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Youth with Disabilities Aging out of Foster Care: Issues and Support Strategies

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Youth with Disabilities Aging out of Foster Care: Issues and Support Strategies Feature Issue on Children with Disabilities in the Child Welfare System Published by the Institute on Community Integration (UCEDD) · Research and Training Center on Community Living Volume 19 · Number 1 · Fall/Winter 2005/06 From the Editors When children with disabilities and their families become involved with the child welfare system – with child protective services and/or permanency services – there is often a steep learning curve for the system as to how to best serve them. As complex as the needs are of any child removed from his or her family because of abuse or neglect, or because the family is unable to continue caring for the child, the needs of children with disabilities are even more complicated because they involve multiple systems – the disability services and child welfare services systems.These two systems don’t necessarily Carolyn Johnson was a child with a disability who grew up in foster care.Today, as a mom she works hard to communicate with each other in a way that create a strong and loving family environment for her own children. See story below. supports their work on behalf of children with disabilities who have been removed from their family home or who are at risk for Growing Up in Foster Care: Carolyn’s Story such removal, and they may not have adequate access to expertise in one another’s by Carolyn Johnson, as told to Jennifer Hall-Lande areas of focus. In this Impact issue, we My childhood was spent in the foster care system. The first time I went into foster care examine the presence and needs of children I was seven years old. Throughout my childhood and teenage years, I was in over with disabilities who are in the child welfare seven foster care and group home placements. As I look back at those years, it feels system, barriers to be addressed by the two like a mixture of good and bad experiences. systems and those who work in them, and One of the most difficult parts of foster care was not knowing what was going to strategies for moving forward in better happen to me. There was always a sense of uncertainty and confusion. I often felt meeting the needs of such children and their scared and alone. It would be hard for any child to go through the foster care system, but having a disability made it more difficult for me to understand what was going on families. in my life. The only time that I really remember my social worker was when she came to my house to take us away. I do not recall a social worker talking with or visiting me in the foster home. It was important to know what was happening in my life. I needed What’s Inside someone to explain the situation to me in a way that I could understand, someone I Overview Articles could trust and talk to about things. Sometimes it felt like the foster homes were just Program and Personal Profiles in it for the money. It felt like they did not care about me or that I had a disability. In Resources one foster home, her son hurt me. When I told my foster mom, she whooped me for telling on him. If a social worker had come to the home, I would have told her about what had happened to me. Being separated from my siblings was another painful part of being in foster care. I was the oldest in my family followed by my brother and baby sister. My brother and I were always placed in the same home, but my sister was always in a different foster home. At that time, most foster homes only wanted babies or very young children. [Johnson, continued on page 36] 2 Overview Supporting Family Life for Children with Disabilities: What We Know and Don’t Know by Nancy Rosenau Children with Disabilities and Family The simple truth that young children Disruption: What’s Known, Unknown In short, too many children with disabili- need a close relationship with a nurtur- ties get into care, too few get out, and too ing parent for physical and emotional In the child welfare system, the need of often they’re in the wrong place while well-being has been known intuitively children for family has been built into there. What contributes to this state of for as long as humankind has organized policy and mandated by federal legisla- affairs? In a number of senses, we “don’t itself in families. It has been affirmed by tion since 1980 under the term “perma- know.” child development experts and research- nency planning.” Permanency planning We don’t know in the sense of having ers. It was theorized by John Bowlby in is a set of goal-directed, time-sensitive factual information. Despite recognizing the 1950s, subsequently studied under activities to create conditions to allow the prevalence of children with disabili- the term “attachment,” and is now sup- the safe resumption of care by a birth ties in child welfare systems, we don’t ported by an enormous body of empiri- family after removal, or permanent know who they are, where they live, or cal evidence (Cassidy & Shaver, 1999; placement with another family when what their experiences are. Studies Carlson, Sampson & Sroufe, 2003). The return is not possible. Despite the impor- widely report children with disabilities tance attributed to a nurturing parent- are over-represented in the child welfare child relationship, children with disabili- system. Estimates range from 14% to 64% ties have been differentially assured this depending on methodology and defini- Children with disabilities experience singularly important developmental tions, but the data is hard to interpret. imperative. Several very thorough, must- Take the following examples identified more removals from their parents, read publications on children with from data in a national reporting system disabilities summarize the now well- (see Bruhn, 2003). Federally mandated more residential settings, longer established facts (Bruhn, 2003; Marge, data collection identified only 11% of 2003; Rosenberg & Robinson, 2004): children in care as having a developmen- time in care, fewer goals of family • Children with disabilities are at tal or medical condition, a proportion far increased risk of maltreatment lower than would be expected given life, and less achievement compared to nondisabled children. prevalence in the general population, • Children with disabilities have an much less the higher incidence of disabil- of the goals of family life than increased likelihood of suffering mal- ity caused by abuse or neglect. In 1999, treatment multiple times in multiple Washington state reported no children in their non-disabled peers in ways by multiple perpetrators. foster care had disabilities and Florida reported 21 of 34,254; that same year the child welfare system. • Some disabilities are caused by North Dakota reported 46.7% of children maltreatment. in foster care had disabilities. Either chil- • Some children are unwanted because dren with disabilities were not identified of their disabilities and are relin- in Washington or Florida, or they weren’t best description I’ve seen of this neces- quished; others are desperately living in foster care. Either children in sary relationship is Stanley Greenspan’s wanted but relinquished to obtain North Dakota are maltreated at enor- (1997): otherwise unavailable services. mous rates or North Dakota is reporting • Children with disabilities are more children that other states don’t count as Every child needs a safe, secure envi- likely to live in congregate care where having disabilities. If we don’t know who ronment that includes one stable, subsequent maltreatment is more has and who doesn’t have a disability and predictable, comforting, and protec- likely. where they are, how can we be sure we’re tive relationship with an adult, not • Children with disabilities experience providing them with what they need? necessarily a biological parent, who We also don’t know in the sense of has made a long-term personal com- more removals from their parents, more residential settings, longer time having awareness. We don’t distinguish mitment to the child’s daily welfare to what extent behaviors of children with and who has the means, time, and in care, fewer goals of family life, and less achievement of the goals of fam- disabilities are consequences of maltreat- personal qualities needed to carry it ment rather than intrinsic to their im- out. (p. 264) ily life than their non-disabled peers in the child welfare system. pairment. Knowing is complicated by Retrieved from the Web site of the Institute on Community Integration, University of Minnesota (http://ici.umn.edu/products/impact/191/default.html). Citation: Gaylord,V., LaLiberte,T., Lightfoot, E. & Hewitt, A. (Eds.). (2006). Impact: Feature Issue on Children with Disabilities in the Child Welfare System 19(1). [Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, Institute on Community Integration.] Overview 3 children’s inability to communicate and dren for 25 years, the disability sector is The Risks of Maltreatment by inadequate evaluations that have dif- coming to permanency planning more for Children with Disabilities ficulty distinguishing underlying condi- recently, with a few notable exceptions tions. The behavioral consequences of like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Texas. While the risk factors that contribute to maltreatment are increasingly under- Texas, for instance, has legislation to child maltreatment in all children apply stood to include aggression, poor sense assure all children in disability services of personal safety, inappropriate sexual non-family living arrangements have a to children with disabilities too, the behavior, self-abuse, poor hygiene, permanency plan that is reviewed every presence of a disability increases both the extreme withdrawal, and running away.
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