Book: The Foster Care Dilemma
The Foster Care Dilemma is a new book by Johan Wassenaar. You can find information about the book and where to purchase it at In Blind Faith website. There is also a Facebook page set up here.
Local Ojai Writer Sheds Light on the Foster Care System [The Ojai Post 9/6/13] is an interview with the author and is pasted below:
“California’s foster care system has reached an all-time low. Those suffering are our children and no one seems to have the courage to address this situation. Finally, in his book titled The Foster Care Dilemma, Johan Wassenaar strips away the myth of care to reveal a world of foster greed and neglect.
Following are some experts from an interview with Wassenaar:
Q. What’s your purpose behind writing The Foster Care Dilemma?
A. We want the readers of The Foster Care Dilemma to connect with the idea that it is not OK to leave foster kids suffering in out-of-control, badly managed group homes.
Q. Explain how the system works and what it is intended to do.
A. Foster care is intended to provide temporary, safe, living conditions with therapeutic services for children who cannot safely remain in their own homes due to maltreatment or the inability of their parents to provide adequate care and safety for them.
The ultimate goal remains to safely reunite the children with responsible parents or else to secure alternative permanent homes for them through adoption.
Far too often that goal is not achieved and children wind up spending long years in foster or group homes, usually having to move multiple times, thereby placing them at increasing risks for a future filled with emotional, behavioral, and academic problems.
There are unintended breakdowns in the system with administrators being overrun with demands in excess of existing foster and group home capacities, leading to lapses in supervision and the licensing of facilities to incompetent or dishonest operators who cut corners to enrich themselves at the expense of the children in their care. This was dramatically exposed recently when the Los Angeles County foster care system went into chaotic failure mode.
Q. How did you get involved in the project?
A. I was sitting on the patio of a coffee shop in Bakersfield, when a young junior college student joined me, anxious to qualify for a position on the Kern County Police Force. I asked him what drew him to law enforcement and without hesitation he answered that he wanted to get even with the lousy foster care providers he had been forced to tolerate. That was enough to justify the full scale research of the state of foster care in North America. I was appalled and returned to Bakersfield to interview him in detail. That widened into interviewing a whole array of people out of foster care as well as those who adopted foster kids. My end purpose was to fully explore all aspects of foster care in order to render a balanced opinion.
Q. How many kids are in the foster care system?
A. On a national scale, in 2012 there were about 400,000 children in foster care (about 1.3% of population).
Fifty-five thousand young people were in foster care in California where the system is managed at the county level. Los Angeles County accounted for a third (18,500) of them, followed by Orange County with 13%, San Mateo (7.9%) and San Bernardino (7.4%).
New York State accounted for about 21,000, of which 13,000 were in New York City. Florida accounted for 19,000 many of which were in Dade County. Michigan had 16,000, Illinois and Pennsylvania each had around 15,000, Texas 14,000, Indiana and Arizona 13,000 and Colorado 7,000.
Foster care in most Canadian provinces follow the same pattern as in the US.
Q. How many kids have been failed by this system?
A. While a few of them go on to lead successful lives, the majority struggle with inadequate housing, low educational and career attainment, early parenthood, substance abuse, physical and mental health problems, and involvement with the legal system. They show less desire for education and have a much lower likelihood of employment, higher incarceration rates and greater likelihood of experiencing some form of physical or sexual abuse.
Q. How is the system broken?
A. Our research reveals a lack of public concern for the immensity of the problem, which inspired the idea of an independent publication of a progressively expanding book with very wide circulation to highlight the problem with carefully conducted interviews of former inmates of the system as well as their care givers, those attempting to educate them, the social workers trying to mentor them and the medical fraternity trying to administer to their needs.
Q. How can we fix the foster care system?
A. We want to encourage many more charitable organizations to serve foster youths into breaking their cycle of decline – to give them dignity and the resources and mentors to help become successful in school and in life.
We want the readers of The Foster Care Dilemma to connect with the idea that it is not OK to leave foster kids suffering in out-of-control, badly managed group homes.
We need service organizations to support us to help these neglected children find sustainable housing and to become self-sufficient, and stay alive through the process of “aging out” of foster care. It´s not OK for us to leave children rotting away in foster care! That is essentially what American society is doing! As individual communities we have to step into the breach to take action against the foster care authorities who are failing in their jobs. To help us fund this enterprise we are creating a (501) (c)(3) tax free charity.
We need to urge local and state elected officials to push for programs that serve the foster care community more effectively and to open their doors to local communities wishing to help solve the problems now confronting foster care services everywhere, and especially in metropolitan areas.
We will publish a succession of issues of The Foster Care Dilemma each with greater depth than the previous issue until it is nationally acclaimed on the NYT best seller list as a beacon for those willing to support the eradication of foster care abuse.”
REFORM Puzzle Piece
My sister’s 3 grandchildren are in foster care in Rhode Island. There does not seem to be a way I can directly help so I would appreciate knowing what I can do to help the cause, in general, besides reading about it. I live in Michigan during the summer months and Texas the rest of the time.
Can you please suggest a way for me to be directly involved in advocacy for children in foster care.
I should add that I am 71 and not a candidate to be a foster parent.
Roberta
I am a foster parent in NY. Being a CASA (court appointed special advocate) is something you might be interested in. It is a volunteer program that provides services to children who have been abused or neglected. http://www.becomeacasa.org/what-is-casa
CASA is the best advocacy program I know of, but there are other ways to make a difference that aren’t a large scale:
We have received little baby blankets and diaper bags for the babies we’ve had, and book bags with a blanket or book for our big kids when they are placed with us-donated to the foster agency or foster care clinic in our county by people who wanted to help. These bags are what our kids use when going from foster home to family visits- they can pack their special blanket or new artwork in the bag to make the transitions less scary.
Many of the babies who are removed at birth will have extended stays in the NICU from the effects of prematurity or prenatal drug exposure. The children’s hospitals have volunteer programs for people to come in a hold the babies who are away from their family. My daughter was 11 weeks old before we were matched with her. She was held everyday by the “Grandmas” in the hospital’s cuddler program. Human touch is so important in those first days. Generally babies don’t get matched with a family until they are close to discharge.