The Foster Care System

Joseph Darr

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There are currently over 407,000 kids in the foster care system nationwide. There are many reasons for kids to be placed in foster care. The main reasons are because they are being abused, neglected, or their parents just can’t take care of them. I got put into foster care because my parents were abusive and very neglectful. Being in the foster care system is not easy. There are a lot of things that we have to deal with and go through. I’ve been in foster care for 1 year and 2 months. A lot of the kids that have gone through foster care have spent a lot of time in group homes and facilities. Most of the group homes and facilities offer therapy for trauma and related reasons as to why they were put into foster care.

When people foster kids they don’t necessarily look for a teenage kid especially if they are between the ages of 15 and 18. The reason for this is that we are so close to aging out of foster care and the system and we also don’t “warm up” to the new environment as quickly as younger kids. When someone fosters kids, they want to watch them grow up. Not all foster parents are like this but a lot are. I didn’t have to have to go through that. I had a family member step up and go through all the classes and everything that a foster parent has to go through to foster.

I have a lot of people ask me why I tell people that I’m in foster care. I tell them it’s because I see it as a good thing. While being in the foster care system, I’ve learned a lot of things. I’ve learned to handle my anger a lot better, I’ve learned good boundaries that I didn't have before, and the most important thing that I learned was how to speak for myself and how to get my point across without being aggressive.

A lot of people think that kids who come out of foster care and all the places they’ve been aren’t going to use anything that they learned while being there. While it may be true for some kids, it’s not the case with the majority of them. A lot of kids use what they learn because they don’t wanna go back to where they were. Unfortunately, many of the places where kids are placed aren’t always the best. Some places are good with keeping the kids under control, but a lot of the places just act as if they are babysitting us and they just let some kids do whatever they want. It gets so bad that when they finally try and do their jobs, they have to bring in extra staff to help calm kids down.

There are a lot of different stories about foster care and being in the system, and a lot of them are exaggerated and blown out of proportion. Be careful what you take from those stories, because not everything is as bad as it sounds.