Replacements in Foster Care: Study of Thirty Children Who Were Replaced by the Division of Foster Home Care, New York City Department of Welfare, January 196O to September 1961
Abstract
Background of the Study - ”Withal, the process of child placement truly may be termed a matter of major surgery. An irrevocable operation from which the child never fully recovers.”Every foster child leaves the known for the unknown; is confronted with the feeling of being different and does not understand why he is not with his parent. A ”hidden parent” goes with him into placement and he is never really able to relinquish his ties to his own family, frequently distorting and magnifying them. This is also true of the child who has never lived with his family. In his fantasy life, he creates fairy tale parents. These are problems common to all foster children but today many children coming into care carry an even heavier burden. They come from broken or unstable families, from homes marked by parental inadequacy and family disturbances. They bring with them into foster care not only the expected responses to separation from family, fear, anxiety, guilt, despair, anger, hostility - but also the problems arising from unhealthy inadequate and destructive experiences in family living. The placed child suffers emotional trauma which is compounded when replacement to another ” strange environment” is necessitated. Replacement may be ^considered as a repetition of the original separation of the child from his family.
Subject Area
Multicultural Education|Individual & family studies|Sociology|Social work
Recommended Citation
Sabia, Vito, "Replacements in Foster Care: Study of Thirty Children Who Were Replaced by the Division of Foster Home Care, New York City Department of Welfare, January 196O to September 1961" (1962). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI31050493.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI31050493
