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Allyson Fronczek
English 1201
4/7/20
Literature Review

There are approximately 440,000 children in foster care nationwide according to the foster care

statistics of 2019. With this being such a large number I can’t help but wonder how the foster care

system has impacted their lives. How can placement in the foster care system affect a child’s

development? What are the positive and negative effects of the foster care system? There are many

factors that go into answering these questions and through my research I was able to find answers and

statics that show how foster care affects children and families in America.

For many years’ children have been removed from their unsafe homes and placed with a loving

family either temporarily or permanently, and somewhere along the way Foster Care was created. This

is a field that has tremendously grown over time and is constantly changing and improving. Now there

are both positives and negatives to foster care that go hand in hand with the ever changing world we

live in. Some of the positive aspects include that fact that foster parents and their homes go through a

very thorough and intensive qualification process. Also, foster care provides children with safe place to

stay and a positive environment change that could be beneficial for the child. Not only can this time in

foster care benefit the child, but also the biological family. Having a child placed in the foster care

system can really put things in perspective for the biological parents/family and give them time to get

their lives together for themselves and their children.

With every good thing there are also some not so great things about the foster care system. The

fact that the number of children entering the foster care system is on the rise, we should see a rise in

social workers, but we are not. Social workers are being asked to take on way too much and being

overloaded with case after case. This can cause problems when foster parents try to get appropriate

care for their foster children. Another negative effect of the foster care system is the use of Medicaid.

Each year fewer and fewer providers are taking Medicaid, making it hard to find quality care for foster
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Allyson Fronczek
English 1201
4/7/20
children. A lot of times children in the foster care system need extensive care because of the trauma

they’ve been through.

When speaking of a child’s development, it is important to understand they key aspects of a

child’s brain. “During the first 3 to 4 years of life, the anatomic brain structures that govern personality

traits, learning processes, and coping with stress and emotions are established, strengthened, and made

permanent. If unused, these structures atrophy (“Development Issues for Young Children in Foster

Care”). The median age of children coming into foster care is 6 ½ years old, and many even younger. This

means that a majority of these children coming into care have already had a traumatic childhood filled

with abuse or neglect. Many of these children have not experienced nurturing or a stable environment

in the early stages of their life. This leaves us with high rates of physical, developmental and mental

health problems throughout the lives of these children. We know through research that emotional and

cognitive disruptions in early childhood have the potential to impair development. Consequences of

childhood trauma include hyperactivity, anxiety, mood swings, impulsiveness and sleep problems. Some

children have a greater risk for not forming healthy attachments to anyone. As I mentioned a lot of the

children come with a variety of behaviors and they are most likely not good ones. Habits that they’ve

picked up from living with their biological family include cursing, lying, stealing, sexualized behavior, and

violence. These are reflections of the trauma they have seen in their short lives. This begs a very

controversial question, should we fighting so hard to reunite families or would these children be better

off being adopted by a loving family that has been certified through the state to care for a child?

From the research I’ve done, you can see that there are a lot of aspects of the foster care system

can affect a child and their development. We think the worst when we hear “Foster Care” but people

tend to overlook the positives. Either way you look at it there is one thing that is certain, the

development of these children is at great risk if it is not caught in time. The future of their education,
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Allyson Fronczek
English 1201
4/7/20
physical/mental health, their relationships, social standing, future finical situation, possible criminal

record and/or future living situation are all affected by their childhood trauma and the help that they get

from our foster care system.

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Allyson Fronczek
English 1201
4/7/20

Works Cited Page

Craft, Carrie. “How Foster Care Affects Children in Your Home.” Very Well Family, Updated on December

13 2019.

www.verywellfamily.com/how-does-foster-care-affect-children-27357.

Committee on Early Childhood, Adoption and Dependent Care. “Development Issues for Young Children

in Foster Care.” Pediatrics, 106 (5) 1145-50. DOI: doi.org/10. 1542/peds. 106.5. 1145. November 2000.

pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/106/5/1145.

Foster Care. “Foster Care Statistics 2019.” Ifoster, 2019.

www.ifoster.org/6-quick-statistics-on-the-current-state-of-foster-care.

Johnson, Renae. “Foster Care and the Developing Child.” Adoption Council, Posted September 23, 2014.

www.adoptioncouncil.org/blog/2014/09/foster-care-and-the-developing-child.

Positives and Negatives. “Positives and Negatives Within the Foster Care System. Answers.

adoption.org/positives-negatives-within-foster-care-system.

The Impact. “The Impact of Foster Care.” American SPCC.

americanspcc.org/impact-of-foster-care/.
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Allyson Fronczek
English 1201
4/7/20