Graded Response Option 1 Blogpost 12

The presentations this past week have been very interesting. One aspect of the presentations that I have enjoyed and learned a lot from is the variety of ethical questions that people are exploring through their research. While many people have presented on similar topics, many of them have explored different ethical concerns that their topics may raise. I feel that these differing ethical questions add to the ideas we have developed over the past semester. It has allowed me to look at many of the topics we have discussed throughout the semester from varying perspectives, allowing me to develop a better understanding of these sometimes complex and controversial situations surrounding adoption. We have talked a lot about looking at both sides of an adoption issue, whether it is birthmothers and birthfathers, adoptees and adoptive parents, or the social workers that help with the adoption process helping us to wrap our head around the ethics of these adoptions situations. They are all looking at a situation with a unique perspective and insight on adoption. Looking through all these different lenses on the subject helps those of us on the outside of adoption understand the whole process better. What these presentations have confirmed for me about what we have learned this past semester, is the need for people involved with adoption to go into it with and open mind. Every adoption situation is different, every family is different, the challenges that some adoptive families have are not the same as others, even family structures may vary, but through keeping an open mind about the process and those who have been a part of it allows us to better understand each other better as a whole. My take away from the semester is that adoption, as will most things in life, is much more complicated then it appears to be on the surface. It has taught me that it order to understand something you really have to dig into it and try to understand as many aspects of it as possible before making any sort of judgment about a situation. Knowing as much as you can about an issue and exploring all sides and consequences is what will allow for everyone involved in order to get the most out of it. Deciding on an issue too quickly will not lead to a full understanding.

--Mary S.

Blog Post #11: Option 1

One of the main differences between Dorothy Roberts’ book and the video was the focus. The purpose of the video was to share specific stories and experiences of how all persons involved in the foster care system are affected by it. Although Roberts’ did also share some personal stories, her focus seemed to be more on policies, the legalities and social implications of the system and how to fix these problems.

In the video, hearing from teenagers/young adults who were in the foster system for various reasons showed how great of an impact being removed from their homes was for them. One man in particular noted that even though he knew he wasn’t in a good situation at home, being taken away from his family and the only home he knew was very difficult. Multiple of those who spoke in the video stated that, given the option, they would have rather been placed with an extended family member over a stranger because then they are at least familiar and they don’t lose their sense of family and belonging. The people who had taken in their grandchildren or nieces/nephews also stated that although it was difficult for them to adjust, it was a better situation for the child since they do not lose everything along the way; they still have their extended family and often have more support. The personal stories that were shared by those in the system, the biological parents and the foster/adoptive parents, had a bigger impact on my view of the foster care and welfare systems than Roberts’ book.

Roberts’ book was very informational but also had a very negative tone when it came to reunification, the capabilities of biological parents (to get help and get their children back) and the abilities of those working in the foster care system. Numerous personal stories depict circumstances where miscommunication, misinformation and misjudgment prevents reunification of the children with their parents, with either the parents at fault or at times the social worker or other professionals involved. Almost every circumstance that is discussed stresses that removing children from their homes is devastating to them yet so many children are removed and never reunited with their family.

After watching the video and reading Shattered Bonds, I can see that there are times when both accounts may be true but I believe that the view depicted in the video is more common and realistic. There are many children who are removed from unsafe and unstable homes and although they are taken away from everything and everyone they know they are still able to find a home with another family who can provide that stability, safety and love that they need. Family doesn’t always have to be those related to you by blood but includes those who take care of and love you. The stories from the video are evidence of that and thankfully there are far more “happy ending” stories than “horror stories” when it comes to the foster care system, they just aren't discussed as much.

-- Lindsey E.

Blogpost 11

The film shown in class on Monday provided a raw, personalized, and honest perspective of the foster care experience. While Dorothy Roberts Shattered Bonds focus is on the legal and social implications on child welfare policies, the film shed light on personal experiences of multiple parties involved in foster care. One of the major contrasts between the film and Shattered Bonds was how the reunification process between child and biological parents was portrayed within the two mediums. The film displayed mothers taking appropriate steps and completing legal court orders in hopes to claim full custody of their child once more. This is different than Roberts presentation of the reunification process, which she identifies as an avoided activity due to caseworker and state financial incentives to either keep the child in foster care, or become adopted.

