The Foster-Family System: Then and Now

Betsy M. Meredith

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The Foster-Family System: Then and Now by Betsy M. Meredith

 Those of us who love children and intend to spend a lifetime serving them, cannot help but grimace when we here of orphans around the world. Often times, we are bombarded with emotional pleas from people like Sally Struthers asking us for money to help children who are in dire straights overseas.

Unfortunately, many often overlook the fact that there are and always have been abused, neglected and orphaned children here in the US. The US foster care system transformed over  the 20th century, and it would be impossible to discuss the system as it exists today under the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980, and the subsequent amendment to that act 1997, without taking a journey back into history and looking at a humanitarian named Charles Loring Brace and the orphan trains.

From 1854 to 1929 anywhere from 100,000, up to as many as 250,000, children from  New York and other cities in the East were shipped west, via the orphan trains, and placed with rural families. Charles Loring Brace was living in New York while finishing seminary and “he was horrified by the conditions he saw on the streets. As he wandered through the city, he talked with children, recording their stories in his diary” (Orphan Trains transcript). Some one hundred and forty years later, his diaries were acquired at the Children’s Aid Society’s home office, revealing a remarkable history of the rise of the first foster-family system in the US. Brace was the first secretary of the Children’s Aid Society and “in 1853, a plan to rescue thousands of New York street children was announced” (Orphan Trains transcript). The plan lasted for 75 years and served as a springboard for the concept of placing out, or making non-institutional arrangements to care for dependent children” (Placing Out darkwing.uoregon.edu). This unique foster-family concept inspired other organizations eager to aid children in similar ways and ultimately changed the way children’s rights came to be viewed in the US.

The plan was to gather groups of children, mostly orphans, street kids and children who were not being cared for and send them to the West or the South by train and place them in new homes across America. “The orphan trains were based on the theory that the innocent children of poor Catholic and Jewish immigrants could be rescued and Americanized if they were permanently removed from depraved urban surroundings and placed with upstanding Anglo-Protestant farming families” (Orphan Trains darkwing.uoregon.edu). In addition to having a religious motivation, there was a pragmatic plan behind the mission. “The society would drain the city of these children by communicating with farmers, manufacturers, or families in the country who may have need for such employment” (Kadushin 316). Though these motivations ended up being contributing factors to the demise of the orphan trains, while they existed the trains changed thousands of children’s lives.

There was a well thought out, systematic plan behind Brace’s idea. When the trains stopped, during the journey from the East, “the community to which the children were to be sent was encouraged by the society to set up a committee of prominent citizens” (Kadushin 316). This committee was responsible for making arrangements for the children to be cared for when they arrived as well as publicizing the fact that the children were coming to town and needed homes.

The following is an example of one of the advertisements announcing the orphans:

Oskaloosa Independent
December 9, 1910
A circular was sent out from Valley Falls last week as follows:

Wanted! Homes for orphan children.

A company of orphan children under the auspices of the Children’s Aid Society of New York will arrive at Valley Falls, Thursday afternoon, December 8.

These children are bright, intelligent and well disciplined, both boys and girls of various ages. They are placed on trial, and if not satisfactory will be removed.

Parties taking them must be well recommended. A local committee of citizens of Valley Falls has been selected to assist the agents in placing the children. Applications must be made to and endorsed by the local committee. Bring your recommendations with you. The following well known citizens have agreed to act as a local committee: A.D. Kendall, Dr. A.D. Lowry and Neil McLeod. Distribution will take place at the opera House, on Friday, December 9, at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Come and see the children and hear the address. B.W. Tice, Western Agent, 105 East Twenty-second Street, New York: Miss A.L. Hill, visiting and placing agent, 105 East Twenty-second Street, New York; W.W. Bugbee, state agent for Kansas, Eldorado, Kansas.

(Okaloosa Independent 12/9/1910)

Ads such as this were seen in cities across the path of the orphan trains and while now they are almost humorous, at the time, they were seen as a legitimate way to place children.  

