Foster Children and Poverty Report

The Annie E. Casey Foundation has released a report that indicates many foster children are living in less than ideal conditions and in poverty stricken conditions.

The top five states that have their foster children living above the poverty level are:

• Utah
• North Dakota
• Idaho
• Wyoming
• South Dakota

The worst states fall on the East coast, where the ATN conference will be in just two and a half weeks:

• Massachusetts
• Rhode Island
• New York
• New Jersey
• Maryland
• Delaware

What this means is that on the East coast, more foster children are living at 200% or more below the poverty level than anywhere else in the country.

The report also points out that states typically thought of as poverty stricken, or low-income were much better than their East coast counterparts. Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas and other states in the deep South were in the bottom half, but not as bad as the East coast.

What does all this mean? It means that our kids are living in foster care in as bad or worse conditions than in their birth home.

The report is very thorough in evaluating children on many different levels from emotional health, physical health, cognitive development to social and economic characteristics. It compares how the foster children in below poverty conditions compare to those in above foster care conditions do in these various areas.

The area where the children scored lower in the upper economic range is in having dinner as a family at least six nights a week. Those in the lower income level do a better job than the upper income level.

Areas where the largest discrepancies were showed are fairly predictable.

• Living without secure parental income
• Living in a single parent home
• Living with a householder who is a high school drop out
• Child age 6-17 does not participate in team, club or activity
• Child age 12-17 did not volunteer in the past year
• Child is in less than very good health
• Child age 6-17 does not display positive social behavior
• Child lives in an unsupportive neighborhood

All of these areas differ by 15% or more between the two economic distinctions. There is a 37% difference in the secure parental employment area. In the low-income areas this applies to 54% of the families, but only 17% in the upper income areas. This is not surprising, but is cause for concern about our foster children. Are we doing our kids any favors by removing them from their birth families and placing them in these conditions? I’m not sure if foster care or adoption subsidies are considered part of a family’s income for the purposes of these studies, but if it is and the families are still at 200% below the poverty level with the subsidy, these families are in serious trouble. Do the kids have enough to eat? What about clean clothes, school supplies and basic necessities of life? How do we do a better job of recruiting foster families that are financially able to support the children?

I’m not saying that money should be the only requirement for parenting. I know parents who have plenty of money but are still lousy parents, some of my family members being among them. However, if a child is removed from a birth family, they should have the chance to go to a better life than the one they left. Taking a neglected child from a birth home and putting them in a home where they may not be getting enough to eat is not going to help that child.

If you want to find out where your state ranks, read this report then contact your legislator to petition for changes to be made.

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