What occurs to the thousands of children that do not have a suitable guardian? What happens when a child is left neglected and alone? Where do children resort to when they have no family to care for them? The answer to these questions: foster care. Established over the last century, foster care is a program created in order to provide protection for children and adolescents that either do not have a guardian or are abused, neglected, and/or imminent safety concerns. Foster care strives to provide health care, shelter, and safety to those who qualify to enter the program, while attempting to arrange an “alternative permanency  (adoption, guardianship, placement with relatives, or independent living)” for the estimated 437,465 minors in the program. Despite having been established with good intentions, the foster care system today is often unable to appropriately care for the majority of its children, only providing the basic necessities of life. In consequence, children placed in the system often face various psychological and behavioral challenges that eventually hinder their abilities to mature into an appropriate adult-lifestyle.

Psychological Effects of Foster Care
Children dealing with the neglect of their biological parents often suffer from various psychological challenges that often negatively affect the future of these individuals. A study done by the National Council for Adoption in 2016, states that parental drug abuse is the reason 92,107 children were neglected and removed from their households, and an estimated 166,679 children entered foster care due to neglect (“Stats”). Additionally, according to the Child Welfare Information Gateway, “the percentage of child abuse and neglect victims with the caregiver alcohol misuse risk factor increased from 10.6% to 12.1% from 2015-2017” (“Child”). The mental help necessary to aid a child victim of neglect is not provided sufficiently for the thousands of children left to be taken into care with no choice. The social behaviors and mental challenges that neglected children face eventually create a path of instability for those individuals that age out of foster care.

Consistent moving, another aspect of foster care that causes various mental challenges for those in the program, directly affects the learning and social life of each child’s life, minimizing the potential of success that a child in care has to begin with. Highlighting the issues of foster kids ongoing move from foster home to foster home, Jessica Lahey,  an author for the Atlantic, claims that on average a child can move from alternate foster homes once or twice annually and “by the time they age out of the system, over one third will have experienced five or more school moves.” This resulting in foster children losing an estimated “four to six months of academic progress per move” (Lahey). Because of the challenges faced academically caused by consistent movement of homes,  completing high school is much more difficult for children in care. Lahey strengthens her argument of the negative consequences of moving by stating that hundreds of thousands of foster care children finish high school at much lower rates than those who are not in care. The author of Atlantic shares how “decreasing the number of school moves for students in the program could raise the graduation rate of foster care children. Additionally, according to Wendy Wisner, one who experienced repeated movement throughout her life, A 2010 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology came to similar conclusions. Focusing on the long-term effects of constant moving, the study exemplifies that adults who had dealt with moving from home to home are “more likely they were to report feelings of unhappiness and dissatisfaction, as well as fewer quality social relationships overall — and this was even after controlling for factors such as age, gender, and education level” (“The Emotional”). Although the study was not solely focused on foster care children, it demonstrates the toll that moving has on children. However, despite the large impact consistent movement has on the thousands of children in the program, it is not the child welfare workers main priority. A journal focusing on foster care and School Mobility shares:

Caseworkers also share the burden of miscommunication. Many may be so focused on delivering the most basic services to foster parents and biological parents, such as arranging parental visitation meetings and investigating foster homes, that they are unable to monitor children school transfers and other education needs. Caseworkers also tend to have heavy caseloads that force them to prioritize health and safety over education. (Conger)

The basic necessities of the children are prioritized first and foremost, meaning that despite education playing a large factor of possible success for a child’s future, that issues dealing with situations such as repeated moving are often times neglected.

II. Post-Foster Care Trends

Recently, numerous reports on homelessness and crime rate of individuals who were in the system have demonstrated the patterns of the life of children who have aged out of foster care; These trends display the consequences of only prioritizing basic necessities in the lives of these children. Homelessness is a trend seen throughout thousands of children who age out of the U.S. foster care system because the system fails to provide the proper care to guide these individuals to a path where they could provide for themselves in the future. In fact, an informational done by the National Foster Youth Institute shows that “more than 23,000 children age out of the U.S. foster care system every year. After reaching the age of 18, 20% of the children who were in foster care will become instantly homeless.” Automatically, around 5,000 individuals are left without anywhere to go, and only 50% of those 23,000 individuals will have some sort of employment by the age of twenty-four (“51 Useful”). However, of the remaining 80% of children who age out of foster care that do not automatically become homeless, a large majority of them end up in homeless shelters. Supporting this, Homeward Bound, a local nonprofit department of homelessness and supporting housing, serve over 3,000 clients yearly and of them 65% have been in the foster care system. Homelessness is a pattern of life seen throughout a large amount of aged-out foster care individuals and is most often caused by the lack of education for a stable job, substance abuse, and/or mental deficits. Eliminating the causing factors of this common trend throughout those in the system can ultimately help thousands of children acquire the skills they need to have a stable future. The lack of care in areas, such as the mental impact of constant movement from foster home to foster home and the outcomes of being placed in group homes, for these foster children ultimately contribute to the downfall of thousands of children once they pass the age of 18. The multiple psychological issues that are caused because of the lack of prioritizing mental health more can be to blame for the various trends of little success seen throughout aged foster care individuals.

III. Health Care Provided

Yet with the given information provided, it is easy to disregard the benefits the program provides. Without the foster care system,  the 437,465 children in the program would all have no place to go. Though the system prioritizes the basic necessities of these children, it does provide shelter, food, and water. One can argue that the program does provide mental help for the children in foster care. As reported by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, due to the increased mental health issues of children in the program, “foster youth are prescribed psychotropic medications at much higher rates than non-foster youth, costing the state, through fee-for-service programs such as Medicaid, millions of dollars annually.” Yet, despite the supply of prescription, the American Academy of Pediatrics still claims mental and behavioral health is still “the greatest unmet health need for children and teens in foster care” (“Mental”). Additionally, the U.S. Government Accountability Office states that the main factors of contributing to mental health issues are the “inconsistent and inadequate access to mental health services and the over-prescription of psychotropic medications” (“Mental”). Thus, despite the efforts, the care supplied is a factor contributing to continued trends of mental health issues, which proves the insufficiency of the provided mental and behavioral health care for those in foster care. The trends of individuals after foster care, such as homelessness and illegal offenses, are directly correlated to their mental instability as children.

IV. What Should Be Done

Unfortunately, the psychological issues that foster children deal with are far too complex to solely blame on the largest contributor: the system itself. However, greater efforts in helping these thousands of children must be made. If the provided programs do not alter their ways of only prioritizing basic necessities for children that have been abused and neglected, then change must start with the countless communities that these children consist of. The first step that must be made in order to help these individuals is raising awareness. With the increasing number of users of technology,  utilizing platforms, such as social media, is the most efficient way to notify the citizens of the United States what foster children deal with. As reported by Edward Kessler, in January 2011, there was an estimated 71.5 million mobile phone users and over 800 million active Facebook users (“Social Media”). In order to take advantage of these numbers, raising awareness to better the foster care system because of the lack prioritizing education and elements that contribute to mental and behavioral issues can ultimately change thousands of lives for the better.