After the children arrived in the town they were destined to live, the attempt to match the child with perspective parents began. Regarding the process, Dr. Hastings Hart, spoke of his experience watching one such placement take place. “It was a pathetic sight, not soon to be forgotten, to see those children, tired young people, weary, travel-strained, confused by the excitement and the unwonted surroundings, peering into those strange faces, and trying to choose wisely for themselves.” Hart went on to say that it was “surprising how many happy selections were made under such circumstances” (Hart 1884). Hart also made the point that while the children who were younger were often taken in for benevolent purposes, the older children were taken for labor purposes, which was one of Brace’s pragmatic reasons behind the plan. The placement process and the motives of some farmers can be viewed through the words of Elliott Hoffman Bobo, one of the orphans:

 “I wasn't very comfortable up on that stage because I didn't know where I was going to  go. And I was old enough to realize that there could be a lot of mistakes made. A farmer  came up to me and he felt my muscles and he says, ''Oh, you'd make a good hand on the  farm.'' And I says, ''Well, I'm not going to go home with you.'' I says, ''You smell too bad.  You-- you haven't had a bath probably in a year.'' And he took me by the arm and was  going to lead me off the stage and I bit him. And that didn't work, so I kicked him. And  so then everybody in the audience thought I was an incorrigible. They didn't want me  because I was out of control. I was crying there in the chair by myself and a school  teacher came up there and she says, ''I'd like to take you home with me and play with my  boy for a week. And if nobody wants you then, why, then we'll have to send you back to  New York.'' But this elderly couple in their sixties were contacted by this school teacher.  And they had no children, never did have. They had a stillborn about thirty years  previous. So he put me on my-- on his lap in this school teacher's home and-- and got  acquainted with me. And he said, ''If you go home with me, I'll buy you a pony and a  bicycle and a puppy.'' So I thought that was great so I went home with them and I finally  got the best home of the whole bunch. But I always thought that biting and kicking did  me a lot of good. Best day of my life! (Orphan Trains transcript)

While this particular individual ended up in a good home, it does reveal that much of the motivation from the farmer’s perspective was not of love, but of need for help.

The orphan trains are a significant part of US history and the intricate process, requiring detailed collaboration, had varying consequences for the children who were placed out. Marilyn Holt, the author of The Orphan Trains, stated that the effort “required a cooperation effort between the society and receiving communities and between the Aid Society and other eastern institutions” (Holt 78). With a 100 to 250 thousand children relocated, there would likely be a buffet of stories if each child had the opportunity to share their story to be later read by historians enquiring about these unique little historical figures. Some were likely raised with siblings, others as only children. Some probably had lives that were prosperous while others remained poor. Some, I am sure, were nurtured and loved, while others were abused. While all of the individual stories can never be heard, Holt is right when she says, “the programs success depended on responsible placement, but the stories of relocation are as individual as those placed” (Holt 78). While there were likely examples of failures and successes, it cannot be denied that Brace and his idea made a significant impact.

The dismantling of the orphan train plan came as a result of multiple factors, none of which should come as a complete surprise. When reviewing some of the rationale behind Brace’s plan, it is not difficult to see why there were eventually concerns. Brace wanted, in part, to provide good Protestant homes for those who were abandoned or orphaned and he wanted foster-families to have extra help on the farms, thus providing labor in exchange for a free home. Speaking to this Thurston stated, as quoted by Kadushin, “it is the wolf of the old indenture philosophy of child labor in the sheepskin disguise of a so-called good or Christian home” (Thurston 136). Needless to say, as the 20th century went on, reformers became increasingly concerned about the welfare of the children after they were placed in homes. In reality, Brace didn’t have a solid plan to follow up or to make sure the children were not abused by their new foster-families, and thus the orphan trains eventually raised eyebrows with reformers. Kadushin gives other reasons for the trains coming to a halt, none of which are surprising.

Factors contributing to the decline of this procedure were the opposition of Western  states to the “extracting” and “dumping” of dependent children in their area, the  opposition of the Catholic Church to what was regarded as an attempt by a Protestant  organization to wean children from their Catholic heritage by their placement in non- Catholic homes, the decline in the number of orphans, and the closing of the frontier,  which reduced the need for such labor as the “emigrant” children could profitably  provide” (Kadushin 317).

Other challenges with the plan include the unfairness to the parents of the children who were sent out on the train and were not actually orphans. “It does not seem fair to the relatives that they be compelled to surrender a child permanently in order to get whatever care he may need temporarily” (Thurston 135).

Although the plan ended in 1929 when the last of three children took a train to Texas, the plan inspired other ideas and was the launching pad for the modern day foster-family system.

