2 Chapter 2 The Foster Care Fiasco

Children who are put in foster care struggle with many things throughout life including mental health issues and having families of their own. Nora Watts from The Lost Ones is a prime example of this as she struggles through her own mental health demons and her determination to find her daughter. Children in foster care have already had to go through the heartbreak of losing their parents either to death or neglect, and now they are being placed in awful homes with awful people. Why is Canada letting this happen? The youth of Canada deserves better. Children should not be tossed around from home to home being abused in each until someone finally decides to treat them right or they fall out of the system. These issues will leave the children damaged for the rest of their lives.

The foster care system in Canada has been breaking its own rules for years and going against basic human morals. This not only is illegal in the foster care system but forces the child to be shoved in a house where they will more than likely not receive the appropriate amount of funds and attention needed to thrive through life. British Columbia’s children’s advocate has reviewed the foster care system thoroughly over the years, finding numerous instances of children being placed in homes that weren’t adequately screened which is also illegal in the foster care system. The advocate also found out children were given to families who had criminal records, many involving sexual offenses. “In one case, a four-year-old girl was removed from the care of her aunt in 2006 after she was found to be neglected, malnourished, and suffering from physical abuse. An investigation found that the aunt had not been appropriately screened.” (The Canadian Press, 2012) Canadian foster care systems aren’t going through the proper measurements to ensure the parents are safe because the complex procedures that in place for a criminal background and child abuse checks can take several weeks. If your name or birthday is the same as someone who has a criminal background, you have to get fingerprinted and have that sent to be analyzed which could take a very long time. Nora’s daughter was put into the care of her foster parents when she was born. It is made obvious that the social workers that should be checking in on her are not doing a good enough job. The parents are not in a good place in their marriage and not being accepting to the fact their daughter wants to meet Nora in person.

The families who are adopting these children and trying to give them a good family is often struggling a lot more than people realize with a lack of support from the government. There are between 76,000 and 85,000 children in foster care in Canada. These families need as much support as possible from outside sources but are receiving very little monetary and emotional support. “Foster-care rates differ by providence but tend to range between $23 and $30 a day depending on the age of the child.” (The Candian Press, 2012) That’s only $120 a week or a little under $500 a month to help support the child. Then you factor in the extra food, clothes, toys, utilities used, school activities, school supplies, etc. That $500 is almost nothing compared to what it costs to actually raise a child. Many families who adopt have had issues with infertility and are spending a lot of money to adopt these children. Which will leave them in a very tight monetary situation. Nora gave her daughter up for adoption mainly because she was not ready to be a parent. She could not afford to raise another human. She was obviously struggling with money because she was living in her office building instead of a real home.

Many foster care children were abused or neglected, which gives them a higher chance for developmental issues and mental illness. “For instance, more than two-thirds of children in care will reach the age of 19 without a high school diploma. Further, 65% of youth in care are diagnosed with a mental illness at least once in their childhood.” (Until The Last Child, 2014) Children are more likely to fall back in school when they are lacking a stable community and emotional support. Falling behind in school creates a domino effect for that person. First, they fall behind in school, then they don’t graduate on time if at all, they can’t get a successful job, they can’t afford the cost of living, etc. The world is advancing with the idea of mental health and ways to help those people, but for those families who are receiving up to $30 a day, aren’t going to be able to afford a therapist or other treatments for their child.

Indigenous children are much more likely to be put up for adoption and remain stuck there. Research shows that children who have a bad experience in the foster care system are “less likely to finish high school, more likely to become parents themselves at a young age, more likely to be users of the mental health system, more likely to require social assistance, more likely to rely on homeless shelters, to experience poverty as adults, and more likely to be in conflict with the law.” (“Until The Last Child,” 2012) As we see in The Lost Ones, Nora Watts was in foster care as a child. Nora suffered many of those things listed above due to a bad experience in foster care. She became a parent, has mental health issues, has a drinking problem, and in this case, is getting in trouble with the law. “If you think residential schools were the only way the Canadian government gutted indigenous communities, you’d be wrong… they scooped up kids from indigenous families and put them up for adoption” (The Lost Ones, 46). Nora went through a lot during her time in the novel, but one thing that always stuck with her was the memory that no one cared enough for her, so she wanted to care for her daughter as much as possible. Nearly half of the children who are in foster care are Indigenous. Most Indigenous communities have higher risk factors for child maltreatment including poverty, parental addictions, and domestic violence.

Canada is forcing the children in the foster care system to go through physical, emotional, and mental health issues every day by not taking the proper precautions before sending a child into a home, not giving support to families who are adopting, not being aware of the mental health issues that will affect these children for the rest of their lives, and not improving the system to allow families to be interested in adopting the children. The Lost Ones did an amazing job of portraying key aspects of what the foster care system is actually like in Canada.

Works Cited

“Canadian Foster Care in Crisis, Experts Say | CBC News.” CBCnews,         CBC/Radio Canada, 19 Feb. 2012, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canadian-foster-care-in-crisis-expert–say-1.1250543.
“The History of Child Welfare in Canada.” Until The Last Child, 9 Aug. 2018, https://untilthelastchild.com/the-history-of-child-welfare-in-canada/.
Kamal, Sheena. The Lost Ones. William Morrow, an Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2018.