There are approximately 2,100 children
and youth in foster care in Washington, DC*
330 are girls ages 13-18
WHAT IS FOSTER CARE?
Foster care is defined as “24-hour substitute care for children outside their own homes.”**
Settings include, but are not limited to, relative or non-relative foster family homes, group
homes, emergency shelters, residential facilities, and pre-adoptive homes. Foster care is
meant to be temporary, not a permanent situation for children to grow up in.
Children most often enter the foster care system from troubled homes where substance
abuse, domestic violence, criminal activity, and other family issues lead to abuse and
neglect. Most have endured unstable living situations and lack of basic necessities - even
occasional periods of homelessness. All have experienced the trauma and grief of separation
from family and familiar surroundings. Some are fortunate enough to leave the system
for “forever homes”, but many more will age out on their 21st birthday without a permanent
family.
CHARACTERISTICS OF CHILDREN IN FOSTER CARE IN WASHINGTON, DC
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• 60% of children waiting for adoption are over 13 years of age
• 96% are African American and 3% are Hispanic
• On average, a child spends close to 4 years
(nearly twice the national average)
• 48% of children experience three or more foster
care placements |
In a 2008 survey, District youth in foster care were asked:
WHAT ARE THE 3 MOST DIFFICULT PROBLEMS YOU FACE? |
• Managing life issues without the security of a family unit
• Placement changes
• School changes
• Personal anxieties about having to move
• Regret about loss of brothers and sisters in their daily lives
• Longing to be better understood/connected to people
they could trust
• Money and job concerns |
References:
*. Federal AFCARS data, 2005 for DC
**. As defined in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR)
 XOL's LOCAL CHILD WELFARE PARTNER
Extra-Ordinary Life is providing programs to foster care teens in care DC Child and Family Services (CFSA). CFSA is the city’s public child welfare agency that has the legal authority to protect child victims and those at risk of abuse and neglect through four primary functions:
CFSA PRIMARY FUNCTIONS |
| I. Child Protective Services |
Responding to reports of child abuse or neglect |
| II. Supportive Family Services |
Connecting troubled families to services such as counseling, parenting classes, housing and child care assistance, and substance abuse treatment, in an effort to help them heal. |
| III. Safe Out-of-Home Care |
Moving children to a safe short-term setting, when a family environment presents too much danger, or if parents are unable or unwilling to keep children safe. The goal is to overcome difficulties so children can return home to a safe environment. |
| IV. Adoption |
Recruiting and training people willing to provide nurturing permanent homes for children. CFSA unites many children with their birth families; however, other children find a “forever family” (i.e. permanent homes) through legal guardianship, life-long connections to a mentor or family-like member, or adoptive parents. |
| Can you imagine life without a “forever family” and a permanent home? |
EVERYONE needs and deserves a family. CFSA seeks to find permanent homes for youth in foster care through reunification with their birth families, legal guardianship (often with relatives), or adoption. At the very least, they work to ensure every young person develops a relationship with a caring adult committed to providing lifelong guidance and support through age 21.
- PREPARATION FOR ADULTHOOD – Although a public agency can never be the optimum parent, CFSA is raising these young people and preparing for adulthood. Like all modern teens, youth in foster care also face a host of special challenges through no fault of their own. They need and deserve quality nurturing, guidance, and support – and exposure to the same opportunities that good parents provide for their own children. In partnership with social workers, foster caregivers, and the community, CFSA’s Office of Youth Empowerment is committed to teaching, training and guiding young people—and ultimately helping each to recognize and develop his/her unique potential.
CFSA YOUTH EMPOWERMENT PROGRAMS |
Life Skills Training : Interactive classes that “stand in” for family guidance on a wide range of topics of interest and importance to young people today such as: health and self-care, relationships, safe sexual behavior and pregnancy prevention, money management, educational planning and study skills, finding and keeping a job, communication, and career planning.
Education: Provide access to services that support academic achievement, completion of high school, and entry into college or vocational training. Approx. 21% of youth in care go to college or a post-high school educational program. Tutors, mentors, application guidance, scholarships and college tours are available.
Work: In addition to workshops on resume preparation, interview techniques, and looking for a job, OYE helps identify opportunities for internships and paid work. OYE partners with District employment services agencies and local public and private employers to create and identify meaningful work experiences.
Broad Horizons: Because many youth in care come from disadvantaged backgrounds, opening the world to them is of special importance. We work to create opportunities for these young people to meet inspiring and successful people, volunteer, participate in school and community activities, and travel. Every positive, enriching experience helps these young people broaden their horizons. Extra-Ordinary Life provides these types of experiences.
Youth Advisory Board: A group of older youth (ages 17-21) meet regularly to advise the CFSA Director about how the agency can better address issues and meet their needs. Youth Advisory Board members receive leadership training and other growth opportunities in return for their involvement.