Many organizations copied some of Brace’s ideas, and long after the trains stopped, the concepts, which came from the orphan train era, were improved upon and expanded, making the placing out system a structure that Brace could not have imagined. Charles Britwell is one such example of another philanthropist who changed the system. He was interested in finding out “’what does the child really need?’” rather than ‘“Where shall we put the child?”’

(Kadushin 318) Brace’s plan was criticized, in part, because of the permanent break from the natural parents, when that, in many cases, may not have been necessary and not in the best interest of either the child or the parents. Britwell, on the other hand, was interested in looking at all options, which meant “the foster parent-foster child relationship becomes something distinctly different-a means through which the child is ultimately restored to his parents” (Kadushin 319). Britwell also pioneered the concept of following up on the child after it had been placed in a foster-family. This entire model is important to remember as we will look at the goals of the modern day foster family system.
 Another debate that raged early on was whether or not the foster-family situation or more of an institutional style was in the best interest of the child.

As early as 1909 the idea of having a child in a family instead of an orphanage or something similar was preferred. “The First White House Conference on Children in 1909 stated that the carefully selected foster home is, for the normal child, the best substitute for the natural home” (Kadushin 319). They took it a step further and “championed home life as the highest and finest product of civilization” (Placing-Out darkwing.uoregon.edu). Though the foster-family was the preference, it took several decades for this preference to happen in practice. It took until the 1950s for “the number of children living in temporary foster families” to surpass the number of kids “living in institutions, and it was not until the 1960s that the number of adoptive placements surpassed the number of institutional placements” (Placing-Out darkwing.uoregon.edu). We would be horrified today if a train full of children were brought to town and given away without investigation into the need for the child being permanently removed, or investigation into the family in which the child was placed. From 1854 to 1929, however, it was an innovative solution to a problem that did exist and at the very least, offered a starting point to begin developing an ideal foster-family model.

In order to understand the significance of the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980, it is important to recognize some of the challenges that developed in the system, and what the law has attempted to solve. Referring to this pre 1980-era with regard to child welfare, “unfortunately, the decisionmaking record of the courts with regard to child welfare has proven little better than that of most troubled families” (Southern California Law Review 635). As stated earlier, by the 1960s, institutional care was becoming secondary to placement of children in homes, but that does not mean that the foster-family situation was ideal. While there is some insight into specific challenges with the system, much of it is hard to find. Why? Because, “historically, there has been a lack of reliable data on foster care and adoption” (acf.dhhs.gov). The main reason for this is that “not every state even reported its average monthly foster care caseload under the federally assisted program until 1975” (acf.dhhs.gov). Data collection was not the only challenge prior to the 1980 Act. Another challenge was the fact that there was no sense of urgency in getting kids either reunited with their families, or freeing them up for adoption. Regarding the attitudes prior to 1980, the Southern California Law Review, said: “Family reunification services are rarely provided, frequently parent-child contact is discouraged or even prohibited” (Musewicz 638). The author goes on to say that “keeping families together appears to be a low social priority” (Musewicz 640). As a result, children were bounced around from foster care home to foster care home, at all ages and often times could have been reunited with their families, but were not. Regarding the idea of permanency, or in other words, a child’s right to have a legally permanent home, there was a “prevailing tendency to ignore the child’s need for permanence in the interest of protecting adult prerogatives” (Musewicz 657).This lack of a permanency plan began back in the era of the orphan trains and the Children’s Aid Society. The children were matched up with families, but “it did not involve a formal contractual arrangement, and the society retained control of the child’s custody” (Kadushin 317). It is not difficult to suspect that this lack of permanency had consequence to the children in tangible ways.

The best way to see the consequences of the challenge of not reuniting the children with their natural parents, or freeing them up for adoption is to hear from an individual who was in the foster care system. Brenda Redding, now in her late 30s, was raised with her sister in a foster-family environment. Here is her story:

 “The good part of being in foster care for me was that I had opportunities that I  wouldn't   have had otherwise if I had remained at home ie:  playing sports,  extracurricular activities, to move out at age17.  Being in foster care, however, did not allow me to drive until I was 18 because there was no one who would take liability for me.  My sister and I were in care together until she graduated and I   remained in the foster home until I was 17 1/2 and moved out.  We were treated differently from the bio-children in the home because there wasn't enough      money for us to go to camps, have special things, etc. Our situation was unique    though. Our foster parents got licensed specifically to take care of me and  my sister.  

