All children do best when they live in safe, stable, and
nurturing families, yet far too many children lack this fundamental foundation.
Every year, millions of children are abused or neglected--close to 300,000 so
egregiously that they are removed from their homes by the state and placed in
foster care. This journal issue focuses on the challenges of helping children
after abuse and neglect has occurred by strengthening the web of supports for
children and families in foster care.
Public opinion polls reveal that the public is largely
uninformed about foster care, yet highly critical of the system. In a 2003 poll
of voters by the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care, most respondents were
generally unfamiliar with the child welfare system that administers foster
care, but more than 50% believed it needed major changes, if not a complete
overhaul. (1) These impressions are no doubt fueled by media accounts of tragic
incidents, such as the death of 2-year-old Brianna Blackmond in Washington,
D.C., two weeks after a judge returned her to her mother's custody without
reviewing the child welfare agency's report recommending that she not be
reunified; (2) or the inability of child welfare workers in Florida to find
5-year-old foster child Rilya Wilson and 500 others like her over the past
decade; (3) or reports of Brian Jackson, a 19-year-old adopted foster youth in
New Jersey who weighed only 45 pounds and was found rummaging through a garbage
can for food because he and his brothers were apparently being starved by their
adoptive parents. (4)
Media reports of system failures are tragic, heartbreaking,
and at times, chilling. In their wake, public calls to "do something"
about foster care are made, and changes in organizational leadership, policy,
and practice often follow. Yet policymaking in the aftermath of tragedy is
often over reactive and piecemeal. Effecting enduring change requires a
thoughtful understanding of the inherent challenges the child welfare system
faces on a daily basis
This journal issue examines the current state of the foster
care system and finds that it is really not a cohesive system but a combination
of many overlapping and interacting agencies, all charged with providing
services, financial support, or other assistance to children and their
families. Lack of coordination among agencies, chronic underfunding, and low
morale have led to a system that exacts a toll on everyone it touches. But so
do foster parents and the relatives who step in to care for children who cannot
remain with their birth parents; Too few of the players in the system have
adequate training for their responsibilities and, as a result, children and
families frequently do not receive the services and supports they need.
Instead, the child welfare system labors in an atmosphere of distrust,
impending failure, and reflexive, uniform solutions that rarely succeed for
anyone. Recent reforms have shifted some of the priorities within the system,
but much more needs to be done. This article discusses the major challenges
faced by the child welfare system and offers policy and practice
recommendations that can improve how children and families experience foster
care. …