Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Which Begs The Question: Why are we exporting our own broken model of Foster Care to other countries with even less resources than the US?

Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article4371831.html

By Nelson F. Hincapie

fostercare

For too many years, Florida’s child-welfare system has failed to protect the most vulnerable in our community — children.

Just a few days ago, CHARLEE, one of the oldest providers of foster-care services in Miami-Dade County, ceased to function as full case-management agency. As a result, hundreds of children probably will be in limbo in terms of their placements, case workers, adoptions and anything else that CHARLEE was doing for them.

Every child deserves to grow up in a loving and safe environment, although that it doesn’t happen. Many times it is not because parents don’t want to love their children, but because they cannot. It has been my experience that many of the children who end up in foster care today come from homes where the parents themselves were part of the foster-care system. They are naturally incapable of giving something they have never had.

I knew that we had failed our youth when Christopher looked me straight in the eye on the day he turned 18 and said, “I never thought I would make it to 18.”

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