Fun: Good times help young people develop social skills and make new friends. OYE hosts parties, movie nights, pizza outings, bowling, field trips, an annual fashion show, and other fun events.
Please visit www.cfsa.dc.gov for more information. If you are interested in adopting a child,
call 202-671-LOVE
 YOUTH WITHOUT HOMES IN SOUTH AFRICA
In Africa, children that we would identify as “foster care children” are referred to as “orphans and vulnerable children”. We are honored to be working with the Johannesburg Child Welfare Society. Since 1997, JCWS has, together with many other organizations concerned with the well being of children and families, made substantial contributions to the ongoing civil society campaigns helping to shape the new, all important legal dispensation regarding the protection of children in South Africa. That longstanding effort has culminated this year in some critical developments in child-related law and policy. Extra-Ordinary Life is collaborating with JCWS to bring visibility to the foster care/orphan issue overall; to connect teens living in similar situations in our respective countries, and to forge a sustainable relationship that extends beyond this inaugural trip to the World Cup.
Who are orphans and vulnerable children?
Namibia's National Policy on Orphans and Vulnerable children defines "orphan" as "a child who has lost one or both parents because of death and is under the age of 18" and a "vulnerable child" is "a child who needs care and protection."[2]
As one can imagine, the loss of a parent (or both parents) profoundly affects a child economically, psychologically and socially. UNICEF's Unite for Children Unite Against AIDS' Framework for the Protection, Care and Support of Orphans and Vulnerable Children Living in a World with HIV and AIDS enumerated the following effects of sickness and death of a parent upon children:
- Economic hardship - As parents succumb to sickness, they become unable to provide for their child financially and what little savings are available goes towards health care costs. As a result, children's needs, such as school fees and clothing, aren't able to be met.
- Lack of love, attention and affection - While children of all ages need emotional support and stimulation, young children may be left without responsive care, stunting the child's emotional development and sense of well being.
- Withdrawal from school – Often times, children become the care takers of a sick parent and are unable to attend school. Financially, families may no longer be able to afford school fees, supplies and uniforms as sickness devours the family's finances.
- Psychological distress - Children suffer from the fear of loss once a parent has been diagnosed with HIV/AIDS as well as the stigma that accompanies the disease in many regions of the world.
- Loss of inheritance - In many countries around the world, property and inheritance laws do not protect the rights of orphans and widows and they are prohibited from claiming what is rightly theirs. Even when inheritance laws are on the books they are often not enforced.
- Increased abuse and risk of HIV infection - Without parents to look out for their best interests, children can fall pray to sexual exploitation and child labor in order to provide for their needs. Because of the high-risk behavior in which they may be forced to engage, orphaned and vulnerable children are at an elevated risk for contracting HIV.
- Malnutrition and illness - Orphaned children are at an elevated risk for malnutrition and illness in addition to a lack of access to health care.
- Stigma, discrimination and isolation - When they are orphaned by HIV/AIDS, children must oftentimes leave their familiar surroundings and may not be as readily accepted by extended family members. Even when children remain in familiar surroundings, they may become victims of discrimination or isolation due to common misunderstandings of the disease and how it is spread.
When children are orphaned, they become vulnerable to a whole host of dangers in the name of supporting themselves and their siblings. Children who have been orphaned often drop out of school to provide for themselves and to pay for food and school fees for younger siblings. Orphaned children often fall prey to sexual exploitation and possibly prostitution, they may be co-opted into joining militias or armed groups or forced into domestic servitude.
What is the Current Situation?
In sub-Saharan Africa, AIDS is the leading cause of death among those aged 15-59 years old. 80 percent of all the children who have lost a parent to AIDS in the developing world are living in this region. Even once the HIV infection rates stabilize or begin to decline, the number of orphans will continue to grow or remain high for many years due to the time lag between HIV infection and death. [4]
While HIV/AIDS has dramatically increased the number of orphans worldwide, it is not the only disease leaving orphans in its wake. Malaria and Tuberculosis have had a large impact throughout the world as well. 2 million die annually from Tuberculosis, 90 percent of these deaths occur in the developing world. Malaria claims more than one million lives per year. [5] Sub-Saharan Africa bears the brunt of the malaria death toll - nearly 90 percent of the world's malaria deaths occur in this region, amounting to nearly 3,000 deaths per day.[6] Funding must not fixate solely upon children made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS, but rather, it must focus upon all vulnerable children and orphans, regardless of the cause.
