User:Kjoithomas/Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on foster care in the United States

Kinship Placements
The benefits of placing children with a family member or someone significant to the family, also known as kinship placement, are remarkable. Their overall health and improved behavior are an outcome of kinship placements and less movement between different foster homes. Also, foster children in kinship placements are more likely to see their parents and family member during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although many county officials are now more likely to seek out kinship placements for foster youths, they directly deal with the hurdle of the arrangements not working out because of the lack of funds for the family members taking in a child. But with the foster parents being more hesitant to take in foster children while the COVID-19 virus is still on the rise- kinship placements are more crucial now than ever.

Lack Of Resources
Foster kids, just like children out of care, depended on school for their socialization. Many foster kids were also recipients of mentorship programs- a close relationship for many children that have now seen fewer volunteers because of the pandemic. Also, a lot of foster kids know some form of therapist or psychologist. Those visits went from in person to online or were canceled altogether until further notice. This change in resources could have dire effects on children. For them to once have a safe place to discuss the hardships in their lives- and possibly in their foster home- to now having to speak on them in their home with potential listening ears can have unforeseen circumstances. The same can be said for the visitations children once had with their social workers in person. You’re not as likely to catch abuse or neglect virtually as you would in person, and social workers are not able to have intimate and necessary conversations with kids in a neutral environment. Also, a foster child is less likely to divulge that kind of sensitive information virtually for fear of being overheard and facing the consequences. All of these resources going from being a recurrent and necessary part of foster kids’ lives to now being virtual or gone altogether could have lasting mental health setbacks and lead to behavioral problems.

Effects on Housing and Visitation
Besides visits children would have with parents, there are also visits with their siblings also placed in foster care. In many cases, siblings groups are too large to be put in one foster home together. In cases such as that, those children have to be set separately and depend on visits to see each other and still be a part of each other’s lives. While courts make a point to make visits happen with children and their parents, courts do not always consider sibling groups. Many foster kids placed in permanent custody with their county only saw their siblings while visiting with their parents. Those kids have now lost another vital anchor in their lives. Some states have tried to make a point in making sure visits still happen with parents and siblings but while being screened for COVID-19 while also social distancing. Even with these precautions, many foster parents are still very hesitant. So many foster children are being shuffled from one home to the other because the foster parents are afraid of contracting the virus. These are usually youth who were put into care because their parents lost their housing or jobs and couldn't afford to have their children at that time. These children who would normally only experience one or two foster homes are experiencing many, compounding atraumatic experience. Also, because of COVID the courts are backed up with cases and taking longer than usual to process adoptions and cases that would reunite children with their families.

Homelessness
Foster youth who were graduating high school in the spring of 2020 had to deal with the possibility of homelessness. For those young people who decided to attend college after graduation were hit with eh news that all colleges were starting to close down their campuses altogether, leaving them without housing for the foreseeable future. Many foster kids do not have a family or support system to back them up when their housing falls short. This left a lot of foster youth having to couch hop and risk the possibility of catching COVID while trying to avoid living in a shelter.

Mental Health
Foster youth experienced compound trauma during the COVID pandemic. The foster youth who were living in group and residential homes experienced the fear of attracting COVID simply from the proximity of so many people, including the workers who come and go. These children also experienced a new form of isolation on top of what they had already been experiencing living in residential or group homes. Feeling isolated will have harmful affects on a young persons mental health. Many foster children also reported not hearing from their social worker enough and that can be extremely harmful, especially if the child is experiencing abuse or neglect in their foster home. Some foster parents have experienced loss of jobs or family members and this can lead to the fear that they may have to let go of their foster kids for a time. This act of moving form one foster home to another is extremely traumatic for foster children. All of this can lead to psychological issues that foster kids will carry with hem for years.