Inside Foster Care: Children’s Perspectives and Stories

Child gazing thoughtfully out of a window, rain droplets on glass, reflecting feelings of contemplation and emotional experiences in foster care.

For many years we have viewed the foster care system from the outside/in, discussing it from a social service agency point-of-view:

How many children are in foster care
What does the foster care system cost the taxpayers
Turnover in social workers
Staffing problems
Shortage of foster parents
Aging out for lack of adoptions

This week we’ve decided to look at foster care from the inside/out – through the eyes of the children caught up in the system. We see the foster care system as an abandoned or abused child’s salvation. The foster children, however, have been traumatized, separated from their birth parents and often their siblings, and sent to live among “other people’s” families who may or may not feel any affinity for them. How do they feel about growing up in foster care?

Carolyn’s Story

“My childhood was spent in the foster care system. The first time I went into foster care I was seven years old. Throughout my childhood and teenage years, I was in over seven foster care and group home placements…

“One of the most difficult parts of foster care was not knowing what was going to happen to me. There was always a sense of uncertainty and confusion. I often felt scared and alone. It would be hard for any child to go through the foster care system, but having a disability made it more difficult for me to understand what was going on in my life…

“Being separated from my siblings was another painful part of being in foster care. I was the oldest in my family, followed by my brother and baby sister. My brother and I were always placed in the same home, but my sister was always in a different foster home. At that time, most foster homes only wanted babies or very young children. I always wondered about her. I thought about what she was doing and if she missed me. It really hurt me to be away from her. It did not feel right being with strangers. I was always glad to go back to my mom. Living with my family always felt like the best thing to me…

“When I was 14 years old, I had my son. A boy in the neighborhood took advantage of me, and I later found out that I was pregnant. Because I was both a child in the foster care system and an underage parent, I became a part of the child protection system in a new way. As a parent, I felt that a lot of things I ran into with child protection were because I was a young mom with a disability. When child protection looked at me, it seemed to me that they only saw my disability. It felt like they used my disability against me. I was a good mom, and I took care of my son. I even graduated from a parenting skills program. It felt like I was doing all the right things, but I still felt that they were judging me. Even though I had done everything that I was supposed to do, my son was taken from me…

“I am now the mother of four children, and having my own kids has taught me a lot about life. They are the most important part of my life, and I want to be the best parent that I can be. That is why I continue to take parenting classes and receive support. Most of all, I know now that even though I have a disability, I am a good mom.”

(University of Minnesota Twin Cities – https://publications.ici.umn.edu-Growing Up in Foster Care: Carolyn’s Story)

Navigating Uncertainty in Foster Care: Carolyn’s Story

When this little boy was being placed in a foster home, the social worker asked him what he wanted in his new home. His list of needs and wants is a poetic masterpiece.

(Foster Love #fosterlove)

No textbook or college course could give you a deeper insight into the psychic and emotional plight of abused children transitioning from their birth home to a foster home. This little boy has blessed us with a poetic masterpiece.

A Sample

Carolyn and the Little Boy are only a sample of the many thousands of young people who could help us see foster care from the child’s perspective.

Carolyn and the little boy are only two voices among the thousands of children who have passed through the foster care system; children who carried their confusion, their grief, and their hope largely in silence. When we listen to them, we don’t just understand foster care better. We become better equipped to fix it. Whether you are a social worker, a prospective foster parent, a policymaker, or simply someone who cares, the view from within should change the way you see your role. These children aren’t cases. They are kids who want exactly what every child wants…to belong somewhere, to someone, for good.