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.