The Pros And Cons Of Foster Care

Foster care isn’t a perfect system but the government tries its best to make it work for the children. Foster children enter the system because of abuse or neglect from their families. Over six hundred seventy thousand children spent time in foster care in 2015. Dismally, teenagers are the hardest children to place with families in foster care (Beam, 2013). Permanent families usually want a young child rather than a teenager. While in foster care, nearly half of the children live in institutions or group homes rather than a private home. When these children age out of the system they usually become homeless (Beam, 2013). Unfortunately, while in foster care, children face daily struggles and are normally “worse off”. Many of them act out during
Nearly one-third of foster boys will go to jail before they reach the age of nineteen. On the other hand, foster girls are twice as likely to become pregnant than those girls who are not in foster care (Beam, 2013). As far as daily struggles, foster children are twice as likely as war veterans to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (Beam, 2013). Children are put in the system when they are abused or neglected by their biological families. These children get ripped away from their families and placed into a system where they go live with strangers. Foster children have no control over their live and this results in lack of confidence and insecurity. This can be very stressful for a foster child. They carry this stress for the rest of their lives and it’s important to remember that foster child are good kids in a bad situation (Lee, 2015). Many foster care children move into new schools often and are constantly changing environment. Emotional issues can form quickly and if not taken care of well it can lead to future emotional distress and damage to the child’s confidence and outlook on life. Fortunately, finding permanent families for foster children is much easier today than it was in the
John DeGarmo has been a foster parent for fourteen years and has foster over fifty children (DeGarmo, 2018). He has learned a lot from being a foster parent including how to raise his own children better. He has learned how to forgive more and love better. Fostering has created a sense of urgency for Dr. John DeGarmo. He says that foster care is hard work but says it is the most important job he has done (DeGarmo, 2018). He has been witnessed to many horror stories by the children that have come through his home. He had to learn how to forgive his foster child’s birth parents in order to empower himself and his children (DeGarmo, 2018). Since becoming a foster parent, DeGarmo feels as if he is a good citizen to his community and the world. Dr. John DeGarmo is now a consultant to legal firms and foster care agencies. He also speaks on many topics about the foster care system and is the author of many foster care books, including Faith and Foster Care: How We Impact God’s Kingdom (DeGarmo, 2018). Many people do not know much about foster care but there are a lot of facts and statistics that are important to