PEPFAR
The United States has taken leadership in the fight against HIV/AIDS in some of the hardest-hit countries. The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has served as one of America's strongest goodwill ambassadors in recent years, as the acronym has become synonymous with "life-saving help" in many parts of the world. Currently, PEPFAR is providing life-saving antiretroviral treatment for approximately 1.73 million men, women and children, of which nearly 1.68 million are in sub-Saharan Africa. PEPFAR has also supported prevention of mother-to-child transmission for women in over 12.7 million pregnancies, since the programs inception in 2003 and has provided antiretroviral prophylaxis for one million pregnancies of HIV positive women which, in turn, prevented transmission of HIV to approximately 194,000 infants. It is a significant step that the U.S. has allocated 10 percent of global AIDS funding for OVC with additional support for pediatric HIV/AIDS. It is important to use this commitment as leverage with other donor nations and ensure that they provide funding to match their commitments. If PEPFAR is funded at $50 billion over the next five years, OVC programs would receive roughly $730 million annually. PEPFAR is on track to achieving many impressive goals, including treatment for 2 million people, prevention of 7 million new infections and care for 10 million infected or affected by AIDS, including orphans and vulnerable children.
In addition to PEPFAR, the U.S. supports OVC through the funding of other mechanisms, such as via different U.S. agencies and by supporting The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. That being said, less than 15 percent of OVC receive any kind of international support - the majority of the support they receive comes from their own communities.
What is Needed?
Support for Communities: Extended families and communities care for more than 90% of all double orphans in sub-Saharan Africa.[7] Funding and programming for OVC must reflect this fact and include support for caregivers so that children may be raised by their community versus being institutionalized in an orphanage where often there is a far lower care-taker to child ratio and where children simply do not fare as well. Community-based programming, such as neighborhood care points, church volunteer networks and comprehensive support given to needy families, better addresses the needs of each individual population and provides more effective care and support for its vulnerable children.
Caretaker Support: Support for the caretakers is an essential step in ensuring that children receive proper care and attention. In many cases, orphans are taken in by grandparents who no longer work and, therefore, no longer earn a wage. Even when the caretakers do have money coming into the household, they were often in an impoverished situation before the addition of dependents to the household. The combination of chronic poverty and the HIV/AIDS epidemic have greatly stressed and drained community resources.
Holistic Programming: Holistic programming is also an important aspect to the support that is necessary to care for AIDS orphans. According to Unite for Children, Unite Against AIDS, the needs of children in the AIDS epidemic have been overlooked in prevention and treatment, policies and budgeting. Care for vulnerable children must extend beyond mere material need, as the AIDS crisis affects children psychologically and socially as well.
Flexibility: Programming must also be flexible, taking into account the realities of the people being served. According to UNICEF, decisions about resource allocation should be based on internal assessments of each country's unique circumstances and needs. Global figures suggest that 12% of all HIV/AIDS resources should go towards supporting OVC, and that more than 9/10ths of the 12% should go to sub-Saharan Africa.[8] Furthermore, the needs of children vary depending on the age when they were orphaned. This fact should be taken into account when planning programming. According to UNICEF, older orphans are at risk of missing out on education, being subject to exploitative labor and being exposed to HIV, while younger orphans are the least resilient and greatly need physical care and nurturing.
Cash transfers are another way to provide flexible support that is community based. In 2007, UNICEF evaluated cash transfer programs in Malawi, South Africa and Zambia. A community based committee selected households most in need of a monthly stipend of approximately $7.50 to $10. As a result of the stipend, research showed that food consumption increased even during a drought period, illness in parents and children decreased and school enrollment increased slightly.
In some situations, families are too poor to participate in microcredit loan programs (small loans to start tiny businesses), as they have no one to watch their children or lack sufficient funding for transportation to the city. Cash transfers can allow them to begin participating in these loan programs and eventually become self-sufficient entrepreneurs.
Government collaboration: Government support is necessary to carry out necessary legal reforms and to enforce existing mandates concerning property rights, birth registration and equitable access to education. Unite for Children, Unite Against AIDS advocates for birth and death registration to become common practice because currently it is often difficult for children and extended family members to obtain records to prove that they are widows or orphans. Without proper documentation, children are often considered ineligible for food aid and medical care. In sub-Saharan Africa, two-thirds of births go unregistered. Also, many orphans suffer due to a lack of inheritance rights or a lack of enforcement of said inheritance rights. Orphans and widows cannot claim what is rightfully theirs.
Standardization, Indicators and Monitoring and Evaluation: A lack of widely agreed upon indicators exists when considering the plight of AIDS orphans and vulnerable children. As noted by UNICEF, there is a need to strengthen and expand the knowledge base on the status of OVC in order to improve the response to challenges faced by orphans and adequately address their needs.
INFORMATION COMPLIED BY GLOBAL ACTION FOR CHILDREN
For more information on the plight of orphans and vulnerable children in the developing world, please visit www.globalactionforchildren.org.
[1] UNAIDS, UNICEF, WHO, Children and AIDS: A Stocktaking Report, January 2007
[2] UNICEF, http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/files/M-E-PlanforNPAforOVCvol2.pdf
[3] Ibid, 9.
[4] UNICEF, Africa's Orphaned and Vulnerable Generations: Children Affected by AIDS
[5] Global Health Council
[6] The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria
[7] Ibid, iv.
[8] UNICEF, Children and AIDS Second Stocktaking Report
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