foster care

Definition

Foster care is full-time substitute care of children outside their own home by people other than their biological or adoptive parents or legal guardians.

Description

Children who are removed from their biological or adoptive parents, or other legal guardians, are placed in foster care in a variety of settings. They may be placed in the care of relatives other than the family members involved in the neglect or abuse (kin placement), non-relatives, therapeutic or treatment foster care, or in an institution or group home.

Children come to foster care for a number of reasons. In many cases, they have suffered physical or sexual abuse, or neglect at home, and are placed in a safe environment. A small percentage of children are in foster care because their parents feel unable to control them, and their behavior may have led to delinquency or fear of harm to others. Some children have been neglected by their parents or legal guardians, or have parents or legal guardians who are unable to take care of them because of substance abuse, incarceration, or mental health problems. These children are placed into custodial care while the parents or guardians receive treatment or counseling, or fulfill their sentences.

In all foster care cases, the child's biological or adoptive parents, or other legal guardians, temporarily give up legal custody of the child. (The guardian gives up custody, but not necessarily legal guardianship.) A child may be placed in foster care with the parents' consent. In a clear case of abuse or neglect, a court can order a child into foster care without the parents' or guardians' consent. Foster care does not necessarily mean care by strangers. If a government agency decides a child must be removed from the home, the child may be placed with relatives or with a family friend. Children may also be placed in a group home, where several foster children live together with a staff of caregivers. Therapeutic or treatment foster care can be in a group home or foster home with a specific structure and treatment focus. Foster homes are the most well-known option. The child temporarily becomes a part of another family, either with other foster children, the family's biological or adoptive children, or alone. State or county social service agencies oversee foster care decisions, although they may also work with private foundations.

Foster parents must be licensed by the agency that handles a specific region's foster care. The foster home must pass an inspection for health and safety and, in most states, the parents must attend training sessions covering issues of x how to deal with problems. When a child is placed, the foster family takes responsibility for feeding and clothing the child, getting the child to school and to appointments, and doing any of the usual things a child's parents or legal guardians might be called to do. The foster parents might also need to meet with the foster child's therapist and will meet regularly with the child's caseworker as well. The foster parent aims to help the foster child develop normally in a safe, family environment.

Foster parents usually receive money for taking in foster children. They are expected to use the money to buy the child's food, clothing, school supplies, and other incidentals. Most of the foster parent's responsibilities toward the foster child are clearly defined in a legal contract. Foster parents do not become the guardians of foster children; legal guardianship remains with the state agency.

Foster placements may last for a single day or several weeks; some continue for years. If the parents give up their rights permanently, or their rights to their child are severed by the court, the foster family may adopt the foster child or the child may be placed for adoption by strangers. Foster parenting is meant to be an in-between stage, while a permanent placement for the child is settled. As such, it is stressful and uncertain, but for many families very necessary.

Federal money supports most foster care programs, and federal law governs foster care policy. The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Reform Act of 1980 emphasizes two aims of foster care. One is to preserve the child's family, if at all possible. Children are placed in foster care only after other options have failed, and social service agencies work with the family to resolve its problems so that children can return to their homes. The second aim of the Child Welfare Reform Act is to support the so-called "permanency planning." This means that if a child must be removed from the home, the social service agency handling the case can decide quickly whether or not the child will ever be returned. If it seems likely that parents will not be able to care for their children again, their parental rights may be terminated so that the child is free to be adopted. This policy is articulated in this law in order to prevent children from living too long in an unstable and uncertain situation.

The goal of foster care is the care of the child within the child welfare system, but also is to place all appropriate and available services at the disposal of the parents so that they can create a safe, fit home environment for their children when they are reunited. Children in the child welfare system are also overseen by a multitude of agencies. The caseworker from the state or county social services agency oversees the child's placement and makes regular reports to the court. Others involved in the child's case are private service providers (including foster homes and group homes), welfare agencies, mental health counselors, substance abuse treatment centers (for the child or the parent), and Medicaid (federal medical insurance for seniors and children at risk).

