’s Bureau in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) needs to include counseling or therapy in every foster care institute to address the negative outcomes of foster care. According to the article “Improving the Lives of Foster Children through Evidence-Based Interventions,” “This intervention includes intensive training and ongoing support to foster carers through daily telephone contact and weekly support group meetings. Youth receive individual services to facilitate skill development and self-regulation.” This conveys how the US believes it’s important to provide people in foster care with ways to cope with their feelings. The article also states, “Several programs have been developed to address these specific needs; the programs either have an established evidence base or are in the process of developing such a base.” In other words, these programs can make a difference.
The mental health of children in foster care is important, partly because we don’t want to see more people struggling with homelessness or drug abuse, but also because we don’t want children to be maltreated. Therefore, the Children’s Bureau in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) must include therapy or counseling in every foster care institute. Foster care children should be treated like they have a future in life.
