Foster care entails rescuing children from reckless parents and guardians and placing them under the care of the specialized organizations that would link them to individuals who might be in need of children in their lives. This implies that children in foster care organizations come from families with several social problems that are sometimes unbearable for young persons under the age of eighteen.
Some of the factors that might lead the state agencies in charge of overseeing the welfare of children to initiate foster care include abandonment and sexual, emotional, or physical mistreatment (Crow, 2013). Children are placed under foster care services until they attain the age of eighteen when they have the capacity to make major decisions affecting their lives, as well as providing for themselves the basic needs.
Additionally, some children might be in need of specialized supervisions owing to their delinquent behavior while some might be struggling with issues related to domestic violence, drug abuse, and mental problems. All these would call for specialized care implying that children would be in need of counseling services to enable them cope with the challenges in society.
Once a child is put under the foster care program, he or she would be expected to attend school and be involved in any activity that befits any child in the community. Issues of child labor and mistreatment are greatly reduced and the child would definitely grow up to be a responsible citizen. Studies show that a child who went through any form of abuse would most likely be a delinquent and might end up being a criminal in society.
On the other hand, adoption is a lifelong commitment that an individual makes to a child (Gibson, 2009). Consequently, an adopting family is usually given a legal permission to offer critical services to the child, such as care, protection, security, and comfort.
Adoption is viewed as the only way of offering a child the maximum level of permanency since foster care services are often temporary and are viewed as a short-term solution to the problems that abused children go through (Twohey, 2013). Once a child is taken to a foster care institution and adoption takes place successfully, pre and post adoption services are critical for the new family.
Services, such as joining support groups, information sharing, referral programs, training, and home studies are very important, as it would give the new family members a chance to know each other well.
The role of the human services professional is to understand the behavior and the expectations of each party in the adoption agreement and offer appropriate information to avoid misunderstanding in the future( Lawrence, Carlson, & Egeland, 2006).. For instance, the adopting family will want to know the real parents of the child, the siblings, relatives, and any health complication.
One of the most important post adoption programs is mentoring programs, which are provided by several state and federal organizations across the country. Under the program, the human services worker aspires to introduce the adopting family to other existing families living under the adoption arrangements.
This helps in building confidence, as both the child and his or her new family come to the realization that adoption is possible. Research shows that adopting families are often in doubt whether the arrangement works (Suppes, & Wells, 2012). Linking one family with an adopted child to the other has a potential of creating a lasting relationship.
If a child adopted has any form of physical challenge, the family will be introduced to a state or federal program that offers specialized services to the physically challenged individuals. As noted earlier, referral services are needed whereby a human services worker with critical knowledge on adoption is requested to monitor the situation until the family gels.
If additional counseling services are needed, the social worker would advice accordingly. Human services workers have sufficient knowledge to offer to parents after adoption. For instance, the expert is to offer short-term case management and advocacy where the parents will be shown how to deal with issues without necessarily destabilizing the child.
Peaceful problem solving techniques are difficult to master and parents have to be taken through a training process to ensure that they offer appropriate guidance to children. Finally, parents must understand the education opportunities available to them just after adopting the child.
State and federal institutions offer courses on adoption, but the social worker would select the most appropriate and encourage the parents to pursue them.
Foster care and adoption are closely related, but they are very different concepts whose major aim is to save children from injustices and abuse. Foster care rescues children from the hands of oppressive parents or guardians implying that it offers short-term solution to the problem whereas adoption provides a lasting solution whereby a child is linked to parents who would in turn guide him or her in life.
Just after rescuing the child, the human services worker has to design programs that would help the child cope with the new environment. Before adoption, counseling is necessary to iron out some of the unclear issues while post adoption programs encourage harmonious co-existence.
References
Crow, R. (2013). Believing in love and Dreams for children in foster care. The Huffington Post. Web.
Gibson, K. (2009). Differential parental investment in families with both adopted and genetic children. Evolution and Human Behavior, 30(3), 184–189.
Lawrence, C.R., Carlson, E.A., & Egeland, B. (2006). The impact of foster care on development. Development and Psychopathology, 18(1), 57–76.
Suppes, M.A., & Wells, C.C. (2012). The Social Work experience: An Introduction to Social Work and Social Welfare. New York: Pearson.
Twohey, M. (2013). Adoption group calls for US laws to stop online child trading. Reuters. Web.