This post was guest written by Brian Magruder.
Photo from IMDb.
The article I found is titled Jason’s Story: ‘All You Need Is Love’ and it was written by actress Rhea Perlman. This article is about a man Perlman describes as a man in his 30s who had grown up in the Los Angeles County foster care system. What Pearlman describes is that this man’s story demonstrated the importance of finding permanent homes for the children in the American foster care system that are eligible for adoption.
Jason described that from ages 11 to 17 he was placed in foster home, with three foster brothers. Living in this foster home setting was terrorizing for Jason in different ways than living with his schizophrenic mother. He described a very restrictive lifestyle that allowed him to go to school but no afterschool activities. He stated that he and the other foster children were not allowed to sit on the furniture and ate their meals on the floor. Jason described dinners of hot dog and grits for weeks at a time and not getting well-balanced meals.
Although social workers were reportedly supposed to visit Jason on a monthly basis, he saw workers about twice a year and commented that it was always a different worker. Jason also described difficulties in expressing what was really going on in the foster home as the child welfare worker would always talk to him in front of the provider and he never felt safe talking about the realities of his life in foster home. Jason would’ve likely continued living unpleasantly in the foster home, but a friend of his from school contacting social services. After his friend called social services someone finally came and talked to Jason alone. After he discussed openly what had been occurring in his foster home placement, he was moved and the provider’s license was revoked.
Jason’s experiences in the Los Angeles County foster care system, unfortunately, continue to be an experience for children placed in the American foster care system. I think Ms. Perlman makes a great point in the beginning of the article in which she emphasizes the urgency of finding permanent homes for the more than 100,000 children in the foster care system that are eligible for adoption. Pearlman described that things have changed in the Los Angeles County foster care system since Jason was there as a child. Perlman went on to describe, however, that the fundamental experience of growing into adulthood without a permanent connection has not.
Jason described a difficult childhood growing up in the foster care system. This system seemed to lack permanent options for him. As he described some of the struggles which carried with him into adulthood, we can see how important it is to address attachment issues with our foster care youth.
I see the article having strengths in that it identifies current problems and issues facing the American foster care system. The importance of establishing permanent family connections instead of long-term foster care is the main emphasis of the article. I think a limitation of the article is that it doesn’t discuss possible solutions and ways of improving the system.
To read the article in full, click here.