We were the only foster children that they ever had.  As far as I know, we were never offered the option of adoption” (Brenda Redding 12/13/04).

Brenda’s story is certainly far from the worst of the foster-family stories, but it does reveal part of the problem that existed before the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980. Brenda was not reunited with her family and was not freed up for adoption, thus no permanency,  and this had consequences, as seen with her inability to drive at age 16, like her peers, as well as the emotion consequences that have lasted as a result of not being her foster-family’s “real” child.

The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980, and the subsequent 1997 amendment, sought to alleviate the challenges that the decades of the foster-family system exhibited.  First, it required “a one-time inventory of children in foster care and a statewide information system for tracking children in foster care” (acf.dhhs.gov). This alleviated the challenge of children falling through the cracks, on a federal level, because nobody knew of their foster-family situation. A crucial piece of this legislation was that “judges determine whether “reasonable efforts” had been made to enable children to remain safely at home”

(cwresource.org). If the children were indeed removed from the home than “reasonable efforts were also required to reunite foster children with their biological parents” (cwresource.org) Another aspect of this Act was that federal funding was made available to reduce some of the expense and allow children to be adopted from the system. Unfortunately, this 1980 Act did not give specific details or time requirements for the termination of parental rights if reunification was not possible and therefore did not address the issue of the child’s right to permanency. Because there were remaining issues, that the 1980 Act overlooked, the topic of child welfare was revisited under the Clinton Administration in 1997.

The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, not only addressed the missing pieces in the 1980 legislation, but exemplifies how far the foster-family system has come since the days of Brace and the orphan trains. This shift can be seen by the statement by Joe Kroll, pertaining to the courts attitude, that it “appreciates the value of childhood, and places children’s rights and time frames at the forefront of child welfare practice” (library.adoption.com). Revealing the intensity of the interest in protecting children, this amendment “put the states on notice that the federal government will not tolerate the kind of foster care drift that results in multiple placements, unnecessary continuances, and permanence plans that are delayed, forgotten, or never made” (library.adoption.com).

Obviously, by 1997 many were clearly interested in putting the right of the child first, thus, once again changing the system from what had existed prior.
 As the system stands today, if a child is pulled out of the home on the basis of child abuse or neglect, the first question is whether or not the child can be reunified with its family. If it can’t, then the parent’s rights are terminated. Because of the 1997 Act, there is the concept of expedited permanency, which, in some states requires that the child initially be placed in a home where it could be adopted. Concurrent planning is often implemented and allows social workers to meet the requirements of the 1997 amendment.  Basically, while the system is attempting to reunite the child with its original family, the question is asked, “If this does not work, then what?” This speeds up the process, which is now required by the federal government. Colorado, for example, requires that there is a plan for adoption within one year for children under six-years-old. This is one example of why concurrent planning is crucial.  This is a far stretch from a time in the 40s and 50s when a child was pulled out and there was no looking back. (paragraph from interview with Mona Schatz 11/11/04). While the foster system is not perfect, it has certainly transformed from the one that existed from the mid-1800s to late in the 20th century.

In conclusion, the foster-family system has undergone many changes since the pioneer of the system, Charles Loring Brace, was motivated for various reasons to develop the orphan trains. Originally, the system was really not looking out for the best interest of the children, although many children by default benefited. In addition, the system often neglected the rights of the parents of these children and there was no legal structure to fix the problems. Through those who were inspired by Brace, modifications to the system took place and each step of the way, the system shifted and looked for the best interests of the child. By 1980, major challenges were evident and therefore the attempt to overhaul the system with the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act. Though this Act did make changes, there were still missing pieces and thus the need for amendments. The 1997 amendment made it possible for children and parents to be reunited and if that is not possible, for the child to be free for adoption within a reasonable time frame. Brace said, at the beginning of his mission, that “When a child of the streets stands before you in rags, with tear-stained face, you cannot easily forget him, and yet you are perplexed what to do. The human soul is difficult to interfere with. You hesitate how far you should go” (Orphan Trains Transcript) Many children, parents and society should be thankful for people like Brace and others who pondered the question about how far to go, and opted to do something.

Bibliography

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http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~adoption/topics/orphan.html

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http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~adoption/topics/placingout.html

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Want-Ads Placed In Kansas Newspapers. Oskaloosa Independent, December 9, 1910. As seen
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