Growing Up in the Care of Strangers: The Experiences, Insights and Recommendations of Eleven Former Foster Kids

by Waln K. Brown, John R. Seita (Editor)

Growing up in placement takes a toll, not just on the children and adolescents but also on the professionals charged with their care. Judges, policymakers, administrators, probation officers, psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors, caseworkers, social workers, foster parents, house parents, guardian ad litem, CASA volunteers, child welfare advocates, educators and program staff make critical decisions that can affect a child s life forever. The more attuned they are to what helps or hinders the development of these vulnerable young people, the more likely they are to make the appropriate decisions required to promote positive placement experiences and healthy adult outcomes.

The purpose of this book is to provide child welfare professionals insightful feedback from former clients who grew up in juvenile justice, foster care, orphanage, adoptive and mental health placements. What makes this book particularly instructive derives from the authors credentials. They are college-educated adults who masterfully intertwine their childhood stories with mature perspective and their own professional expertise.

The other audiences this book hopes to reach include youth in placement and students who plan on entering careers in child welfare. Children currently in care need to know that others have experienced childhoods as bad as or worse than their own, that they survived and how they did it. Students preparing to work with troubled or dependent young people should learn about a side of life they probably have not experienced before they make decisions that may adversely affect these at risk youth. Sometimes a wide abyss separates theory and reality.

Genres: Fostering, Nonfiction, Memoir, Social Work

195 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Waln K. Brown, Ph.D.


Dr. Waln Brown was born in York, Pennsylvania, a "surprise" child of ill-matched parents who did the "right thing" and got married. For the next 11 years, they fought constantly, creating an unhealthy environment that adversely affected Waln emotionally and behaviorally. Rejected by his father for "ruining his life," and confused by his mother's obsessive-compulsive disorder of washing him in her "crazy clean" solution of Lysol and ammonia, Waln began a pattern of acting out that led to placement in an orphanage, juvenile detention home, state psychiatric hospital and juvenile reform school. A terrible student who spent 8th grade in special education, failed the ninth grade and graduated 187th in a class of 192 students, Waln earned an A.S. degree from York College of Pennsylvania, B.S. from the Pennsylvania State University (summa cum laude) and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. He held positions with the Pennsylvania Department of Education, the National Center for Juvenile Justice and the Orthogenic School at the University of Chicago. Waln is the CEO of the William Gladden Foundation and the author of over 240 books, articles and popular publications about youth and family issues.

Reviews

[Nathan Albright · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leo Tolstoy once said in the beginning to Anna Karenina that all happy families are alike and all unhappy families are unhappy in its own way.  But anyone who has spent a lot of time dealing with unhappy families or been a part of them or has spent any time dealing with the foster care system realizes that this is not true.  A great many unhappy families are unhappy in the same monotonous and unfortunate ways, and this book is testament to that.  Reading a book like this can make someone quite upset, and not necessarily the way that the book is intended to.  Why do our incompetent state governments feel that they have the authority to remove children from their admittedly troubled birth families without being able to do a better job themselves.  If it costs $50k per year per foster kid, what is it that we as a society are getting for it?  Are we helping the children or the families they are taken out of or put into for that?  Not often enough.  Does the state know what it is doing when it comes to taking care of children?  Not very often.  Why then do we give them the authority to act as they do?

 This book is a bit more than 150 pages long and consists of eleven accounts of foster care from those who have survived it and found some level of success as adults.  The book begins with a preface, acknowledgements, prologue, and dedication, after which the first author gives his confessions as a former juvenile delinquent.  After that there is a look at how someone found their way after foster care and got a doctorate in education.  Another person, a doctor of ministry, provides an account of a boy named Peter.  A woman ten gives her discussion of how she went from a victim of child abuse to a childcare professional with her master's in Social Work, which seems to be a common journey in my observation.  Another woman with an MSW talks about the degree of caring that separates her from her peers.  After that someone with a BSW then talks about the need to grow past family violence, neglect, and abandonment, a responsibility that is faced by the young person.  And so it goes throughout the book as the stories of these adults and their experiences in child care are remarkably similar.

