Thefortercaredilemma/3rd Edition

The third edition of a publication describing the state of foster care in the North America with brief British comparison based on extensive interviews with former foster children, foster parents and regulatory personnel. Also presented are statistical facts and press reports of significant developments in major metropolitan jurisdictions. It is obvious that the need for foster homes occurs because of the negligence and inabilities of parents to provide a safe a productive environment for their offspring. Hence, by law, the child safety authorities step in and remove the children from their homes and either place them with other responsible relatives or in foster and group homes licensed by the same authorities. The structure of those authorities varies from statewide to county and city organizations. Licensing and supervision of foster and group home parents is far too often subservient to the licensing entities which can lead to corruption and mismanagement. Foster care results in North America measured in terms of the abilities of the youth exiting the system at age 18 are pitiably low, feeding a trend toward future prison, homeless and dependent populations. Our purpose is to enlighten the public with the objective of raising sufficient public concern to encourage moves toward a more compassionate system. Right now there is little stimulus for, say, the ten million citizens of Los Angeles county to be consciously aware of the plight most of its twenty thousand foster children suffer daily. Fortunately, there are regional and national foundations actively stepping in to ameliorate the plight of many foster children, but we need something more strident amongst our ordinary citizens to occur before the bureaucracies managing child safety will respond more appropriately.