Demographics

In 1980, about 300,000 children in the United States spent some time in foster care placement. By 2001, there were nearly 800,000 children in foster care, with 540,000 children in the system at any given time. The majority of these children were the victims of abuse. The emergence of widespread homelessness, substance abuse (especially crack and methamphetamines), unemployment, increased incarceration rates, street violence, and HIV/AIDS have all impacted poor communities. Children from families with multiple problems flooded the child welfare system. Young children with physical handicaps, mental delays or mental illness, and complex medical conditions have become the fastest-growing foster care population.

The foster care population is quite young. About one-fourth of all children entering foster care for the first time are infants. Sixty percent of foster children are under four years old. Teenagers comprise one-third of the foster care population. Minority children comprise most of the foster care population, with the largest groups being African American and American Indian children.

Poor children are more likely to be in foster care than middle-class children because their families have fewer resources. Illness or loss of a job may be devastating to a poor family with no savings and no relatives who can afford to assist them. These children are also more likely to stay in foster care longer or to have been in foster care since infancy. Also, children of alcoholics or drug abusers are at high risk for neglect or abuse, and comprise 75 percent of all placements.

More than half (57 percent) of all children in foster care are returned to their original homes; however, reunification rates have declined in the 1990s and early twenty-first century. Children also spend more time in the system. The average length of stay for a child in foster care is 33 months. However, some spend a very short time in a foster home, and others are there for their entire childhoods, "aging out" at 18 when they become legal adults.

Instead of reunification, more children are being adopted from foster care. Most states doubled, and some tripled, the number of foster care adoptions since 1997. This steady increase is a response to the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) of 1997 that recommends termination of parental rights and encourages adoption if a child has been in foster care for 15 out of the previous 22 months. This can be waived by the court if the parents are making substantive progress or the caseworker believes that legal guardianship, but not adoption, is in the child's best interests.

Half of all children in foster care live with nonrelative foster caregivers; about one-fourth live with relatives, and this number is growing. ASFA also recognized kinship caregivers as legitimate placements. It was customary for many poor families to take in a child informally when the child's parents or legal guardians were incarcerated, in treatment, or had died, but ASFA allowed relatives to take care of a child legally and receive financial help, and also opened the doors to a number of agencies and services the relatives could not afford.

Common Problems

In most cases, children placed in foster care have been subjected to some form of abuse or neglect, and being removed from familiar surroundings is, in itself, usually highly traumatic. Children in foster care may have nightmares, problems sleeping or eating, and may be depressed, angry, and confused. Many young children in foster care are unable to understand why they have been taken from their parents. Even if a child is in some sense relieved to be out of a home that was dangerous, the child may still miss the parents or legal guardians, and may imagine that there is something he or she must do to get back to them. There is evidence that children from abusive and neglectful homes start to feel better in foster care; however, separation is almost always difficult for children, regardless of the circumstances.

Half of all foster children spend as much as two years in foster care and are moved from placement to placement at least three times. This leads not only to uncertainty and lack of stability in the child's life, but some of these placements may be inappropriate for the child's specific circumstances. This often is due to the lack of qualified, licensed foster caregivers, but it can also occur as a result of inexperienced or overloaded caseworkers trying to get through their caseloads.

Foster care can be difficult for foster parents as well. A child who has been neglected or abused suffers psychological damage that may make him or her withdrawn, immature, aggressive, or otherwise difficult to reach. Children with severe medical and mental problems can tax caregivers. Foster placements sometimes fail because these surrogate parents simply cannot handle the demands of a troubled foster child.

Unfortunately, the number of foster caregivers has been declining since the mid-1980s as the demand for placements has increased. States have responded by licensing responsible adults who were not married (even divorced men and women) and reaching out to seniors and children's relatives. In some areas, single mothers make up a large proportion of foster parents.

In 2002, about 405,000 children were placed in court-appointed kinship care. Caseworkers placed almost 140,000 more in the care of relatives, without court intervention. Many of these kinship caregivers are grandparents or elderly aunts and uncles. Kinship caregivers offer family support and stability, and more frequent contact with parents or legal guardians, and siblings. They also are more apt to get children to talk to them about their problems, and the presence of relatives can help ease the trauma of separation from parents.

