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In the United States today, there are more than 500,000 children living in foster care. Georgia alone has more than 14,000 children and young people in the foster care system. BY ANTHONY REEVES
My brother and I were two of them. Before we entered foster care, I used to clean the house, do dishes, make sure we had food, and even discarded drug paraphernalia to keep the home safe for the two of us. I was only 5 years old. Foster care can be a life-saver for children like us, but it should be a temporary solution. Too many children like my brother and me end up spending their entire childhood in the system and age out with no family to rely on and no permanent home. A recent report showed that there has been a 41 percent increase nationally in the number of youth leaving foster care without a family of their own since 1998, despite an overall decrease in the number of foster children. I spent 12 years in the foster care system, moving from place to place. Most painful of all, I was separated from my younger brother. I later learned he was living only a couple of exits down the highway, but we had no contact. Our experiences in foster care could not have been more different. The first few years, I moved around a lot and led a lonely, unstable life. Then I was placed in a group home, where I found stability with the help of my social worker, who is now my mentor and father figure. My brother also moved from placement to placement, but he was not connected with supportive adults who could provide the kind of mentorship I relied on. I was encouraged to graduate from high school and go on to college. I am now working on a bachelor's degree in electronic engineering. My brother aged out of foster care at age 18 without either a high school diploma or a GED. I have my own apartment. Without guidance, my brother became homeless. I have worked with the First Lady of Georgia and the Georgia Supreme Court on foster care policies and have traveled the country to motivate and educate my younger peers in foster care. With a criminal record and no education, it is now almost impossible for my brother to get a decent job. I testified before Congress about the urgent need for foster care reform-in Georgia and across the nation. I shared the story of my brother and me, and I asked members of Congress for change. It is important to me that we do not take chances with all my other brothers and sisters in the nation's foster care system who will age out of foster care. We should start by looking at the way the federal government pays for foster care. Today, most federal financing pays for children to be removed from their homes and put into foster care-even when other services or supports might help families stay together, keep kids out of foster care, or make sure that children can spend less time in foster care. I think about what a difference this might have made for my brother and me. What if federal funding could have been used to provide support for programs like drug treatment or housing programs to keep families together, or create permanent families through reunification, adoption, and legal guardianship? What if it could have been used to recruit more foster and adoptive families who would keep brothers and sisters together, rather than separate them? Maybe we wouldn't have lost so much time together, and maybe our paths to adulthood would have been equally successful. Georgia's foster children need our help. We have to work together to make sure that more children and youth leave foster care for loving, permanent families. What are we waiting for? Anthony
Reeves is a spokesperson for the Kids Are Waiting, Fix Foster Care
Now campaign, and FosterClub 2005 All-Star. Learn more about Kids Are Waiting Learn
more about FosterClub |
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