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Problems Faced by Adolescents in Group Homes xxxxxxxx English 102 |
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Jane’s father has always drunk heavily. Her mother is aware of the abuse, but lets
it go on because she herself is a drug addict. Jane in a narrative assignment for school
writes about the problems in her daily family life: her life is tough, but
her tone is optimistic, she has lived basically on her own since 14, but
lived happily and well, relying on her parents only for legal signatures and
a mailing address. Her teacher acts on
the essay and informs Child Protective Services. Jane reluctantly tells CPS everything, then requests that at 16 she be declared independent and
allowed to run her life as an adult.
Jane argues that she needs to be declared an independent adult so that
she can take work, pay rent in her name, set up bills in her name – do things
she has always done in the name of her parents, a role as adult she has
already followed. The request is not
only denied, but Jane is placed in a group home against her will until the
age of eighteen. Though Jane has been
removed from a tough situation, her new, forced life is far worse because of
the damage of living in a group home. The
current system of placing adolescents in a group home without any say to
their relocation adds psychological, emotional, and physical problems that can
be worse than other styles of CPS arrangements. Studies like the Romito-Escalon
study of 1996 prove that psychological abuse has a stronger effect than
physical abuse alone (Romito 1). Psychological abuse by parents often occurs
when an outcome of the child’s behavior is not what they expected or hoped
for, such as dropping out of school or early pregnancy (2). Parents may still
intend to do right and set a good example, but they simply fail at self
control or displace their anger into subtler, mental forms of mistreatment.
This psychological abuse causes long-term effects on a person that can scar
even worse than physical abuse and manifest in future repeated behavior. This is the basis of seeing group homes as
a solution: take the adolescent away from abusive parents and perhaps the
cycle of abuse gets broken. But what
sometimes gets ignored is the fact that in group homes, abuse, now enforced
by peers rather than parents, is sometimes Pg 1 |
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a norm of day to day living. The adolescents could start “lying,
cheating, stealing, and disobeying in school as a result of peer pressure,
instead of the misplaced anger that existed when the child lived with the bad
parents” (Altshuler 13). The adolescent is expected to be “straight edge” while “fitting
in” with peers, but the behaviors that are rewarded, reinforced, and
encouraged in a group home can be ones that are even more antisocial: “In the Jorgenson home… Lisa, a twelve year old removed
from a home where she was sexually abused…was trying to be straight edge in
her new group home… was subjected to constant torment such as having condoms
labeled “daddy’s home” put in her food, and having a tape of her mother, a
prostitute, hired, videotaped, and humiliated by the brother of another girl
in the group home, with the footage spliced into a movie at Christmas time” (Solnit 25). Five years and three suicide attempts later, Lisa was
fatally stabbed by a younger girl, a new girl in the group home, on whom Lisa
had attempted the same style of torments. (25) During the process of admittance into a foster family,
adolescents must see psychologists to learn how to talk about their problems
and to learn new methods of solving them.
Because the teenagers face problems all the time, they learn that
talking to others or asking for help is the best strategy for dealing with
problems. Problem solving skills, such
as getting advice, solving problems directly, and turning to family or other
adults for help, have been found to be higher in adolescents in foster
families than in group home housing arrangement (Altshuler
13). Group homes are required to
provide the same types of social services, but because of budget versus the
amount of adolescents in a typical group home, it is “not uncommon for less
than ten percent of group home members to receive the mandated psychological
attention” (“ Pg 2 |
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One type of typical emotional problem is the sense of
worthlessness that sometimes develops from lack of family involvement: “Limited
or no family involvement can lead to a feeling of being unloved” (Altshuler 12). While some adolescents may get family
visits once a week, others may not have any family, such as in the case of
abandonment or if the parents are too much of a threat to the child. Having someone to love and love you back is
important for positive self-esteem during the growth of children and
adolescents (Solnit 16). However, there have been several cases
where the “family figures” that run the group home, supposedly serving as
role models of right and safety, are even more neglectful and abusive than
the original abusive parents: “In the Chionda vs Sanders case, the group home owners were accused of
encouraging their teen charges to run away, as long as they came back enough
to sign for their monthly checks” (17).