This book is intended to seek reforms in the foster care system that would better serve those unfortunate children who find themselves in it.  Yet I do not see how society is going to be willing to reward failure by putting more money into the system in order to provide higher staffing or allow for resources devoted to teach independent living to wards of the state.  Those who are not faithful with little will not be trusted with much more.  What remains to be done then?  Is there going to be a greater effort spent on a societal level to help encourage and provide resources to families, deal with the root causes that lead people to self-medicate, increase the education of people and work on building robust and self-disciplined communities?  That seems to be a utopian vision as well.  In the meantime, children will continue to suffer and find themselves torn between birth families that have neglected and abused them and state systems that cannot take care of them either but demand the power to wreck with families.  And books like this will continue to be written about the same sorts of unhappy families over and over again.

[Rayna · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting read if you want some insight into some of the issues with the foster care system from the perspective of former foster care children. I felt that the book was a call for former foster care alumni to become involved in programs to improve the foster care system. Almost none of the kids had positive experiences with foster care, except maybe one. I would have liked to see more stories from kids that had positive experiences and why those experiences worked for them. Most of these stories the people were successful because they were smart, exceled at school and some how managed to get on the right track. Reform has to not only point out the pitfalls of the current program, but it should also point out positive experiences that will be the basis to developing a better program.

[Rachael · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's really nice to hear the experiences of former foster children. The adults who tell their stories are a very select group, almost all of whom have obtained advanced degrees. All eleven of the authors felt failed by the system. Going into it, I expected more stories of "so-and-so noticed me and helped me turn my life around." Although a few stories include mentions of an adult who didn't let them down, every single person seems to have succeeded because of their intelligence alone -- every story had a line like, "School was the only place where I was good at something" or "I only felt like I was worth something at school." Most foster kids aren't going to have above-average intelligence. When the system lets those kids down, what happens to them?

[Gladys · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must read for Social Workers , CPS Workers, and any other professionals who work with children in the foster care system. While there has been significant progress (at least in California) to improve the foster care system to prioritize child safety and well-being, there is still much work to be done to further improve the foster care system. In order to advocate for children in foster care, it is essential to listen to their voices. This book provides insight on how the foster system has impacted former foster youth. My learning outcomes: listen with empathy and respect, advocate for children as we may be their only advocate, and provide as much support, consistency and stability.

[Dana Weltmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

For anyone who cares about our foster children's futures

I read this book as part of my CE for CASA volunteers. It should be required reading for anyone dealing with foster children. The telling of the foster kids' experiences, in their own words, shouts truths worth heeding. It is how they are raised, not where, that matters most, and with as much continuity, stability, and care, not just meeting of basic needs, but CARING, is crucial. As Lin-Manuel Miranda famously said, Love is love is love is love.

[Maxine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This gathering of stories gave light to the severe inconsistency between the child welfare system’s intentions and its actual results. Reading this book and looking at the years during which events took place gave realization that injustices are still happening – that these events were not simply events that occurred in some distant past. This book will open your eyes further, and it is worth the read.

[Debbie Keen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Always difficult to read true stories of child abuse. These are told by now-adults, who each managed to go to college and have reasonably normal adult lives. Many of us wished there was more specific advice on who helped them and in what ways that made a difference. One lesson conveyed was that the child protection system routinely discounts the effect on children and the need to allow their input, to inform them of what where and why rather than treating them like cogs in the machine.

[Suzanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This made me so sad, yet amazed at how crappy these kids were treated (even being called "the unwanted child" and told "who cares about your birthday") and yet were such successes, in spite or maybe because of it. What's sad is that so many kids are not so lucky in turning their pain into something positive.

[Renae · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heartbreaking, yet inspiring short stories of children overcoming adversity. A must read for anyone considering a career in child protective services work; really, a very beneficial read to anyone in the Human Services Field.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another good read for CASA volunteers or those involved in the foster care system.

[Shala · Rating 1 out of 5]

Heartbreaking

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure what the answer is to foster care. But, I'm glad these authors are sharing their foster care experience and their recommendations for improving/changing the way it's done.

[Johana Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting insight

I believe it is a must read for an understanding and idea of children who came up thru foster care.

[Aubrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was something I read to supplement my knowledge of the system that I get from my job. A decent insight to what kids in foster care often go through.