Nevertheless, kinship caregivers, especially grandparents, face a number of challenges. Most of the formal and informal kinship caregivers experience economic hardship as they take in one or more of their relative's children. Nearly two-thirds of these placements are with financially strapped families who may not have essentials such as a car seat, crib, or toys. They also may not have adequate medical insurance; however, Medicaid often will cover the foster child in a formal kinship arrangement. Grandparents may not know how to raise a child in today's world, with the amount of freedoms or lack of them that children experience today. They may not be able to help their foster children with homework. Many social service agencies offer counseling, homework help, and even home tutoring for both the child and caregiver.

One other problem inherent in the child welfare system is the teenager who "ages out," or turns 18 and moves out of foster care to live independently. Many teenagers mark time within the system, without adequate preparation for the transition to adulthood. Less than one-fourth of social service agencies provide employment services for teenagers. Only 17 percent provide employment and career assessments, and 16 percent provide job-training. One-fourth offer vocational training. Without help, these teenagers often never go on to college, do not find good jobs if they find jobs at all, and become prey to bad influences on the street. If they have children of their own, these offspring fall back into the child welfare system just as they did. Adequate training, counseling, and preparation can break this cycle.

In addition, children in all types of foster care face more challenges financially, emotionally, and developmentally. A study by the Child Welfare League of America in 2004 showed that children in foster care experienced more health and developmental problems than children who had similar economic circumstances but lived with their parents or legal guardians. Foster children also have more neglect, abuse, family dysfunction, poverty, and emotional problems. This may be a direct result of the reasons for their initial placement, but these conditions continue throughout foster care. Another reason for these results may be that foster children are given more frequent and thorough medical and psychological care than their counterparts.

Parental Concerns

Other foster care placements are made by families who cannot afford medical or psychological services for their children. These children may have multiple disabilities or severe social or mental disorders that have depleted the family's financial and emotional resources. Convinced by social workers that this option is the only one available to them, they give up their parental rights in order to get their children into proper treatment. According to the U.S General Accounting Office, 12,700 children were placed into the child welfare system or the juvenile justice system to receive mental health services in 2001. Despite the noble reasons for placing these children in foster care, the parents' names are placed on state registries as child abusers, and they have to petition the court and prove their fitness to get their children returned to their homes.

See also Child abuse.

Resources

Books

Davies, Nancy Millichap. Foster Care. NY: Franklin Watts, 1994.

Periodicals

Bass, Sandra, et al. "Children, Families, and Foster Care: Analysis and Recommendations." The Future of Children. 14, no. 1 (Winter 2004): 4–30.

Hansen, Robin L., et al. "Comparing the Health Status of Low-Income Children in and out of Foster Care." Child Welfare 83, no. 4 (July-August 2004): 367–81.

The David and Lucile Packard Foundation. "Children, Families, and Foster Care: Analysis." (Executive Summary) The Future of Children 14, no. 1 (Winter 2004): S1.

Organizations

Foster Care Children. 507 North Sullivan Road Suite A-6. Spokane Valley, WA 99037. (509) 924-3175. Web site: www.fostercarechildren.com.

Web Sites

Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care. Available online at: .

[Article by: Janie Franz A. Woodward]

Approximately three million reports of child maltreatment (physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, and abandonment) come to the attention of public child welfare agencies in the United States every year. Hundreds of thousands of these reports are considered serious enough to be investigated, and about one-third are substantiated or proven. Of the cases that are substantiated, approximately 175,000 to 200,000 are placed into foster care.

Health care professionals refer to foster care as the temporary out-of-home placement for abused and neglected children. Typically, such placements are made in the homes of families specifically recruited and trained to care for troubled children or, increasingly, in the homes of relatives. However, about 20 percent of these children are placed in group homes or residential treatment centers. The placements are supposed to be for as short a period of time as possible, with the primary goal being to return the child to his or her birth parent or parents as soon as it is safe to do so. If the child cannot be returned home within a reasonable period of time, other permanent plans must be made for him or her, particularly adoption.

In the United States, foster care programs are usually administered and delivered by state and local public child welfare agencies. However, public child welfare agencies often contract with private not-for-profit and, to a much lesser extent, private for-profit organizations to provide foster care services.

