The System is Broken

I hear this phrase all the time. Hell, I use this phrase all the time. But what do I mean by it?

My short answer to people is always about overloaded and underpaid case workers, but there is so much more to it than that. It’s corrupt judges, state laws that discriminate against families with financial problems, lawyers in the field for the wrong reasons, sexual predators masquerading as foster parents, and a shit ton of prejudice against people of color and those living in poverty.

If you are interested in how all those sorts of factors play out in the lives of individual children and families? Boy do I have a book recommendation for you:

I won’t lie. It’s a hard book to get through because it’s heart breaking and a gut punch. It’s excellently researched and written by a very good journalist, and it exposes the mealy underbelly of our screwed up system. I listened to the audio book, and found myself yelling obscenities at my car stereo at one point. Most of it didn’t surprise me but even my jaded self was shaken by a few bits.

I have lots of feelings about being a part of a “system” that strips children from their parents. Most of the time I feel good about the fact that we have provided a safe and loving stopping place for kids who were going to be removed whether we were part of the system or not. I think on the whole we’ve made the system a tiny eensie bit better. Some few kids have made it out less scathed than they would have been in the majority of foster homes. And a few got us as advocates for their return home, which eventually worked out.

But. The damage this system does is undeniable.

My husband works with a woman who grew up in foster care. She speaks fondly of her final foster home, and will barely acknowledge the ones she stayed at before the last one because they were so traumatic. The woman she wound up with as a last stop before she aged out of care was “good” because she wasn’t abused there. But, she still talks about how she was fed different food than the woman’s biological children, and was never allowed to have snacks, because the foster mother was feeding the foster kids out of the stipend with cheap foods, and would save all the good stuff for her biological daughters. How screwed up is that? And that was her best foster home.

I know another young woman who was raised in foster care through her adolescence, and she lived in 13 homes total, and was sexually abused by either foster parents or fellow foster kids who weren’t adequately supervised in “eight or nine of those homes. I lost track.” That’s the majority of the homes she was in. She was also physically abused and emotionally abused and starved in various homes. She has nothing good to say about any of the thirteen homes she stayed in. She aged out of foster care as well. And as you might imagine, she struggles with maintaining healthy relationships with anyone as an adult.

Kiddo’s Mom was in foster care as a teen. She was badly abused. That’s all I’ll say on the subject.

I don’t know any adults who were in the foster care system who weren’t abused. Most sexually. That’s terrifying. We are removing kids from homes with some issues, and often putting them into situations that are worse than their home situation, but now without their families, and all while in government custody. It’s just not okay.

The statistics are scary for those who leave foster care. The damage this “broken” system does to children is staggering.

“A survey of foster care alumni showed that, by their 25th birthdays, 81 percent of males had been arrested, and 35 percent had been incarcerated.”

Shanta Trivedi, clinical teaching fellow at the Georgetown University Law Center

There is corruption at every level of this system, starting with police referrals to child protective services, up to and including a criminal justice system that does nothing to treat the PTSD and other mental illnesses that many, many former foster kids have.

So where do Seth and I fall in all this? Are we complicit in this system by being a part of it? Or are we working to change the system in the only way we’ve found to do so so far, by taking good care of a handful of kids unlucky enough to enter this system?

Arguably, both.

Now that we are not taking in new placements, I’ve got to start thinking about how else I’ll make a difference in this screwed up system. I have my hands full of kids still, but have some little bits of time to do more. I know a while ago I was signing petitions related to kinship care, and the ability of foster parents to obtain guardianship rather than just adopt and terminate birth parent rights. I’ve gotten away from such things in the general press of life, but should keep learning and watching for opportunities to shift the laws. If I find things others can join me in doing, I’ll try to share some things here.

And if you are interested in this journey my family has been on for the last 7 years and want to understand this post better, I urge you to pick up We Were Once a Family by Roxanna Asgarian. Understanding what’s broken and how is a start.