After viewing the film and reading experts from Shattered Bonds, I am convinced that there are successful outcomes from children being placed into foster care. Children being removed from neglectful and abuse situations and being often placed into the care of loving individuals is positive. Additionally, these children may have the opportunity to either become adopted and be introduced into a safer and more loving environment or be able to return to their biological parent. However, I believe Roberts account regarding the foster care experience to be more plausible.

Federal policies creating financial incentives for state child welfare organizations provide the most convincing proof that many children are being taken from their homes, likely without reunification. While the Child Welfare Act of 1980 requires that state agencies must first make “reasonable efforts” to keep children with their homes before placing them into foster care, new laws such as the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) supports foster children becoming adopted into new families (Roberts, 105). Some reasons for the push towards adoptions include the potential physiological and social damages that foster children may experience because of instability and lack of permanency (Roberts, 106). ASFA also attractively provides financial incentives to states in attempt to have more children adopted from foster care (110). While this may be positive for children who have been in foster care for an extended period of time, the drive to terminate parental rights by state agencies is detrimental to children who may a greater possibility to be reunited with their biological parents.

The legal obstacles that parents must overcome to be reunited with their children in foster care along with the financial incentives for state agencies to place foster children into adoptive homes is conflicting with the ideal of reunification. While the film presented an alternative perspective on the foster care experience, I believe Roberts account to be a more accurate interpretation of the welfare system.

Graded Response 11 - Roberts vs. "As Us Who We Are" (option 1)

The movie and the film presented issues related to foster care in the United States, however the each went about addressing the issues in different ways. The film “Ask Us Who We Are” mainly presented the issues of foster care based on the experiences of the children who have lived through it. In contrast Robert’s book, as far as we have read, focuses mainly on how parents have been wronged by the foster care system. The adolescents featured in the movie all acknowledged that the situation at their home, when they were living with their parents, was not a good situation and environment to be raised in. Essentially they recognized the fact that there were legitimate reasons for them to be removed from their homes and placed in foster care. On the other hand in Robert’s book she has chosen to focus on cases in which children were removed from homes that she seemed to believe were safe and loving homes, the parents were just lacking some resources.

            Another somewhat surprising aspect of the film was that they majority of foster children featured were white. While this may be related to the demographics of the state of Vermont, of which I am not familiar, but seems to quiet to some extent Roberts stance on how horrible foster care is for African American families. The film showed that foster care was hard for children regardless of race. Roberts, states in her book that, “Black children…fare worse under the state’s supervision,” (13). However, in the film both the black children featured and the white children featured both seemed to be harmed to the same extent by their experiences in the foster care system.

            I think that because the film presents more of the children’s perspective, while the book presents foster care from more of the parent’s view, they are both plausible, believable, accounts of experiences people can have in the foster care system. They both show, however, that both the parents and the children’s rights to autonomy are being violated by being unable to make choices to control what is happening in their lives. I believe they just look at foster care from two different perspectives.  


-- Mary S.

Graded Blog Post #11

Graded Blog Post #11

The video we viewed on Monday presented a thoroughly positive view of foster care, whereas Dorothy Roberts’ account a wholly negative view. However, the contrasting views were not indirect opposition; the two differed in their primary focuses within the foster care system. The video we watched spent the majority of its time presenting foster care families as benevolent hosts, deeply in love with their adopted children, just trying to do the best they can to assuage the deep pain and difficulties that the children are facing. Roberts, in contrast, gave almost no discussion at all to the actual foster homes that are taking in these children. Rather, the primary contrast was in the depiction of the family unit before Child Protective services removes the child. The film depicted the family situations of these children as horrific. The adoptees themselves gave vivid accounts of the abuses they had suffered throughout their childhoods. Roberts, however, explains that the black families losing children to Child Protective Services are merely “victims of a racially biased system,” (67). Black families, living in “poor neighborhoods with no social services,” (85) struggle to give adequate care to their children as they fight against their lack of resources and services. It is not the fault of the parent, but a racist bias in the system which leaves black families and their children out of luck. In the view of the film, the children put into foster care desperately needed to escape their home life, and the birthparents featured in the film echoed that sentiment, as most of them were deeply addicted to drugs. Once put into foster care, the children had a mixed experience, some placed in wonderful homes and some placed in no so great homes, but in both instances struggling through the developmental issues that childhood abuse causes. In Robert’s view, the children deserve to be with their families or extended families, but are stolen away and put into a foster care system that is not described in terms of good or bad outcomes.

