[Khoury Archibald]

The podcast introduced some of the problems with foster care and why the children in it have a difficult time. At a young age never have consistency in your home life can be very damaging to your future interpersonal relationships. In the case of Claudia Felder, going through that many homes could have made it impossible to adjust before she found the right one.

The TED Talk gives a personal experience to the foster care system. It shows how that system can create emotional problems in children that adults may not be able to handle. Most people who have been in Lemn’s situation could not have turned out as positively and still willing to find a family. Lemn is aware of that and wants to use his voice to help people in his situation.

[Luci]

NPR Podcast On Foster Care: In this case, I think Claudia case was very sad in my personal opinion because is very sad when at a young age you have to experienced physical, mentally and emotionally abuse, especially when it come from people that need to be taking care of you. People that need to show you respect, support and love everyday. Her case is something that we have to consider very important, because this can be happen to other children’s in our society and our system may not be doing nothing to change their situations. As a result of this, many serious things can happen and than we asked why this happening? and we already have the answer in our hands.

Ted Talk: Ted case was very important and interesting as well, because is good to listened to other people experienced, in order to prevent more similar situation to happen again. What I like the most is that he was able to go through his trauma and I think by doing what he did is a good way to help others and a good way to express his self. In addition, this ,make me think that as future Human Services Workers we have a lot of work to do in order to improve our foster care system.

[BrownMcGill]

A child of the State/ Lemn Sissay

This former foster child dramatically tells of his experience with the Foster Care system and planning. Key to his story is his mother had one plan, while the social worker had another plan. during this time the parent is encouraged to sign off on “voluntary placement” without further information. As a child he had no idea and considered them his family, until 11 years old, and three biological children later.
Often times today we see this same scenario play out. Child Welfare today focuses on length of stay in that any consecutive 22 months of care for a child can warrant the termination of parental rights and the possibility of adoption.
This young man had no one to advocate for him when he was 11, and was subsequently sent to “assessment” home. (jail)
Today, thankfully, our youth in care have advocates, and legal representation.
Like some youth who grew up in care, Lemn sought out his birth family and found them.

I find that often foster parents have to compete with their foster childs memory and longing to be with the birth family; which is why I believe programs that promote co-parenting among birth and foster parents are ahead of the game, and work in the best interest of the child.

[BrownMcGill]

Claudia.
We have learned about the effects of violence on the family and domestic violence on children. Children see this violence at a young age, and most often exhibit the behaviors mentioned by Claudia. Claudia was eventually removed and put in foster care with her sister. She, like a lot of other children in out of home placement, feels responsible for the younger sibling. In Claudia’s case, when her behavior was “too bad” for the foster parents she is asked to leave. This is common in child welfare daily. The problem is when there is a younger sibling should the sibling be allowed to be separated. The other side is , should a younger child be consistently moved, because of the behavior of an older sibling.
Claudia also experienced re-traumatization in foster care. Today children are still being abused in foster care. I believe that preventive services put in place that leaves a child in their home, at times is the better answer. The grass is not always greener in out of home placement.

[diamond grambry]

Claudia Felder was 3 years old entering foster care at that age being that she didn’t have a family to look up to or to wqtch oiver she was lost. while4 growing up she been in and out of foster care which was hard for her because all she knew was moving from house to ho9use not really knowing what a family is. a good thing was having her sister with her but the bad thing was being in houses where she was physically and sexually abused. Claudia has many nightmares of her biological mom being abused with a blurred face and that scares her. when she finally though she had a stable home at the age of 5 she was told that she had to leave when she was 10 so this was also bad for her mentally because all she wanted was someone to love her and keep her but being in foster care ruined her thought of ever finding a homke and being happy. at the age of 21 she finally was happy with her adopted parents and this changed her whole life. her experience made me really sad but im happy shes standing tall today and moving forward