Foster care
Children in foster care have a high rate of ill health, particularly psychiatric conditions such as anxiety, depression, and eating disorders.
At the same time, local NGOs like "Children In Families"[6] began offering limited foster care services within the country.
[10] Around 1895 the foster care program became more like the system used in the United States because the Tokyo Metropolitan Police sent children to a hospital where they would be "settled".
[12][13] In the United Kingdom, foster care and adoption has always been an option, "in the sense of taking other people's children into their homes and looking after them on a permanent or temporary basis."
[14] In the United States, foster care started as a result of the efforts of Charles Loring Brace, who founded the Children's Aid Society.
Especially egregious failures of child protective services often serve as a catalyst for increased removal of children from the homes of biological parents.
[39] A higher prevalence of physical, psychological, cognitive and epigenetic disorders for children in foster care has been established in studies in various countries.
Individuals who were in foster care experience higher rates of physical and psychiatric morbidity than the general population and suffer from not being able to trust and that can lead to placements breaking down.
This is considered a reliable resource for establishing if a child has developed post traumatic stress disorder due to physical, sexual, or mental abuse.
In a study done in the United Kingdom, 35% of foster children experienced an increase in Body Mass Index (BMI) once in care.
It is hypothesized that this syndrome is triggered by the stress and maltreatment foster children are subjected to, it was prevalent amongst 25 percent of the study group in New Zealand.
[66] A Swedish study utilizing the data of almost one million people including 22,305 former foster children who had been in care prior to their teens, concluded: Former child welfare clients were in year of birth and sex standardised risk ratios (RRs) four to five times more likely than peers in the general population to have been hospitalised for suicide attempts....Individuals who had been in long-term foster care tended to have the most dismal outcome...former child welfare/protection clients should be considered a high-risk group for suicide attempts and severe psychiatric morbidity.
[68] A study conducted in Finland among current and former foster children up to age 24 found a higher mortality rate due to substance abuse, accidents, suicide and illness.
The deaths due to illness were attributed to an increased incidence of acute and chronic medical conditions and developmental delays among children in foster care.
[69] Georgia Senator Nancy Schaefer published a report "The Corrupt Business of Child Protective Services"[70] stating: The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect in 1998 reported that six times as many children died in foster care than in the general public and that once removed to official "safety", these children are far more likely to suffer abuse, including sexual molestation than in the general population.
[74] Many studies have shown that there are a few factors that have seemingly played a role in the success of foster youth making it to and graduating from a college or university.
[73] At colleges across the nation, there are programs that are specifically put in place to help youth who have aged out of the foster care system and continued into higher education.
The study also showed that youth in foster care are frequently treated with concomitant psychotropic medication, for which sufficient evidence regarding safety and effectiveness is not available.
[77] Children in the child welfare system have often experienced significant and repeated traumas and having a background in foster homes—especially in instances of sexual abuse—can be the precipitating factor in a wide variety of psychological and cognitive deficits[78] it may also serve to obfuscate the true cause of underlying issues.
Preschoolers receive “a behavior-management approach and intensively trains, supervises, and supports foster caregivers to provide positive adult support and consistent limit setting” coupled with “coordinated interventions with the child’s biological parents.”[84] MTFC for adolescence consists of individual placement with an intensely trained foster family providing “coordinated interventions in the home, with peers, [and] in educational settings.”[84] MTFC has been shown to provide better results than group facilities[84] and proves to be more cost effective.
[86] Researchers have faced difficulty when it comes to accurately assessing what makes MTFC and other similar programs that involve multiple levels of intervention successful.
It seems to remain in a "black box" scenario where it is unsure what aspect of the treatment plan is actually producing positive effects.
[83][87] Multiple peer-reviewed research articles on foster care programs point out a lack of research effectively evaluating the outcomes of specific foster care programs,[4][88][83][85] calling for more complete assessments to be conducted in order to properly compare outcomes between treatment plans and evaluate what practices in MTFC are most effective.
Children may be placed into foster care for a variety of reasons; including, removal from the home by a governmental agency because of maltreatment.
[95] Youth who are aging out of foster care often face difficulties in transitioning into adulthood, especially in terms of finding stable housing, employment, finances, and educational opportunities.
[96] The suspected reason for these difficulties involves a lack of stability experienced while in the foster care system, and the reported abuse and/or neglect in their childhood, which may affect their ability to cope with significant life changes.
[96] In the United States, there are independent living programs designed with the intent to serve the needs of transitioning foster youth.
[96] However, youth aging out of foster care have indicated that these programs are failing to fully address the needs of young adults without familial assistance.
[96] Nearly half reported that they were unprepared for independent living and cited a lack of concrete needs such as safe housing, money and bus passes after aging out.
[96] In a study conducted by Gypen et al. (2017),[96] involving a cross-database analysis of research articles relevant to the outcomes of former foster youth, they found that the educational, mental health, employment, income, stable housing, criminal involvement and substance abuse issues outcomes for youth who have aged out of the foster care system are substantially poorer than their peers.
