Child Protective Services And Foster Care - 1570 Words

A child living in the 21st century is no stranger to poverty and the desperate lifestyles it promotes. Too often the case, children, living in families with incomes below the nation’s poverty line, are limited to criminal activities, low-level education, and blue-collar employment. Furthermore, years of economic strife in the United States have invited a cycle of poverty to predetermine the lives of children in poverty-stricken families, where they are raised with insufficient care and inadequate resources in unstable environments. Not that it is in any way the fault of the parents, whose financial situation isn’t always an accurate reflection of their parental capability, the government’s assumes the responsibility of removing children†¦show more content†¦In accordance to Dorothy Roberts, professor of Law and Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, Foster Care â€Å"addresses family economic deprivation with child removal rather than services a nd financial resources.† Moreover, the activities of the Foster Care system, despite it being a vital component of the nation’s child welfare systems, offers a temporary solution to treat the cycle of poverty, removing children, like one would in the case of an earthquake, away from the vicinity, except in this case it’s their homes and families. This is done when the providing of â€Å"services and financial resources† would do more than suffice, and as a result â€Å"one-third of children in foster care are black, despite black children making up only 15 percent of the nation s children.†(Roberts) In addition to this, the racial imbalance present in the child welfare system feeds off the notion that children with African-American parents are more at risk than children with white parents. A study done by PBS showed that in Chicago â€Å"95 percent of children in foster care are black.,† and in 1997, New York City s foster care system had â⠂¬Å"only 1,300† white children, with black children â€Å"10 times as likely as white children to be in state protective custody.†(Roberts) â€Å"black children in the child welfare system are placed in foster care at twice the rate for white children.,† and a national study of child protective