Although public child welfare agencies are creatures of state governments, the federal government has played an increasingly larger role in child welfare. For example, federal laws have been enacted that provide fiscal incentives to states, in order to encourage them to adopt certain child welfare policies and practices. Also, the federal government has made available increasing amounts of funding, usually on a matching basis, for foster care and adoptions services. In addition, the federal government collects, archives, and disseminates child welfare data and information and provides a modest amount of funding for research.

There were two major pieces of federal child welfare legislation enacted in the late twentieth century. The first was the Adoptions Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980, more popularly known as P.L. 96-272. This legislation grew out of more than six years of congressional hearings into the problems confronting the child welfare system in the United States. The act placed greater emphasis on strengthening and preserving families and, in fact, placed as much emphasis on this new policy thrust as it did on protecting and caring for abused and neglected children. Consistent with this, one of the major priorities of the legislation was to increase services to prevent the out-of-home placement of children and to reduce the numbers of children being placed into foster care. Lawmakers also hoped that the act would result in shorter lengths of stay in placement, the elimination of foster care "drift" or the "bouncing" of children from one placement to another, improved training and supervision of foster parents, improved training for child welfare workers, and the delivery of more effective services to children in placement.

The law mandated that individualized treatment plans be developed for each child placed into foster care. It required that each child in placement had to have his or her case reviewed every six months to examine the status of the case and to determine whether the placement needed to be continued or if other permanent plans needed to be made.

Unfortunately, despite the hopes and expectations of reformers, the law had relatively little impact on the child welfare system. Beginning in the mid-1980s, the numbers and rates of children placed into foster care increased dramatically. This trend continued well into the 1990s. In fact, the best available data suggests the foster care population more than doubled between 1985 and 1999. Although significant amounts of money were spent on placement prevention services, there is virtually no credible scientific evidence that they had the desired impact. Even more disturbing is the fact that many class action lawsuits were filed against state and local public child welfare systems for abusive, unprofessional, and unconstitutional practices after P.L. 96-272 was passed. This statistic suggests that many public child welfare systems may have deteriorated during this period when policymakers and reformers expected them to improve.

In 1997 Congress passed the Adoptions and Safe Families Act, or ASFA. In sharp contrast to P.L. 96-272, this legislation places more emphasis on protecting children and makes it easier to remove them from dangerous home environments. The legislation calls for placing more of the burden on abusive and neglectful parents to demonstrate that they can properly care for their children before they will be returned to them. It also reduces the amount of time children have to stay in foster care from eighteen months to twelve months before permanent plans have to be made for them.

By 2002 most child welfare officials felt it was too soon to make any definitive statements about the impact of ASFA. Preliminary data suggest that increasing numbers of children are being adopted, although the numbers may be leveling off. Also, there are signs that the size of the foster care population may be stabilizing, or even declining. However, the length of stay in foster care for children awaiting adoption continues to average three years. For these children it can be said that the state has virtually become their parent, even if by default.

Bibliography

Schwartz, Ira M., and Gideon Fishman. Kids Raised by the Government. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1999.

United States Department of Health and Human Services. The AFCARS Report. Washington, D.C.: Administration for Children and Families, 2000.

—Ira M. Schwartz

This article is about the modern child welfare system of placing children in state custody in the homes of temporary caregivers. For the social practice of children being raised by families not their own, see Fosterage.

The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with North America and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page.

The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (September 2008)

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v • d • e

Foster care is the colloquial term used for a system in which a minor who has been made a ward is placed in the private home of a state certified caregiver referred to as a "foster parent". The state via the family court and child protection agency stand in loco parentis to the minor, making all legal decisions while the foster parent is responsible for the day to day care of said minor. The foster parent is remunerated by the state for their services. Foster care is intended to be a short term situation until a permanent placement can be made:^[1]

• Reunification with the biological parent(s)
  • When it is deemed in the child's best interest.
• Adoption
• Permanent transfer of guardianship

Contents 1 Foster Care Placement 1.1 Policy 2 United States 2.1 Regulation, administration, and oversight 2.1.1 Funding and system incentives 2.1.2 Recent United States foster care legislation 2.2 Problems within the United States Foster Care System 2.2.1 Foster children not being prepared for adulthood 2.2.2 Drug Testing 2.2.3 Research on effects of foster care 3 Australia 3.1 Nature and Purpose 3.2 Philosophy of administration 4 Relation to Disorganized Attachment 5 See also 6 References 7 Further reading

Foster Care Placement

Children may enter foster care via voluntary or involuntary means. Voluntary placement may occur when a biological parent or lawful guardian is unable or unwilling to care for a child. Involuntary placement occurs when a child is removed from their biological parent or lawful guardian due to the risk or actual occurrence of physical or psychological harm.

