This is an OLD study and a lot has changed.

The goal is reunification until there can be no reunification. Everyone involved in the case is on board with that. We foster to bring families back together. And we've been successful at that.

> The ongoing trauma by biological parents is a fixed, constant factor that the kids adapt to.

No, it's not. It can and does escalate. A family's financial situation can get worse and thus more neglect. An abuser gets away with it long enough, they'll abuse more and worse.

> Foster parents only last for a year at a time. Being in foster care means having serious doubts that you're still going to the same house tomorrow, the same school.

A placement will not be disrupted unless there is an absolutely good reason (ie: the child needs a therapeutic foster placement.)

> It means being told that both your natural parents, an institution, and foster parents reject you as a person, and this happens when you're like 12-14 year old.

Foster parents are loving people who are willing to take in children, love them as their own and return them to family when it's safe. They work with the bio parents as much as they can. There are phone calls, visits, etc. The children and their needs are placed first and they're treated with dignity and respect. Look into "normalcy" laws that were passed; they promote treating children normally, not like they're different because they're in the system.

> It means knowing that you (or your foster parents for that matter) have zero control and re-placement. It's even realistic that they'll be collected by the police TONIGHT and have to sleep in a jail cell, if people they don't know make this decision.

This is categorically false. Nobody is coming into my home to take these children without a dang good reason. A reason I would know about and have a say in prior. Period. That just doesn't happen.

> Under this stress, and that's stress that you as a foster parent cannot take away and have zero control over the continued trauma (so any promises you make are VERY dangerous: if they get taken away (60-80% of those kids), you are actually making a VERY bad trauma worse). Under such stress normal development is not possible.

We make sure children get therapy to help cope. We take continuing education classes to help US learn to help the children cope. We work with the therapists and often the parents to try and get the children to bond to us. Bonding is healing.

> 1) constancy: same environment, same people, SAME RULES tomorrow

Always. Children thrive on consistency. They need to have some control in their lives and that is provided by the foster parents. They have come out of a situation where they have no control and it is not consistent from day to day.

> 2) ability to affect their environment: they must systematically get more control over their environment. What they DO must influence their life.

See my reply to point 1.

> You will immediately realize that the whole POINT of foster care and child services is to take away BOTH of these.

Again, categorically false.

Until the day when we can provide services to all families in need before it becomes too unsafe for the children to live there, foster parents are a necessity. A lot is different now. Foster parents are required to take ongoing training to learn how to help children work through the trauma they've experienced. Foster parents are strongly encouraged to work with the bios both during the case and to be part of their support system AFTER the case. Laws have been passed to make sure children in care are allowed to be like normal children. You don't have to get your neighbor a background screen just to let your foster child have a sleepover with their children. Cases are not supposed to drag out. Most cases are supposed to end in permanency w/in a year. There are certain cases where it is mandatory that this happens.

Foster parents, case management, the judges, etc, all want to see children go home. Sometimes that isn't possible and it breaks everybody's heart. But the system you're describing doesn't exist. Not today.