According to a new report compiled by the Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children, a statewide child-advocacy group, Philadelphia children who leave foster care re-enter the system at “extremely high rates.” Many child welfare experts believe that enough isn’t done to strengthen the children’s families so that the children may return to their homes safely and receive loving care.
While no one wants to see children taken away from their parents permanently, the facts show that some parents will never be able to take care of their children, no matter the supports they are given. Little seems to have changed in three decades…we continue to see children who are returned to their family homes again and again only to be abused and neglected, sometimes to the point of death. Indeed, the first option for these children should be living with their parents, but only when the parents demonstrate that they will nurture and care for them. If that can’t happen, the children should be freed to be placed with adoptive families.
We have helped find adoptive families for more than 21,000 children and we know that there are families who want— who will even advocate for-- these children. Every one of them deserves the chance to grow up healthy and happy. It is up to those of us in child welfare, those who are responsible for these children’s futures, to know when enough is enough…when children, in order to survive and thrive, must leave the parents who gave birth to them and move on to parents who will cherish and nourish them.
What do you think?
Friday, September 12, 2008
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2 comments:
21,000 children adopted? You must be making a killing off of the adoption bonus.
LK
Thanks for your comment, LK. We here at the Center receive no funds of any sort from the placement of children.
Our mission is to expand adoption opportunities for children living in foster care throughout the United States and to be a resource to families and to agencies who seek the permanency of caring homes for children.
We advocate on behalf of the children in care and the families who want to adopt them. We help match families with children in foster care, but once the match is made we step aside. The agencies that have the family and the child then proceed. We do not do adoptions here at the Center.
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