Policy

The policies regarding foster care as well as the criteria to be met in order to become a foster parent vary according to legal juristiction.

United States

Regulation, administration, and oversight

In the United States, foster home licensing requirements vary from state to state but are generally overseen by each state's Department of Social Services or Human Services. In some states, counties have this responsibility. Each state's services are monitored by the federal Department of Health and Human Services through reviews such as Child and Family Services Reviews, Title IV-E Foster Care Eligibility Reviews, Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System and Statewide Automated Child Welfare Information System Assessment Reviews.^[2]

Children found to be unable to function in a foster home may be placed in Residential Treatment Centers (RTCs) or other such group homes. In theory, the focus of treatment in such facilities is to prepare the child for a return to a foster home, to an adoptive home, or to the birth parents when applicable. But two major reviews of the scholarly literature have questioned these facilities' effectiveness.^[3]

Funding and system incentives

A law passed by Congress in 1961 allowed AFDC (welfare) payments to pay for foster care which was previously made only to children in their own homes. This made aided funding foster care for states and localities, facilitating rapid growth. In some cases, the state of Texas paid mental treatment centers as much as $101,105 a year per child. Observers of the growth trend note that a county will only continue to receive funding while it keeps the child in its care. This may create a "perverse financial incentive" to place and retain children in foster care rather than leave them with their parents, and incentives are sometimes set up for maximum intervention. A National Coalition for Child Protection Reform issue paper states "children often are removed from their families `prematurely or unnecessarily' because federal aid formulas give states `a strong financial incentive' to do so rather than provide services to keep families together."^[4]

There are some children in foster care who are difficult to place in permanent homes through the normal adoption process. These children are often said to require “special-needs adoption.” In this context, "special needs" can include situations where children have specific chronic medical problems, mental health issues, behavioral problems, and learning disabilities. Governments offer a variety of incentives and services to facilitate this class of adoptions.^[5]

Recent United States foster care legislation

In 1997, President Bill Clinton signed a new foster care law, the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA),^[6]) which reduced the time children are allowed to remain in foster care before being available for adoption. The new law requires state child welfare agencies to identify cases where "aggravated circumstances" make permanent separation of child from the birth family the best option for the safety and well-being of the child. One of the main components of ASFA is the imposition of stricter time limits on reunification efforts. Proponents of ASFA claimed that before the law was passed, the lack of such legislation was the reason it was common for children to languish in care for years with no permanent living situation identified. They often were moved from placement to placement with no real plan for a permanent home.

Opponents of ASFA argued that the real reason children languished in foster care was that too many were taken needlessly from their parents in the first place. Since ASFA did not address this, opponents said, it would not accomplish its goals, and would only slow a decline in the foster care population that should have occurred anyway because of a decline in reported child abuse.^[7]

Ten years after ASFA became law, the number of children in foster care on any given day is only about 7,000 fewer than when ASFA was passed^[8]

The Foster Care Independence Act of 1999, helps foster youth who are aging out of care to achieve self-sufficiency. The U.S. government has also funded the Education and Training Voucher Program in recent years in order to help youth who age out of care to obtain college or vocational training at a free or reduced cost. Chafee and ETV money is administered by each state as they see fit.

The Fostering Connection to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 is the most recent piece of major federal legislation addressing the foster care system. This bill extended various benefits and funding for foster children between the age of 18 and 21 and for Indian children in tribal areas. The legislation also strengthens requirements for states in their treatment of siblings and introduces mechanisms to provide financial incentives for guardianship and adoption.^[9][10]

Problems within the United States Foster Care System

Foster children not being prepared for adulthood

Nearly half of foster kids in the U.S. become homeless when they turn 18.^[11][12] According to William Dudley, most foster care children should be placed in adoptive homes. "One of every 10 foster children stays in foster care longer than seven years, and each year about 15,000 reach the age of majority and leave foster care with out a permanent family—many to join the ranks of the homeless or to commit crimes and be imprisoned.^[13]

