Source+7

//Foster Care//. (2005, May). Retrieved August 29, 2012, from American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry website: http://aacap.org/page.ww?name=Foster+Care§ion=Facts+for+Families


 * 1) Being removed from their home and placed in foster care is a difficult and stressful experience for any child.
 * 2) Children in foster care who have emotional or behavioral problems may be referred for a psychiatric evaluation.
 * 3) Children in foster care often struggle with the following issues:
 * blaming themselves and feeling guilty about removal from their birth parents
 * wishing to return to birth parents even if they were abused by them
 * feeling unwanted if awaiting adoption for a long time
 * feeling helpless about multiple changes in foster parents over time
 * having mixed emotions about attaching to foster parents
 * feeling insecure and uncertain about their future
 * reluctantly acknowledging positive feelings for foster parents
 * 1) Important challenges for foster parents include:
 * recognizing the limits of their emotional attachment to the child
 * understanding mixed feelings toward the child's birth parents
 * recognizing their difficulties in letting the child return to birth parents
 * dealing with the complex needs (emotional, physical, etc.) of children in their care
 * working with sponsoring social agencies
 * finding needed support services in the community
 * dealing with the child's emotions and behavior following visits with birth parents
 * 1) Many of these children have suffered some form of serious abuse or neglect. About 30% of children in foster care have severe emotional, behavioral, or developmental problems.
 * 2) Most states encourage efforts to provide the birth parents with support and needed services (e.g. mental health or drug/alcohol treatment, parent skills, training and assistance with child care and/or adequate housing) so their child can be returned to them.
 * 3) All adolescents go through a stage of struggling with their identity, wondering how they fit in with their family, their peers, and the rest of the world.
 * 4) Child first learns about the adoption intentionally or accidentally from someone other than parents, the child may feel anger and mistrust towards the parents, and may view the adoption as bad or shameful because it was kept a secret.
 * 5) Foster parents open their homes and hearts to children in need of temporary care, a task both rewarding and difficult. Unfortunately, there has been a decrease in the number of foster parents (non-relative) available to care for children over the past 10 years.
 * 6) When parental rights have been terminated by the court, most states will try to place children with relatives (kinship foster care or relative placement) which may lead to adoption by the relative.
 * 7) While every child is unique and special, sometimes they encounter emotions, feelings or behavior that cause problems in their lives and the lives of those around them.
 * 8) Families often worry when their child or teenager has difficulty coping with things, feels sad, can't sleep, gets involved with drug, or can't get along with family or friends.
 * 9) Not all children grow from infancy through their adolescent years without experiencing some bumps along the way.
 * 10) A child's emotional distress often causes disruption to both the parent's and the child's world.
 * 11) The following signs are things that a child may need evaluated:
 * Marked decline in school performance
 * Inability to cope with problems and daily activities
 * Marked changes in sleeping and/or eating habits
 * Extreme difficulties in concentrating that get in the way at school or at home
 * Sexual acting out
 * Depression shown by sustained, prolonged negative mood and attitude, often accompanied by poor appetite, difficulty sleeping or thoughts of death
 * Severe mood swings
 * Strong worries or anxieties that get in the way of daily life, such as at school or socializing
 * Repeated use of alcohol and/or drugs
 * Intense fear of becoming obese with no relationship to actual body weight, excessive dieting, throwing up or using laxatives to loose weight
 * Persistent nightmares
 * Threats of self-harm or harm to others
 * Self-injury or self destructive behavior
 * Frequent outbursts of anger, aggression
 * Repeated threats to run away
 * Aggressive or non-aggressive consistent violation of rights of others; opposition to authority, truancy, thefts, or vandalism
 * Strange thoughts, beliefs, feelings, or unusual behaviors