Our children in foster care:

“CAUGHT UP IN A STORM WITHOUT A LIFE PRESERVER”

You won't see them very often in Riverdale or Forest Hills.   But in the neighborhoods most foster children come from, you'll find them on billboards, and subway ads: Pictures of smiling children, presumably overjoyed to be in foster care.

Don't believe it.

“My children weren't smiling when they went to foster care,” says parent Bernadette Blount.

Sometimes the children are not smiling because they were taken from safe homes, or homes that could have been made safe with the right kinds of help, only to face physical and sexual abuse in foster care itself.

Said one former foster child: “I know that there are good foster families out there, o.k.? But I also know that every foster kid that I have ever talked to, including myself, have been abused in foster homes. And I'm talking physically, emotionally and sexually.” [i]

Most foster parents try to do the best they can for the children in their care.   But the rate of abuse in New York City foster care is nearly double the rate in the city's general population. [ii]   And substantiation of abuse in foster care is likely to be artificially low.   In a class-action lawsuit against ACS, Children's Rights Inc. found that "Abuse or neglect by foster parents is not investigated because [agencies] tolerate behavior from foster parents which would be unacceptable by birth parents." [iii]  

Several studies from around the nation suggest that there is abuse in at least one in four foster homes. [iv]   Since many children are in more than one foster home, it's easy enough to estimate the odds.

But even when children suffer no physical or emotional abuse in foster care, they still suffer.   Just ask them.   When children say what they need most is to be back with their parents, often parents whose only crime was poverty or parents who have recovered from substance abuse – it sometimes seems that no one is listening.

Here is what some children would tell ACS if they had the chance:

From a letter written by Deseree to her mother:

“Today I am very sad because I'm so far from you. Mom, I'm not a grown woman but yet a grown teen. …

“It's hard being in foster care because it feels like I'm on my own without you. I have to take care of my sister which is a big sister's job, but it feels like we are living on our own with some strangers. I don't like foster care but appreciate every little single thing, but it is just hard being so far from your family.

“I want the whole world to know that there is a lot of children who want to be heard like me. ACS and the rest know that you've been clean but they act like they don't. But what is important is that God knows that you're doing good, and so do we.

“I only have one wish and that is to go home with you and the rest of my real family and I know that when my wish comes true, me and Destiny would be the happiest little people alive. … I want you to share this with everyone and let them know that I want to be heard. … All this pressure makes me feel like I'm a girl caught up in a storm without a life preserver.” [v]

From a letter by Shalanda to her mother:

“I would like my mother Paula Gordon to be recognized for her strength. She has achieved many goals. She has been drug-free four years and one month and received myself and my younger sister from foster care.

“A good mother is hard to find and thankfully God blessed me with a great one. … I'm not ashamed to say my mother is a recovering addict because she is now exactly who I want to be. She's like a mother to all the kids in the neighborhood. She is a strong, motivated, hard working, loving mother and I can never repay her for the life she has given me and she really deserves recognition for her effort and achievements. I love you Ma.” [vi]

From Foster Care Youth United (now Represent) the monthly publication by and for New York City's foster children:

“…[W]hile we in care sometimes feel like we're victims of our families and the foster care system, biological parents themselves sometimes feel like no one offered them the help they needed to take good care of us.   Some would have liked to receive preventive services such as counseling, drug treatment or financial help, to keep us in their homes.

“Sometimes it can be easier to have one person to blame for our being in care, like our parents, than to try to see that many factors may have contributed to our being placed in foster care.   It can be easier to conclude that our parents don't love us than to hear their regrets over losing us.   It may be heartbreaking to imagine that if our parents had received better housing or counseling or day care we might have kept on living with them.” [vii]

The ads from ACS are part of a campaign to recruit foster parents from the same neighborhoods that most foster children come from.   The idea is to place the foster child in his own neighborhood.   Yes, that's better than placing them in another borough.   But there is an option for many such children that is far better still: Don't take them away at all.

Because most children are not smiling when they go to foster care.

[i] Comment of former foster child Rose Garland on PBS Frontline/Fred Friendly Seminar “Failure to Protect: A National Dialogue, ” February 6, 2003.

[ii] According to the office of the New York City Public Advocate, Comments on the Five Year Anniversary of the Administration for Children's Services , May 2001, there were proportionately twice as many reports alleging maltreatment in foster care as in the general population.   The Public Advocate reports that in 2000, 27 percent of these reports were substantiated.   The substantiation rate for the general population that year was 37 percent, and it has since fallen to 33.6 percent (New York City Administration for Children's Services, ACS Update Annual Report, 2002, available online at http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/acs/pdf/update_5year.pdf )

[iii] Marisol A. v. Giuliani , Complaint, Paragraph 245, p. 75.

[iv] For citations see National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, Issue Paper#1 , Foster Care vs. Family Preservation: The Track Record on Safety , available online at http://www.nccpr.org/newissues/1.html

[v] Child Welfare Organizing Project By Parents For Parents , Issue #5, Winter, 2002.

[vi] Ibid.

[vii] “Whose Fault Is Foster Care? Foster teens meet with biological parents,” Foster Care Youth United , November/December 2001, p.27.