The lack of foster families is one of the major precursors to social, economic, and political challenges plaguing America today. Foster families are longstanding pillars that promote social cohesion and improve the welfare of total and half-orphans or impoverished families that lack the means of providing the essential requisites to their children. Foster families are home parents that provide care and support to placement children who have experienced violence, neglect, or the death of parents in their primary homes. The number of children who need foster care and support has recently grown due to an increase in families that abandon or victimize their children. Besides, the rate of parents incarcerated or dying, leaving their children without supportive care, has increased, prompting the need for additional foster parents. Foster families have also been reluctant to house foster children due to economic burdens, limited knowledge of foster education, and lengthy legal requirements needed to care for foster children. Hence, the lack of foster families has become a significant problem in the United States due to the increased number of children requiring immediate care and support from foster homes, inflation, epidemics, and inappropriate laws that guide foster care and foster families.
The lack of foster families to care for and support foster children has become a hectic problem due to the limited number of families willing to house foster children. In the recent past, parents across different states in the United States have become unwilling to care for foster children. Notably, the west coast of California, Georgia, and Tennessee states have recorded low levels of families willing to care for and support foster children (Raynor, 2021). Similarly, the number of children that sleep in welfare offices has significantly increased due to a reduction in the number of families willing to register and adopt foster children. For instance, in Indiana, the number of foster children sleeping on the streets has swollen beyond the required figures, prompting the welfare agency to create and house foster children in their operational offices.
The recent increase in the number of foster children is the salient cause of the reduced number of foster families. Recently, the number of children requiring foster care has significantly escalated to uncontrolled levels. The high rate of foster children lacking foster families is attributed to reduced morbidities and morbidities necessitated by advanced healthcare support for children (Jackson et al., 2019). Reduced child morbidities have increased the overall population and the number of toddlers requiring foster care and support. On the same token increase in child abuse, violence, and neglect has escalated the number of children that require foster care and support. The number of children that need foster care has increased to uncontrolled levels, creating a massive scarcity in the number of foster families willing to support and care for foster children.
The rise in parents resorting to intoxication is another crucial cause of reduced foster families to support and care for foster children. Most low-class parents face a substantial economic burden due to the limited means of income needed to provide for their families. The proletariats face increased stress levels and depression for failure to support and care for their siblings. The number of parents with limited educational skills that restricts them from landing well-paying employment has risen due to the high cost of education. Such parents resort to the intoxication of drugs to relieve themselves from the bitter realities of failing to support and care for their families. Statistically, most parents abuse cocaine, heroin, and over-the-counter prescriptions, which causes them intoxication to forget about their low-income levels and failure to support their families (Testa & Nancy, 2018). As such, the number of children requiring foster care has increased to levels surpassing welfare organizations’ capabilities. Resonantly, the number of foster children that need to be incorporated into foster families to give them support and care is beyond the estimated figures o foster parents.
The lack of foster families to care for and support foster children is also attributed to unprecedented inflation rates. The recent eruption of the covid-19 pandemic has had lasting economic consequences on incomes among low-income families (Miller et al., 2020). Parents from low-income and middle-class families lost employment following the government’s restriction measures to prevent the virus’s spread. When the government imposed lockdown restrictions that banned social contact with the public, most businesses plunged into financial losses due to reduced business activities. Most businesses closed, and others cut the number of employees following a change from manual to online business operations (Miller et al., 2020). As such, most people lost their employment and exhausted their savings. However, landing new jobs has been unsuccessful for most parents who lost their source of income amidst the pandemic. The virus also increased the demand for basic commodities because of limited production amidst the lockdown restrictions. As such, inflation waned the purchasing power of most low-income families, which led to increased violence and victimization of children. Parents who faced immense stress levels reverted their depression into victimizing their children. Besides, some families failed to provide the basic needs for the children, which increased the number of foster children. Hence, foster families available to care for and support foster children remained law due to the increase in the number of children that needed out-of-home care and support.
Increased imprisonment of primary parents is another crucial cause of limited foster families. Crime rates have increased immensely following the rapid inflation of food commodities and limited means of legitimate sources of income. Limited opportunities for employment and the high cost of living prompt semi-skilled parents from low-income families to raise money through illegal means (Gleeson, 2018). For instance, parents resort to robbery, mugging, shoplifting, and other criminal activities to raise income and feed their families. In the process, the criminal justice system arrest and apprehend known perpetrators to serve lengthy prison sentences, leaving many children that require care in a foster family. As such, the number of children that require foster care surpasses the number of foster families available to care for and support them. Hence, high incarceration rates have led to a lack of foster families in the United States.