Even lesser cases show the range of bad acts from some
group home managers: “Armist Dior would tell the
boys of her group home that they were the excrement keeping her back in
life…” (17). In the case of Mortia Shepherd, the group home manager would “set some
of the older girls to beat new home member ‘sinners’ until they agreed to
pray for the good people of the world at least 4 hours a day” (Altshuler 33). Therapy
trains the teen to disarm the feeling of uselessness as a false byproduct of
their abuse, but when the same teen sees “good” adults doing the same scams
and rotten behaviors often worse than their parents did, this feeling becomes
damage through hopelessness, and finally acceptance, that to function they
either are cruel predators or worthless prey in social situations. Teens anywhere without a standard family model are more
likely to try to find parental-like love in an older boyfriend or
girlfriend. In a study done by the Pg 3 |
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them, abused them, pimped them, humiliated them, or got their thrills
confusing and controlling them” (18). Many
adolescents see their almost-always failure in these adult-minor
relationships as their fault, until eventually they believe that what has
happened to the family and all future adult abusive relationship is their
fault. This displacement of blame can
happen in any situation, but considering the statistics and opportunity of
corruption in a group home, there is obvious evidence that the problem is
more common in group home settings. Physical problems are the most apparent problems found in
group homes. Female adolescents in the
state care often end up pregnant (Romito 1). This early pregnancy is due to the fact
that the adolescents have low self-esteem and no confidence and are in large
groups where their peers see the world through this same filter. Adolescents in group homes also have the
highest reported use of smoking and use of illegal drugs compared to youth in
foster homes and youth living with parents (Altshuler
13). This is an effect of peer
pressure; adolescents in group homes must live with other peers and face
their problems everyday. They are
subjected to dealing with many problems, and use drugs and alcohol as ways to
attempt to escape that reality. Another physical problem often faced is eating
disorders. Sexual abuse among females
causes long-term consequences on health such as eating disorders (Romito 1). Low
self-esteem is a major factor; females look at their bodies in disgust and
the result is not eating, or when depressed, binge eating. Eating disorders are the greatest in group
homes where “4.3% report it” compared to “2% in foster care and 1.2% in a
regular family setting” (Altshuler 15). Despite their intent to protect, group homes cause many
problems with adolescents. Group homes
provide shelter for those in need, but they cannot take place of foster parental
guidance, grandparents or other family members who are willing to look after
the child, or even being declared independent for older adolescents who
demonstrate the ability to take care of themselves. People in Pg 4 |
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our society, including child care professionals,
legislators, and judges believe that a parent is in the best position to
provide for the well being and growth of a child, and the group home
facilitator is the closest equivalent of that parent (University 3). But social workers in group homes do not
have the parental bonds needed to support the adolescent into adulthood. As well meaning as they may be, they are
still professionals, not parents, and need to always remember so – else risk
their own sanity, not to mention their jobs.
The benefits of group home living are excellent on paper, but as with
many things involving CPS, paper results have nothing to do with reality. Without the real support of emotionally involved family or
foster parents, without the “your life is what you make it” attitude that can
develop among strong willed older teens allowed to declare themselves
independent, adolescents in group homes face more psychological, emotional,
and physical problems. Group homes are
a far failed “solution,” an illusion that good is being done for the abused
at relatively “low” cost to taxpayers.
The reality beyond the illusion soon becomes evident, however, when society
faces new adults repeating onto others what was done to them, in increasingly
worse ways: life lessons learned from the hostility and further abuse of the group
home. Pg 5 |
Works CitedAltshuler, Sandra,
and John Poertner.
“Assessment of the Well-Being of Adolescents in Three Substitute Care
Placement Types.” Feb.
2001. ProQuest Database.
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