Pros And Cons Of The Foster Care System

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In America today, over 300,000 children are in some sort of foster care system, having nearly 20,000 of them aging out and unprepared for adulthood. 32% of these young adults have stayed in the system for 3 years or more, only to be let out with close to no experience in being an adult. Being only 18 and in foster care for their last few years before aging into adulthood, many of them have previously relied on “financial, educational, and social support” from the foster care system, which due to their new age, is now inaccessible ("Facts and Statistics"). Emotional stress takes a toll on Foster children, only adding to their lack of participation in order to thrive in school and pursue a successful future. Sandra Stukes Chipungu and Tricia B. Bent-Goodley, two researchers from Princeton, stressed that an estimate of 30% to 80% of children in foster care experience emotional and behavioral problems which include blaming themselves, feeling unwanted, helplessness, and loneliness (“Foster Care”). Educational failure for foster kids can lead to homelessness or severe poverty for adolescent children who age out of foster care. The reality is that only 58% will graduate high school by the age of 19, which is considerably low compared to 87% of all the…show more content…
Organizations such as Youth Homes, AdoptUsKids, Best Kids, and Foster Care to Success, who are focused on the individual futures of the foster youth, have provided the solution of mentoring, which has become popular over years. Mentoring is an attachment theory where someone over the age of 21, volunteers to be a positive role models to teens and to be the stable, consistent, and caring adult that the youth tend to lack as they reach the age of adulthood. With the help of a mentor, organizations strive for the teen to have emotional and connected relationships to help with social skills

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