Homeless Child Experiment

In Spanish class, we were shown this video as an example of how we can be kind to one another and emphasize the ideas of random acts of kindness. The second I saw this video, I thought of how it relates to foster care. This video does deviate some from foster care, but by definition a foster child is a child who is not raised by his/her natural or adoptive parent, or a needy child. A homeless child would be considered needy. Many of the children in foster care end up on the streets by the time they are 18. Every year, 20,000 kids age out of foster care. Many youth who have run away had involvement with the foster care system. One of the main categories under the reasons that kids run away in family instability. In 2005, close to 11,000 foster youth had ran away from their placement. 40% of homeless people had spent time in foster care. 

Homelessness in foster care shows how reforms need to be made to better prepare those who age out of the system for independent living. Their main option should not be to become homeless. Furthering education should be an option so that they can have the opportunity to live like everyone else. Also, better background checks on foster families need to be done so that kids may be less likely to want to run away. Ways to make kids feel more comfortable in foster homes need to be found, so the amount of homeless children from foster care does not increase. 

What amazed me about this video is that the only person who stopped to help was another homeless person. He gave all he had to that kid by giving him his jacket. The man said how the homeless people had to stick together and how they had to help each other out. This could be the same thing that occurs in foster care. Foster kids stick together and work to help each other out. That is why so many of the foster care reforms are being driven by former foster kids. They want to fix the problems they faced in their experience in foster care. 

The situation in this video shows what many foster children or kids who have aged out of the foster system could face. Homelessness is an issue that needs to be further solved, along with the consequences of abandoning or aging out of the foster care system.