Foster Care System Research Paper

Introduction
Study Population/Background
The child welfare system is extremely complicated and difficult to navigate. However, working with children is one of my professional goals. Children may end up in foster care through parents, guardians or caregivers who are not able or are unwilling to provide care for them. Tragically, it is often that a child or adolescent has experienced some level of abuse or neglect that has precipitated their entry in to the child welfare system. Dorsey et. al (2012) provides that up to 2/3 of the general population has seen or been through a traumatizing event. However, the incidence for children and adolescents in foster care experiencing trauma is 90%. Once a youth has entered the foster care system, …show more content…
The areas of particular interest will be the access to mental health services and the skills and resources provided to aid with transitioning to independence and adulthood. However, this paper will focus specifically on African American transitioning age foster youth and their individual experiences in care. Due to the cross-cultural nature of this paper, the research questions will be geared toward the disparities in care between their white and female counterparts. Research has been done to learn more about risk factors and behaviors, mental health needs, transition to independence, and disparity in care for those in the child welfare system, each of which will be examined further for the purpose of this qualitative research study. Unfortunately, many of these journals depict negative pictures of those experiencing care and beyond. One of the goals of this study will be to determine if the interviewed youth have mirrored views, circumstances, or …show more content…
(2001) conducted a study of youth in Wisconsin who left foster care in the late 1990s and tracked them over the first 12-18 months after transitioning out of care. There were numerous significant findings from this investigation, and one of the more positive pieces of data showed that approximately 76% of the 141 interviewed young adults received independent life skills trainings. Thom Reilly (2003) wrote a similar report of 105 transitional aged foster care youth from Nevada from 2000-2001. Reilly found that only about 60% of his subjects had received formal life training. Both Courtney et al (2001) and Reilly (2003) discovered that despite the experiential training the foster care youth had received, very few left the system with any types of tangible assistance or access to services. Each of these researchers and studies demonstrate that the transitional period from the foster care system to independence and adulthood is at the very least, daunting. It would be beneficial for this population to experience more training and assistance to help them navigate through such a trying and difficult

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