In today’s world, we know that children will eventually grow up and become the new leaders of the world. They can become positive leaders and role models to make the world a better place to live in. They also can lead others to acts of selfishness and slowly destroy the hopes and dreams of others. Children need to be exposed to positive influences at an early age, if not, then all they will learn is how to hurt and not help others. This usually can be accomplished in a family with loving and caring parents who can be supportive as the child grows up. Not all family environments are loving and supportive; especially if the child is not brought up by their real parents. Foster care tries to help children grow up in a loving environment that cannot be accomplished with the child’s birth parents. When we look at foster care in us, are children being exposed to the positive influences needed to lead us to a new beginning or to our worlds end?

Foster care in us is a concern that it seems people are not aware of. Some look at people involved in foster care as noble and good hearted people. Others look at it as a way for people to make money off of the government. The concept is a child is put into a home because there is no capable relative to care for the child. The government agencies that deal with placement find a home that should provide a loving and nurturing environment for the child. In some cases, the child does have a positive environment and a chance to succeed. In other cases, the environment turns out to be a negative influence where there may be instances of abuse or denial of the opportunity to live a good life. It is easy to look at statistics and say the good success stories out weigh the bad ones. However, for the children involved the those bad stories, it is only a matter of time before their bad experiences end up affecting society as a whole.

It is understandable that every family has some sort of issues that can lead to disruptions. This can cause to have a temporary negative impact on the child, or can lead to permanent issues that will ultimately send the child down the wrong road. There tends to be more situations of negative impacts where the parent(s) are not the child’s’s true birth parents. As the child gets older, more lashing out can occur where he/she might say,”Your not my real parent!” These experiences happen with adoptive parents and in foster care families. In looking at foster care in us, we, as a society, have to wonder if the system is working or needs to be fixed. There has been too many stories in the media of young adults committing crimes that are blamed on having a poor upbringing. If the foster care provided is not loving or nurturing, it is no wonder the child does not know right from wrong and looks elsewhere for guidance. So how do we know then if foster care is working and what can we do about it?

Foster care in us has come under fire recently. There have been more reports of children not receiving the proper care that they should get. What makes matters worse is the lack of care is not being discovered until it is too late. It does not help the child when the lack of care has been going on for years. For most, the damage is done and the child will never be able to recover to some sort of normalcy. A system needs to be enforced where the foster family is checked to see if it is successful for the child. Though a system is already in place, it is obvious it is not working. More funding or help needs to be placed if the system is to work properly. Potential parents need to be screened more throughly and not just given a child, where their true goal is to receive money and benefits from the government. If changes are not made to this system, more and more children will have the potential to be exposed to negative circumstances; thus scaring the life of the child.

Foster care in the us started out to be a positive tool in helping children in need. People would agree to raise a child in a loving and caring family environment, while the government would help with costs and benefits in raising the child. The problem is that the system is flawed. More and more cases are coming to light on how the positive environment is actually a negative one. The child grows into a young adult, denied a nurturing family life that causes harm to him and eventually harm to others. It is a system that is meant to do good things and can, so long as it is maintained properly. Potential families need to be screened more throughly and evaluated more frequently as well. Everything must be done to make sure the child is given every chance possible to grow up in a positive environment. We do want the children to lead us into a positive future. If things do not change, the future they will lead us into will be anything but a happy one.