To be fair, very few of the children featured in the film were black. This may add to Roberts’ point, that the white children in foster care are put there for good reason, but not the black children. It’s hard to tell, as the two depictions weren’t inherently discussing the same thing.

Adam K.

Blogpost 10, Option 1

Dorothy Roberts immediately draws the readers’ attention and focus to the unjust actions of the child welfare system within the first pages of Shattered Bonds. Incorporating both factual and statistical evidence along with personal accounts from mothers, Roberts presents strong statements to prove that black families are discriminated against and punished within the child welfare system. First identifying the growing disproportion of Black children in the child welfare system since World War II, Robert then provides evidence on the inferior treatment within the system towards black families.

Of the countless amounts of statistical evidence Roberts presents in the beginning of Shattered Bonds, I found “42 percent of all children in foster care nationwide are black, even though Black children constitute only 17 percent of the nation’s youth” to be the most startling statement (Roberts, 8). She also points out that in 1986, Black children under the age of 18 made up only 15% of the populations but yet constituted over one-fourth of the children entering foster care (Roberts, 8). This racial discrepancy many be reasoned by poverty, instead of race, since the majority of caseloads in the late 1980’s were concentrated in cities containing large black communities (Roberts, 8). And since poverty is most often seen in large, urban areas, it may be an issue regarding lack of resources instead of race.

However, Roberts still continues to provide evidence to how poor black families are being mistreated. Overrepresentation of Black children being placed in foster care is greater in populations where Blacks are the minority (Roberts, 9). This is true for large cities across the country, ranging from the East coast of New York, Midwest Chicago, and Western California. For example, census data is southern California concluded that Blacks “are placed at a rate three times greater than their census proportion” even though they make up 15 percent of the census population (Roberts, 9).

Most important of the evidence provided by Roberts, is how Black children “have the greatest odds of being removed from their homes and the smallest chance of being either reunited with their parents or adopted” (Roberts, 13). This is disturbing, because it would often times be the best interest of the child to be returned to their family, whether it be their birthparents or extended family member. Overall, the striking evidence as to how Black families are discriminated and treated with inferiority be the child welfare system is overwhelmingly convincing. I think it sheds light on the need for better in-home services and less out-of-home care to lessen the number of children being taken away from their families and contributing to the racial disproportion in foster care.

 

-Gretchen

Blog Post #10: Option 1

After reading this first portion of Roberts’ book, I definitely questioned how the foster care system and social services functions. Based on the stereotypes that surround black families that are depicted in movies and TV shows along with the reality of those situations, it is clear that her statement on page 6, “If you came [to dependency courts] with no preconceptions about the purpose of the child welfare system, you would have to conclude that it is an institution designed to monitor, regulate, and punish poor black families.,” is in fact true. She supports this statement using facts about the incredibly high number of black children removed from their homes, in foster care, and those who never are reunited with their biological families despite the great lengths their families go to get their children back.

One of the statistics that surprised me was that in Illinois, where 19% of the child population is black, 75% of the children in foster care are black (p. 8). Similar statistics were shared for larger cities and states which show that this is not occurring in just one place but all over the United States. All of the statistics and stories that Roberts’ shared supported her statement that black families are not treated the same as other families. Black children are more likely to be removed from their families in general, are more likely to be removed instead of receiving supporting help for the problems that are seen, they spend more time in foster care and are more likely to get stuck in the foster care system – neither being reunited with their family or being adopted, and the services that they do receive are usually inferior to those that other children in social services receive.

