By , there were more than twice as many in foster care. By the late s, the foster child population exceeded ,, roughly where it stands today. Foster placements could be numerous and lengthy in practice, but in theory they were temporary because children maintained ties to their birth parents.
Between the s and the s, as foster care became more common for more children, adoptions increasingly involved practices like matching , policies like confidentiality and sealed records , and placements of infants and toddlers rather than older children. Adoption aspired to the wholesale substitution of one family for another.
Foster care did not. Two developments distanced adoption from foster care after the New Deal and World War II: the growth of public social welfare services and a new consciousness about the plight of African-American , mixed-race, older, native, developmentally delayed, physically disabled, and other hard-to-place children. Anti-poverty programs like Aid to Dependent Children established by the Social Security Act of and later renamed Aid to Families With Dependent Children offered financially struggling parents an alternative to placing their children in institutions or surrendering them forever.
When the program expanded in the early s, federal funding for foster care was added. The result was an explosion in out-of-home family placements. During the last half-century, foster care has come to designate this government-funded system. Foster care is now the main form of assistance provided to poor children in the United States who cannot remain in their own homes because of neglect or abuse. Race as well as class marked the growing gap between foster care and adoption.
During the postwar civil rights era, poor children of color, formerly denied many services, comprised more of the foster care caseload. Foster parents were somewhat better off economically than the children in their care, but they too were increasingly drawn from minority racial and ethnic communities.
Foster parents were licensed and compensated by the state for the work they did, however meagerly, and had fewer legal protections than adoptive or birth parents.
By definition, foster parents were not autonomous. Child welfare permanency practice and related policies continue to evolve as agencies, professionals, families, and policymakers strive to achieve a balance that keeps children safe, preferably in their own homes. The following resources summarize the history of foster care and permanency in the United States along with important legislative efforts that have been put forth over the past few decades. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Children's Bureau Outlines the history of the Child and Family Services Reviews, which allow the Children's Bureau to determine what is happening to children and families and assist States in enhancing their capacity to serve families and children.
Child Welfare Legislative History U. House of Representatives, Committee on Ways and Means Offers historical data and a timeline of legislation that impacted the child welfare system from the early s until today.
Foster Care: A History Sabini NALS Explores the history of foster care in the United States and examines how the concept of permanency has expanded since the s when efforts were first made to expedite the path to permanent homes for children and youth. Key U. Child Welfare Laws North American Council on Adoptable Children Summarizes key Federal laws that affect children in foster care and those who are adopted from the child welfare system.
In the midth century, Massachusetts began offering to pay families who took in children that were too young to work. In the late 19th century, Pennsylvania made it a misdemeanor for families to care for two or more unrelated children without a license.
In the early 20th century, local agencies began paying and monitoring foster parents, keeping records, and considering the needs of children when placements were made. With the passing of the Social Security Act in , the United States federal government approved the first federal grants for child welfare services given that state inspections of foster homes take place prior.
During World War II, thousands of youth fleeing unsafe areas in England were temporarily placed in foster homes around the United States. The volunteer, unlike many other professionals on a case, would stay with that child throughout their many placement changes for as long as they were in foster care, offering not only detailed court reports, but advocacy and consistency.
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