Life in child welfare care, as you stated in your editorial “Every child deserves a home,” 1 is a difficult experience for every child, even when the system works well. In our experience, children and youth yearn for not just a placement but a “home.” For many children and youth, this “home” can be found through adoption. For other children and youth, the system can work differently to provide homes when adoption is not the alternative chosen by the young person.
Rules and regulations that impede permanency in placement can be altered. In Ontario, a youth must leave a foster home by 18 years of age because the per diem to foster parents ends. This occurs even when the foster parent and youth wish for another arrangement. In Ontario, while attention is said to be given to Kinship Care placements, little or no support is given to those placements. Youth have said to us, “you can choose your friends and you can choose your family.” This support must be given to young people in the care of the child welfare system to choose and build their families.
Footnotes
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For the full letter, go to: www.cmaj.ca/cgi/eletters/181/12/E265#254628
REFERENCE
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