Caring relationships are essential to healthy child development. Yet the very system intended to ensure the welfare of our nation’s youth strains – and sometimes, severs – the very connections children need to thrive. Children belong with their families
Strong families are the building blocks of resilient communities. When you support a parent in need, you not only make a difference in the life of a child today – but in the strength of a community tomorrow. And all families deserve support
Our nation invests $33 billion a year in child protective services, a system that was never designed to prevent harm, only to respond after child abuse has been alleged. This reactive process fails to address the root cause of many reports to CPS (Child Protective Services): poverty. Our child welfare routinely mischaracterizes signs of poverty as evidence of abuse, punishing many parents at the very moment they most need support. This misguided approach leads to 600,000 children entering foster care every year. The effects of investigation and family separation (experiences Black and Indigenous families are twice as likely to experience as their white peers) are not only traumatic – they are preventable . In 75% of child welfare cases, a parent is accused of neglecting to meet their child’s basic needs. What if, at the first sign of hardship, we connected parents to resources in their own communities, before their circumstances prompted a call to child services? Families would be spared the invasive, traumatic experience of being investigated. They would stay together. And our foster care system would dramatically decrease in size. It’s a future we can build – together.
Foster America believes that, together, we can transform family- serving systems that today fall short of providing parents with the support they both need and deserve. Every day, in communities across the nation, Foster America works alongside bold, innovative leaders in pursuit of a reality where: Parents facing hardship know where to go for help – and the resources to help them raise their children are plentiful and provided equitably. The child welfare system is far smaller, serving only those truly in need of protective services to keep them safe from abuse. Placing children in foster care is incredibly rare and, when necessary, prioritizes keeping children with relatives or other loved ones.
In pursuit of that future, Foster America is:
Test-driving, refining, and scaling new approaches to caring for families facing hardship before their circumstances reach a point of crisis. Working with those who have experienced the child welfare system firsthand, so they can help us understand what failed to meet their needs and lead the way in building its replacement. Accelerating transformation by embedding our staff where progress is steady but extra capacity is needed – in communities ripe for innovation and committed to a Developing the skills of bold leaders with the drive, the dedication, and the passion to build the system our children deserve.
1 in 3 children is subjected to a CPS investigation. Annually, 600,000 are separated from their families and put in foster care. 75% of cases allege a caregiver failed to provide for their child. Food. Clothing. Medicine. These circumstances are often signs of poverty – not neglect.
To maintain our momentum, we need you.
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