What do you know about the Child Welfare System? You must know about, at the very least, the Foster Care system. However, what do you actually know about the system besides what is depicted in media?

Media gives the general populace who have no experience with the system a pretty good idea of what the children in the system can be subject to experiencing. The Gallaghers, off Shameless, a series about a family struggling to avoid foster care and fighting to stay together. Shameless shows how much some people will fight to stay out of the system.

Shameless shows how families want to avoid being torn apart, abuse in every form, feelings of being unwanted by biological and foster families, being made to feel worthless in every sense, etc.

To give more background, there are all types of arguments to both sides of child welfare and whether it needs to change. Those for change often take the children and their care into account, while the opposing view look at the previous reforms that failed and did more damage than good.

There are also those that argue that the sanctity of the biological family must be held to the highest standard and child welfare services will only cause children more distress being ripped away from their homes and families. Shameless being largely made of biologically related children, illustrates how much some families don’t want to be torn apart and will actively avoid the system to avoid that.

Child Welfare is very different from what it was in the beginning of the United States history. Foster Care, according to National Foster Parent Association (NFPA), “allowed the placement of poor children into indentured service until they came of age.” Practically slaves for their caretakers. While this may still apply to some foster homes or families today, it is not to the extent that was during that time.

Now Child Welfare has evolved far beyond that. There are systems in place that are supposed to ensure the safety and wellbeing of children, such as Child Protective Services, Foster Care, and Adoption agencies. However, these systems still fail the children they’re meant to protect.

The best way to better the Child Welfare system is through reform. Reform the system so it provides children with better care and ensures their wellbeing and safety better than it does now.

Those against reform often use failed reforms as an excuse for new reforms and while it’s understandable, it’s irresponsible to leave a failed reform in place or even go back to an outdated one. It’s the responsibility of adults to provide the best care possible to children. These children can’t provide for themselves nor do they have a say in their care, it’s our responsibility to provide for them.

There are other reasons those against it worry. In other cases, children can mentally be affected by Child Welfare in a negative way. According to Erin Kim Hazen, children who enter foster care often face higher rates of “mental distress as compared to non-foster care peers.” They often develop mental illnesses such as depression, separation anxiety, and oppositional defiant disorder. These can stem from the “care” they were given, being taken from their families, and moved to different households and schools.

As well as mental health risks, they face physical health risks as well. Hazen says they are “more likely than those not in foster care to engage in behaviors that pose serious physical health risks, including drug abuse and sexual risk-taking” and “almost 50% of youth in foster care have a history of drug use and that one-third meet diagnostic criteria for substance usage disorder.”

Children in our current system are experiencing so much distress and finding no comfort from the ones they are being cared for by. So, they turn to drugs and sex to get some control in their life and relief. If that doesn’t highlight how incompetent our system is at providing comfort and care for these children, I don’t know what will.

Child Welfare needs to drastically change in order to ensure that youth are getting the best care possible. The Committee on Early Childhood even recommend that “decisions about assessment, care, and planning should be made with sufficient information about the particular strengths and challenges of each child.”

Kevin O’Hannon states that the Nebraska Child Welfare system focused “on decreasing the length of time children spent in the system by achieving permanent placements faster… and freeing up resources to allow workers more time to focus on high priority cases.” This is likely the case for most states. The shorter the time the child spends in their services the less amount of money spent on them. This is not a sustainable nor effective way of handling the individual needs of each child. O’Hannon quoted Sen. Campbell saying “children ‘should have stability, continuity, and the absolute best system the state can construct to ensure safety and provide permanency for them.”

Instead of pushing through children for the sake of saving time and money, they should be focusing on the wellbeing of the child. This is one of the greatest downfalls of the Child Welfare system today.

Each child has their specific needs and though a case may seem as though it is insignificant compared to others compared to other, more severe cases, the child may be taking the separation from their family or may be dealing with the situation in a much different manner. Therefore, individual care for each child is so important.

The positive aspects might seem few after the amount of negativity that overflows and while that is the case, it still has its benefits. Primarily, it provides children with safer surroundings than what they might have been exposed to before being taken in. It works to provide children with food and the necessities of life, that as humans, they deserve. It gives them an opportunity to have an education and it works to provide the children with a permanent home.

While there are positives to the Child Welfare system, the negatives still heavily outweigh them and that’s why I’m calling for reform. The reforms need to include new ideas such as placing children with other family members before placing them with in foster homes or with foster families; giving each child and case a respectable amount of time based on their individual needs rather than pushing them through to save money and time; offer children more services to better benefit their mental and physical health, programs that will teach them to cope or understand what is happening and why; and most importantly put in place more reforms for prevention and family preservation.

In Shameless, it’s easy to see how the Child Welfare system would tear families apart. Many biological siblings, if not taken in by family, will be spilt up and go to different homes, especially a family the size of the Gallagher’s. It’s very important to place children with their own family so that at least they remain in familiar surroundings.

Often times it’s more of a shock to the child to be placed with very unfamiliar faces and people. It may even cause more stress and trauma because they have no idea who those people are and they’re not inherently comfortable around them so they’ll keep to themselves instead of seeking advice or comfort.

Each child has specific means that need to be met, no matter the cause of the case. Each child has specific needs based on their age or case and it’s unfair to lump all less severe cases together in a group that may be less cause for concern and pushed through the system at a much faster rate as compared to those that are involved in more severe cases. It’s unfair for the individual child to experience less support even if their case is marked as less severe. While it is more cost effective, it’s not the most effective way of providing children with a better and more supportive atmosphere.

Children deserve to have services provided outside of schooling, housing, and food. Services that help the child to understand what their case is about and why they’re away from their family. Services like these could help the children to understand why they’re in their situation and how it’s not their fault. This might allow them to cope with their situation better. Services that will teach them not to cope with drug abuse or use sex as a coping mechanism and hopefully prevent them from experiencing mental illnesses.

The often, most overlooked solution, offer programs that prevent the child from being put in a situation where they have to be removed from the care of their parents and preserve families. Welfare is one system to prevent families from suffering poverty alone, but there need to be more programs to prevent substance abuse, another major reason children often are removed from their homes.

While child welfare has many negatives that outweigh the positives, it can still be changed. Those that are against the change or of a reform failing need to realize that it’s our responsibility to provide better care for these children no matter what. A reform can always be reformed. It’s irresponsible not to provide better care for children who cannot provide for themselves. Reforms need to offer children placements with family before considering foster homes or families, each child the amount of individual time that they need no matter the severity of the case, counseling for the children to understand their situation and prevent them from turning to other methods of coping, and put in place programs that prevent children from being taken from their families in the first place or being put into the situations that they experience.

Now knowing what you do about the Child Welfare system, what will you do with this information? Will you use it to make a change? Or perhaps use to it to ruminate over and consider the effects our current system has on children?