“Eighty percent of adolescents entering the foster care system have severe mental health problems” (Source E). Children in the foster care system have experienced trauma, abuse and neglect, and counseling is an effective non-drug solution. However the majority of these children are misdiagnosed; foster children are prescribed psychiatric drugs instead of counseling or other non-drug alternatives. These misdiagnoses are then added to a child’s medical history, which lacks consistency from constantly being transferred to different homes. Overhauling America’s foster care system will be challenging and strenuous, but is a necessary step in improving the welfare of foster children, who spend on average over two years in purported temporary placement …show more content…
Currently the foster care system fails in prioritizing the search for permanent homes. Each year, twenty-two billion dollars is spent on foster care programs; forty thousand dollars is spent on each individual child and five billion dollars on keeping children in foster care (Source H). The majority of America’s child welfare fund is expended on extending foster children’s stay because social services fail to succeed in searching for permanent homes. If caseworkers established relationships with families and continually visited homes, discoveries of unhealthy behaviors would lead to new solutions and aid the return of children to homes. The billions of dollars on funding could then be used towards addiction treatments or parenting classes to uphold the reunion of children and parents. Furthermore, the prolonging of time in foster care will create developmental, learning disabilities and mental health problems. These effects are combined with inconsistent medical history, and instigate physicians in believing a prescription of psychotropic medication as the only solution. One-third of Medicaid children who consume behavioral health care services are foster children, five times greater than children enrolled in Medicaid (Source G). These foster children are misdiagnosed and disproportionately treated with antipsychotics rather than …show more content…
Currently, an introduction to new acts aiming to enhance the welfare of children in the foster care system was shared to the public. One example is the Family Stability and Kinship Care Act, which would promote the placement of adolescents at home with biological parents or with kin. Other acts also aim at improvements, for example, the Foster Care Family Act would assist older foster children and parents with “providing liability insurance for foster parents, reduce barriers to obtaining a driver's license and require… social services… to work diligently to find foster children permanent placement” (Source C). New acts introduced already promote the search for permanent homes either with a biological parent, kin, or through adoption. Furthermore, with the financial funds from Fostering Futures Scholarship of Michigan, foster children will be able to resume higher education. However, a foster youth is only eligible for a service if he or she meets the requirements, one includes attending college in Michigan for four years. Although the organization provides benefits only for foster children of Michigan, Fostering Futures still achieves in providing success in foster children’s future. New acts introduced, not yet passed, claim to improve foster children’s