Drug Testing

Throughout the 1990s, experimental HIV drugs had been tested on HIV foster children at Incarnation Children’s Center (ICC) in Harlem. "Since then, ACS has been under fire from charges of inappropriately enrolling as many as 465 foster children in HIV clinical trials. The agency has also been accused of racism, some comparing the trials to the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, as 98 percent of children in foster care in New York City belong to ethnic minorities.^[14]

Research on effects of foster care

A recent study by Dr. Joseph J. Doyle, Jr., suggests that, in America, foster care placements are detrimental to children who are near the margin of needing to be placed out of home. These children, especially when they are older, seem to fare better with their birth parents.^[15][16]

Australia

Nature and Purpose

Home-based care, which includes foster care, is provided to children who are in need of care and protection. Children and young people are provided with alternative accommodation while they are unable to live with their parents. As well as foster care, this can include placements with relatives or kin, and residential care. In most cases, children in home-based care are also on a care and protection order.^[17]

In some cases children are placed in home-based care following a child protection substantiation and where they are found to be in need of a safer and more stable environment. In other situations parents may be incapable of providing adequate care for the child, or accommodation may be needed during times of family conflict or crisis.^[17] In the significant number of cases substance abuse is a major contributing factor.

Respite care is a type of foster care that is used to provide short-term (and often regular) accommodation for children whose parents are ill or unable to care for them on a temporary basis.^[17] It is also used to provide a break for the parent or primary carer to hopefully decrease the chances of the situation escalating to one which would lead to the removal of the child(ren).

As with the majority of child protection services, states and territories are responsible for funding home-based care. Non-government organizations are widely used, however, to provide these services.^[17]

Philosophy of administration

There is strong emphasis in current Australian policy and practice to keep children with their families wherever possible. In the event that children are placed in home-based care, every effort is made to reunite children with their families wherever possible.^[17]

In the case of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in particular, but not exclusively, placing the child within the wider family or community is preferred^[17] This is consistent with the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle.^[18]

Relation to Disorganized Attachment

A study by Dante Cicchetti found that 80% of abused and maltreated infants in his study exhibited symptoms of disorganized attachment.^[19][20] Children with histories of maltreatment, such as physical and psychological neglect, physical abuse, and sexual abuse, are at risk of developing psychiatric problems.^{[21][22][23][24]} These children may be described as experiencing trauma as the result of abuse or neglect, inflicted by a primary caregiver, which disrupts the normal development of secure attachment. Such children are at risk of developing a disorganized attachment.^[23][25][26] Disorganized attachment is associated with a number of developmental problems, including dissociative symptoms,^[27] as well as depressive, anxiety, and acting-out symptoms.^[28][29]

See also

• Adoption and Safe Families Act
• Attachment theory
• Child Welfare
• Crown ward
• Complex post-traumatic stress disorder
• Elevate (organization)
• Foster care adoption
• Legal guardian
• Reactive attachment disorder
• Residential education
• Aging out
• Fosterage
• Travis Lloyd

