In the US there are
almost five hundred thousand children who are placed in the foster care system.
There are plenty of reasons why these institutions and host families have this huge
amount of people on their hands. Either the parents of those children died or
simply they just lost their parental authority due to various reasons like
domestic – physical or psychical, or both – abuse or negligence, for example. Sadly,
this list goes on and the children who suffer these consequences tend to become
emotionally unstable later on in their lives. Siblings who are being separated
from each other after a trauma should not be disunited.
There is a two-part short
story titled ‘ReMoved’ which was made
for the “168 Film Festival” in California to raise awareness of foster care in
the United States. The main character is a young girl, Zoe, whose mother is
constantly being abused by her partner who is an aggressive and disrespectful
man addicted to alcohol. Some days go by peacefully but dark days are showing
up more often and the children are eventually being taken away on one of those
days by foster care officials.
It is important to know
that these foster care institutions where the children are being placed at
first are most of the times worse than the environment they came from as they
may have had a place to live where they had everything essential. According to
a Huffington Post article “Where Do The Children Go When They Are Taken Away?” which
deals in-depth with this issue, these foster homes are not very well equipped
at all; in many places there is not even proper electricity or warm water. Another
important factor that there is a huge need to establish more foster care
institutions as the ones the US has now, are already overcrowded. This
increases the risks of being harassed since there are other abandoned children
who could be abusive to the newcomers as they have already spent a rough time
there.
Thinking about the
conditions mentioned above, it would certainly be a better choice to let
brothers and sisters stay together for the sake of emotional support at least.
They have this natural bond between each other which can make it easier for
them to go through hard times. In this short film it is shown how much Zoe
loves her baby brother through the way she cares about him. Even though she is
supposedly around the age of 10 she has to act like an adult because there is
no one else who could be good enough for that role in their family anymore.
Questionable identity is also a negative effect caused by separation - it
becomes harder for them to distinguish between what is right and what is wrong
since they do not have anyone left in their lives to look up.
Furthermore, detaching
siblings from each other makes them emotionally injured more and quicker. So much
negative influence has been in their life that at some point they cannot accept
any change which not only causes them serious anxiety problems, but the chance
to develop their self-image and self-esteem in a positive way becomes less
likely. If they could stay together so that would allow to them face the
hardships more easily later.
To conclude, social
workers make the decision to place siblings in different homes or families,
which could be explained by the fact that most of the foster care institutions
are already at full capacity which creates the situation when children from the
same family have to stay in different homes. This, in fact leads to that different
administrators deal with their case, this way lowering the chances to get them
placed at the same host family or in the same foster care home. In addition to
the negative side of it, the administrations are not always in the favour of
the children’s well-being as there is a lot of paperwork and not enough skilled
employees to do the backup research as well. Given these points, foster care has
a significant relevance among today’s problems and there is a need for solution.
There is always something people can do, for instance to help the work of the
administration, to be a counselor, to be a court-appointed special advocate
(CASA) volunteer - this way the siblings have a higher chance to stay together.
Works cited
“ReMoved” YouTube, uploaded by Nathanael
Matanick, 11 March 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOeQUwdAjE0&t=88s.
Rosenbloom,
Every. “Where Do The Children Go When They Are Taken Away?” The Huffington Post, 7 Dec. 2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/evey-rosenbloom/where-do-the-children-go_1_b_8728758.html
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