One particular story that intrigued me was Jornell’s story. She did what she believed to be best and sought out help to be a good mother. She started a program to help her stay healthy and to be a good mother for her new baby, David, but because of her background, the hospital and social services questioned many of her decisions. Even when she did everything that was asked of her (and often times much more), she did not get her son back after they took him away. She proved again and again that she was clean and healthy, was able to provide for her child and that she loved him and wanted him back yet they still refused to see any of the progress she had made and the steps she had taken to prove herself (pp. 3-6).

It seems that no matter how many parents try to prove to social services that they are good parents and the number of times they prove it, they are ignored, mistreated and treated as a lesser class. The discrimination that has been present for so many years still has not gone away. And because of this, the cycle continues; remove children from their home into foster care where they stay in unstable and sometimes unloving homes until their 18 and then kick them out with little preparation to be adults, parents, or functioning citizens. When Jornell questioned when she was getting David back, she stated that one of the reasons was because she did not want him to end up in jail like over half of foster children do (p. 6). That cycle will continue until someone actually does something about it and instead of the institution monitoring, regulating and punishing poor black families, they instead educate, assist and guide these families to be the best for the children and society so that this cycle ends.

-- Lindsey E.

Graded Blog Post 10

In order to support her claims Roberts uses a number of statistics that point to the extreme disproportion of African Americans in foster care versus white children. It is the statistics that I find to be her most convincing evidence.  While I find the anecdotal evidence that she supplies very moving, what it comes down to sometimes is the fact that while moving they are singular examples. The statistics provide concrete facts and evidence to back up the discrimination shown through the personal stories. Statistics like “56% of black children have been placed in the child welfare system have been placed in foster care – twice the percentage for white children” (17).

The evidence that I question somewhat actually comes from the anecdotal evidence. The way that the author presents these stories makes me feel as though she is in a sense saying that in these situations where African American children are taken from their parents, while their parents are in fact fit parents, is the norm for foster care. It makes her arguments very persuasive. However, I think that if statistics were provided explaining how often situations, like those she supplied, would be helpful in understanding the situation. They could potentially enhance the point the stories make. This to me would also show that the social workers are violating the rights of the child to be raised how they would prefer, with their family I would assume, and the social workers are then violating the autonomy of the children taken from their homes. One could also argue that being taken from ones parents and not returned is definitely against the best interest of the child. However, if the statistics were to show that the occurrence of these situations is low, the anecdotal evidence becomes less persuasive. If this were the case I would question the evidence.

--Mary S. 

Blog Post #9

Blog Post #9- Considering the adoptee in birthparent reunions

I really enjoyed the speakers we had on Wednesday. They were extremely passionate and focused, presenting a powerful argument in favor of open adoption ethics. I was so happy to see that it pushed Linda over the edge, so that she now has the courage to search for her birthmother. It seemed likely that that would happen, as the last time we heard Linda speak she made it pretty clear that she was on the fence and just needed a push.

The important piece that I think we need to keep in the back of our minds in order to put Wednesday’s speakers in proper prospective is that this is a view exclusively from the birthmother’s point of view. If we think back to the original lecture that we heard on open adoption issues, we can recall that Mary (Linda’s co-presenter) said that the relationship between a birthmother and an adoptee is easier for the birthmother, it satisfies her “curiosity.” She said that it’s the adoptee whose left to navigate the new complex social relationships. Our reading at the time from Anita Allen reiterated the point, saying that “while birth parent involvement may be a blessing in some instances…it may also be a stressor, and a curse,” (63). Our presenters on Wednesday very lightly touched on their relationships with their daughters, saying that they’ve had contact and all is well. This is the complex relationship that can often cause problems, and that’s not something that our presenters covered on Wednesday. It’s an important fact to keep in mind as we consider the pros and cons of open adoption. More simply put: on Wednesday we heard some very big pros, lets not forget the cons.

I don’t mean to be a downer. I thought that our speakers views of open adoption, particularly the simple fact that removing the constitutional right to access a personal birth certificate seems extremely unethical. I loved their contributions to our learning, I just would have loved to hear more about their relationships with their daughters.

Adam K.