References

1. ^ Dorsey et Al. Current status and evidence base of training for foster and treatment foster parents
2. ^ Children's Bureau Website - Child Welfare Monitoring
3. ^ Richard Barth, Institutions vs. Foster Homes, the Empirical Base for a Century of Action (University of North Carolina, Jordan Institute for Families, February 17, 2002; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Report of the Surgeon General's Conference on children's mental health: A national action agenda. Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 2000.USGPO
4. ^ Child Abuse is Child Protection is Mental Health Treatment is Drugging Children
5. ^ http://www.jstor.org/pss/1602402 Judith K. McKenzie Adoption of Children with Special Needs, Brookings Institution: The Future of Children, Vol. 3, No. 1, Adoption (Spring, 1993), pp. 62-76
6. ^ Children's Bureau Express Online Digest:
7. ^ U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, Child Maltreatment, 2004, Figure 3-2, http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cm04/figure3_2.htm
8. ^ As of March, 1998, four months after ASFA became law, there were 520,000 children in foster care, (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, AFCARS Report #1, http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/stats_research/afcars/tar/report1/ar0199.htm). It took until September 30, 2005, for the number to fall to 513,000 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Trends in Foster Care and Adoption, http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/stats_research/afcars/trends.htm.
9. ^ Children's Defense Fund, Fostering Connection to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act: Overview, http://www.childrensdefense.org/helping-americas-children/child-welfare/fostering-connection-success-increasing-adoptions-act-overview.html.
10. ^ National Conference of State Legislatures, NCSL Summary: Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008, http://www.ncsl.org/statefed/humserv/SummaryHR6893.htm.
11. ^ Pasadena Weekly - Throwaway kids
12. ^ Saving foster kids from the streets / As the nation faces a new wave of homeless children, Larkin youth center helps provide a transition to adulthood
13. ^ Current Controversies: Issues in Adoption. Ed. William Dudley. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2004.
14. ^ The Indypendent » Incarnation Controversy Simmers: City’s Agency Handling of HIV Kids Still Questioned by Foster Parents
15. ^ Microsoft Word - doyle_fosterlt_march07.doc
16. ^ Study: Troubled homes better than foster care - USATODAY.com
17. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Microsoft Word - 071108 Child protection 05-06 printers copy.doc
18. ^ Lawlink NSW: Research Report 7 (1997) - The Aboriginal Child Placement Principle
19. ^ Carlson, V., Cicchetti, D., Barnett, D., & Braunwald, K. (1995). Finding order in disorganization: Lessons from research on maltreated infants’ attachments to their caregivers. In D. Cicchetti & V. Carlson (Eds), Child Maltreatment: Theory and research on the causes and consequences of child abuse and neglect (pp. 135-157). NY: Cambridge University Press.
20. ^ Cicchetti, D., Cummings, E.M., Greenberg, M.T., & Marvin, R.S. (1990). An organizational perspective on attachment beyond infancy. In M. Greenberg, D. Cicchetti, & M. Cummings (Eds), Attachment in the Preschool Years (pp. 3-50). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
21. ^ Gauthier, L., Stollak, G., Messe, L., & Arnoff, J. (1996). Recall of childhood neglect and physical abuse as differential predictors of current psychological functioning. Child Abuse and Neglect 20, 549-559
22. ^ Malinosky-Rummell, R. & Hansen, D.J. (1993) Long term consequences of childhood physical abuse. Psychological Bulletin 114, 68-69
23. ^ ^{a b} Lyons-Ruth K. & Jacobvitz, D. (1999) Attachment disorganization: unresolved loss, relational violence and lapses in behavioral and attentional strategies. In J. Cassidy & P. Shaver (Eds.) Handbook of Attachment. (pp. 520-554). NY: Guilford Press
24. ^ Greenberg, M. (1999). Attachment and Psychopathology in Childhood. In J. Cassidy & P. Shaver (Eds.). Handbook of Attachment (pp.469-496). NY: Guilford Press
25. ^ Solomon, J. & George, C. (Eds.) (1999). Attachment Disorganization. NY: Guilford Press
26. ^ Main, M. & Hesse, E. (1990) Parents’ Unresolved Traumatic Experiences are related to infant disorganized attachment status. In M.T. Greenberg, D. Ciccehetti, & E.M. Cummings (Eds), Attachment in the Preschool Years: Theory, Research, and Intervention (pp161-184). Chicago: University of Chicago Press
27. ^ Carlson, E.A. (1988). A prospective longitudinal study of disorganized/disoriented attachment. Child Development 69, 1107-1128
28. ^ Lyons-Ruth, K. (1996). Attachment relationships among children with aggressive behavior problems: The role of disorganized early attachment patterns. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 64, 64-73
29. ^ Lyons-Ruth, K., Alpern, L., & Repacholi, B. (1993). Disorganized infant attachment classification and maternal psychosocial problems as predictors of hostile-aggressive behavior in the preschool classroom. Child Development 64, 572-585

Further reading

• Hurley, Kendra (2002). "Almost Home" Retrieved Jun. 27, 2006.
• Carlson, E.A. (1998). A prospective longitudinal study of disorganized/disoriented attachment. Child Development 69, 1107-1128
• Knowlton, Paul E. (2001). "The Original Foster Care Survival Guide"; A first person account directed to successfully aging out of the foster care.

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