5 ms·

Can we just go ahead and admit that the foster program is not superior to the orphanages that it replaced?

yarcob 6y ago
I think that in general foster families are better than group homes. The problem is that most children shouldn't be taken away in the first place.
- macspoofing 6y ago
  >The problem is that most children shouldn't be taken away in the first place. Sure. To be clear though, the state doesn't really take children away for no reason. I'm sure there are isolated incidences, but in general, the kids who end up in the foster care, did not land there because they came from loving stable environments.
- bluGill 6y ago
  Most kids are not taken away from their homes. The exceptions horrible cases.
- chopin24 6y ago
  How do you run A/B to prove this hypothesis?
- frankydp 6y ago
  Spoken by someone that is hopefully truly ignorant of child welfare.
  - yarcob 6y ago
    Everything that I've learned about foster care tells me that removing children from their surroundings is a traumatic event, and should be only a last resort. In many cases, there are a lot of things that can be done instead of just taking kids away. If there's any research that shows I'm wrong, and that taking troubled kids away from their families is actually the best thing for their development, I'm eager to hear about it.
    - mlyle 6y ago
      In many/most jurisdictions, "just taking kids away" is the last straw. If the situation can be remedied with support, periodic social worker visits, and parenting classes, everyone prefers that outcome. And then the second preferred outcome is finding a caregiver in the extended family. A distant third is a foster care placement.
- sonotathrowaway 6y ago
  Do you have a lot of personal experience with foster children? Are you speaking from experience? From my experience, they try to place children with immediate family if at all possible. But I’ve also seen children come from appalling circumstances - with mothers who literally sell or give them to convicted pedophiles, or who witnessed their father attempt to murder their mother in full view of their children. I’m far from thinking the foster care system is perfect, but I’ve seen more than enough to doubt the idea most children should stay with in their homes. I’ve never seen a social worker treat the decision to remove a child from a home flippantly.
  - yarcob 6y ago
    I don't have any personal experience with foster children yet. My partner and I are planning to become foster parents, so I've spent the last two years or so reading a lot about fostering, and we also took a course to prepare us. My impression is that many cases aren't quite as clear, and it's often hard to say if removing the kids was really the best course of action. I don't think social workers are careless, but they do have to make decisions based on limited information, and they often don't have sufficient alternatives to taking kids away. But of course, I'm just a random dude commenting on the internet, and maybe I'm wrong. I also live in Austria, so maybe the situation is totally different to the US (the system does work differently). I've also tried to find statistics about foster kids, and it's surprisingly hard to find them.
bluGill 6y ago
No. You seem unaware of how bad the old orphanage system was.
- throwawaypali 6y ago
  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0008169 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... No, I've just read a little on the subject. Obviously comparisons are hard since we dismantled the orphanages in the 50s/early 60s but the best comparisons show orphanages performing favorably. I think people got caught up too much shows and plays about this stuff.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    the one (obviously not a statistical sample) person I know who was in an orphanage would remember being beat with a wire brush and disagree.

I think that in general foster families are better than group homes. The problem is that most children shouldn't be taken away in the first place.

macspoofing 6y ago
>The problem is that most children shouldn't be taken away in the first place. Sure. To be clear though, the state doesn't really take children away for no reason. I'm sure there are isolated incidences, but in general, the kids who end up in the foster care, did not land there because they came from loving stable environments.
bluGill 6y ago
Most kids are not taken away from their homes. The exceptions horrible cases.
chopin24 6y ago
How do you run A/B to prove this hypothesis?
frankydp 6y ago
Spoken by someone that is hopefully truly ignorant of child welfare.
- yarcob 6y ago
  Everything that I've learned about foster care tells me that removing children from their surroundings is a traumatic event, and should be only a last resort. In many cases, there are a lot of things that can be done instead of just taking kids away. If there's any research that shows I'm wrong, and that taking troubled kids away from their families is actually the best thing for their development, I'm eager to hear about it.
  - mlyle 6y ago
    In many/most jurisdictions, "just taking kids away" is the last straw. If the situation can be remedied with support, periodic social worker visits, and parenting classes, everyone prefers that outcome. And then the second preferred outcome is finding a caregiver in the extended family. A distant third is a foster care placement.
sonotathrowaway 6y ago
Do you have a lot of personal experience with foster children? Are you speaking from experience? From my experience, they try to place children with immediate family if at all possible. But I’ve also seen children come from appalling circumstances - with mothers who literally sell or give them to convicted pedophiles, or who witnessed their father attempt to murder their mother in full view of their children. I’m far from thinking the foster care system is perfect, but I’ve seen more than enough to doubt the idea most children should stay with in their homes. I’ve never seen a social worker treat the decision to remove a child from a home flippantly.
- yarcob 6y ago
  I don't have any personal experience with foster children yet. My partner and I are planning to become foster parents, so I've spent the last two years or so reading a lot about fostering, and we also took a course to prepare us. My impression is that many cases aren't quite as clear, and it's often hard to say if removing the kids was really the best course of action. I don't think social workers are careless, but they do have to make decisions based on limited information, and they often don't have sufficient alternatives to taking kids away. But of course, I'm just a random dude commenting on the internet, and maybe I'm wrong. I also live in Austria, so maybe the situation is totally different to the US (the system does work differently). I've also tried to find statistics about foster kids, and it's surprisingly hard to find them.

bluGill 6y ago

No. You seem unaware of how bad the old orphanage system was.

throwawaypali 6y ago
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0008169 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... No, I've just read a little on the subject. Obviously comparisons are hard since we dismantled the orphanages in the 50s/early 60s but the best comparisons show orphanages performing favorably. I think people got caught up too much shows and plays about this stuff.
- bluGill 6y ago
  the one (obviously not a statistical sample) person I know who was in an orphanage would remember being beat with a wire brush and disagree.