Lengthy procedural frameworks to register as a foster parent disorients many families from assuming foster care responsibilities. The law requires families willing to register as foster parents to meet specific legal requirements. The process of registering as a foster family is lengthy. Notably, people willing to enroll as foster parents are required to obtain a license, given after a rigorous assessment of the foster homes (Gleeson, 2018). The licensure process varies from one state to another. However, specific steps are similar in every state. Most states require parents to complete a home study, attend foster care classes, and ensure their homes comply with the licensure standards. The rigorous assessment processes of determining health, financial stability, and familial relationships are tiresome and time-consuming to some parents willing to house foster children. As such, parents need more clarification about registering as foster families due to lengthy procedural requirements.
Increased victimization is the major setback linked to a lack of foster families. Foster families remove children from their primary homes and raise them away from primary parents due to neglect, victimization, and the inability of biological parents to provide their children with essential requisites. However, when foster families are unavailable, children who neglect safe and victimization by their parents are not given new, safe, and conducive environments to continue their education or encourage their reunion with their biological parents (Zeanah & Humphreys, 2018). Children face unprecedented abuse, victimization, violence, and neglect at the hands of biological parents because foster families, which give them a safe environment, are unavailable. Foster children are bitten, undergo depression when one of the parents victimizes the other, and develop antisocial behavior because they internalize victimization, which makes them fear interacting correctly with other people and establishing cohesive relationships. Hence, the lack of foster families increases the victimization rate of children that require foster care and support.
High delinquent behavior is another critical consequence of a lack of foster families. When foster families become limited, children continue falling victim to violence, neglect, and abuse from biological parents. Besides, when children face intricate levels of violence, they become mentally distorted and insensitive. Such children develop low self-esteem, self-worth, self-confidence, and an inferiority complex (Testa & Nancy, 2018). Resultantly, children raised in violent families resort to crimes such as murder and robbery to regain confidence and increase their self-worth. More so, children raised by a violent family have the potential to develop into chronic offenders in their adult life. Such people have high recidivism rates, commit crimes, and victimize many innocent individuals before incapacitating. Hence, the lack of foster families creates a high rate of societal insecurity posed by children who are left to face violence, victimization, and neglect from their biological parents.
Intoxication and drug tracking are other crucial consequences of the lack of foster families. Prolonged physical and psychological abuse of children causes them to develop stress and depression. Besides, when neglected children are given a conducive environment through foster parenting, they lack education that grants them opportunities to land well-paying employment. Such toddlers join subcultures of delinquency and advance the group’s mandate of advancing criminal behavior (Raynor, 2021). On the same token, children who face high levels of victimization abuse drugs to relieve themselves from the harsh realities of the past. Similarly, poor levels of education leave young adults with limited avenues to raising income. Such people engage in drug trafficking businesses, which they find well-paying.
Conclusively, the lack of foster families has lasting consequences for the society and nation in the United States. A limited number of foster families willing to provide care and support to foster children is attributed to the high number of foster children, the unwillingness of parents to register as foster families, inflation, epidemics, and lengthy processes of licensing as a foster family. Children who lack foster care and support develop low self-esteem, self-worth, and self-confidence. Such children seek self-confidence through delinquent behavior, adult crime, and intoxication. More so, some children who lack means of livelihood resort to drug trafficking to finance their essential requisites. Thus, the lack of foster families in the United States erodes social cohesion and increases crime rates, drug abuse, and drug trafficking.
References
Gleeson, J. P. (2018). Completing the evaluation triangle for the next century: Measuring child “well-being” in family foster care. Family foster care in the next century (pp. 125–148). Routledge. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781351320481-8/completing-evaluation-triangle-next-century-altshuler-sandra-james-gleeson
Jackson, S. M., Colvin, A. D., & Bullock, A. N. (2019). Strategies to address mental health challenges of foster youth transitioning to college. Best Practices in Mental Health, 15(1), 20–31. https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/follmer/bpmh/2019/00000015/00000001/art00004
Miller, J. J., Cooley, M. E., & Mihalec-Adkins, B. P. (2020). Examining the impact of COVID-19 on parental stress: A study of foster parents. Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal, pp. 1–10. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10560-020-00725-w
Raynor, L. (2021). The adopted child comes of age. Routledge. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003202844/adopted-child-comes-age-lois-raynor
Testa, M. F., & Nancy, R. (2018). Professional foster care: A future worth pursuing? In Family foster care in the next century (pp. 107–124). Routledge. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781351320481-7/professional-foster-care-mark-testa-rolock-nancy
Zeanah, C. H., & Humphreys, K. L. (2018). Child abuse and neglect. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 57(9), 637–644. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0890856718303332
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