Hello friends! As part of my education this year, I am taking a Rhetoric class. In this class, I am required to write a speech once a week, and present it in class. As for week 9, I have chosen to speak on the topic of foster care! Posted below is my manuscript. I hope you enjoy!
Foster Care. Do you know what they mean? Does the world know what it means?
How about the words: Foster Child…?
These two words probably bring a cascade of emotions into your heart and brain. Pity, might be one of them. How about wanting to care for the child? Does that cross your mind?
The public foster care system is a greatly overshadowed issue in today’s society. The hot topics these days are the election, abortion, immigration… But what about the very children in our own country who can’t even stay in their own home?
The numbers are staggering. An estimated over six hundred thousand children are unable to be in their current homes and have been taken into custody by the U.S. government to find a better and safer or more stable home. Thus, putting the children into foster care. But before we get into more numbers and such, I want to tell you a story.
In February of 2020, twas the night before we were supposed to leave on a weekend trip to a friends anniversary party when my mom told me there would be a little boy coming to stay with us. I knew my mom and dad had applied to be short- term foster care parents a while back, as we had had many house inspections and people to interview my siblings and I, but I wasn’t quite ready when Travis walked into our lives.
The difference between short-term and long-term foster care is really in the name, but to elaborate on it a little bit more, short-term homes are places where kids can stay up to two or three weeks till the social worker finds a more permanent home for the child. Long-term homes are a place where the kid will stay, most of the time, a minimum of one month, up to two many years in the family’s home. Long-term homes tend to lead to adoption, but back to my story.
Travis was just three and a half years old when he was dropped off at our home by his social worker. I remember when mom held him in her arms for the first time, she was stunned to feel that he had a very very high temperature. “Oh yeahhhh…. He was saying his head hurt in the car…” the social worker had said to my mom. “He might have a fever but I think he’s just tired.”
It turns out Travis had a temp of 102 and an ear infection. What does this show us? How well is our society treating the less fortunate kids who just need some loving arms to crawl into when they get scared?
We ended up having Travis in our home for a whole year, and I have to say, I miss him all the time. He was a bright sunshine in our lives, and I am ever so grateful for him. Travis became like a little brother to me, and I miss the feeling of waking him up before school and having our 10 minute snuggle session in the front living room. He became like a son to my parents, whom he named “Mommy Charlotte.” and “Daddy Charlotte.”
After Travis left our home he went to a longer term home and ended up getting adopted by the family. He now has a sister named River, and two amazing parents.
Over the course of the next two years, we hosted a number of other kids in our home, including a 16 year old girl with her baby daughter!
But what is the point of me telling you this story? Well there are a number of reasons: 1)The foster care system is usually just some words people know and don’t think too much about, and we need more awareness about it. There is so much even you could do. 2) I had to find a topic to write this speech on! So it works out perfectly! But most importantly, how can you help?
My mom is a GAL. No no, not a gal gal like a cowgirl, but a Guardian ad Litem. A (GAL) advocate is a trained community volunteer who is appointed, along with a Guardian ad Litem Attorney Advocate, by a district court judge to investigate and determine the needs of abused and neglected children petitioned into the court system by a department of social services. The GAL’s role is mandated by North Carolina General Statute 7B-601. Mom has taken many cases in the past year, and even reunited kids with parents or relatives or found them a stable and loving foster home.
Now to bring your attention back to the numbers: In 1998, an estimated five hundred fifty-nine thousand children were in the foster care system on the last day of that year. 2021 data shows a 30% decrease since then, with roughly three hundred ninety-one thousand ninety-eight kids in foster care. In the last decade, from 2012–2021, the average number of kids in foster care on a single day was four hundred fourteen thousand, eight hundred sixty-three.
That’s four hundred fourteen thousand, eight hundred sixty-three children without a home.
There are many more numbers I throw in, and more statistics to think about, but my minutes are ticking for this speech so I better wrap it up.
Let me put it this way: If people become more aware of the foster care system, then they are more likely to feel compelled to support and help foster children.
If people feel compelled to support and help foster children, more foster care children can experience stable, loving homes.
Therefore, if people become more aware of the foster care system, more foster care children can experience stable, loving homes.
How can this be your call to action? How can you take the 4 minutes of me talking, and put that into action? Talk to your parents about helping to volunteer with kids in the system. You could find out if anyone around you is in the system and become their friend. “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward”. – Proverbs 13:24. Even if a child can not stay in their own home, we – as the believers of Christ, can aid and help give these gifts of the Lord a better world to live in. Psalm 127:3. “Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.”
Thank you.