Pilot Study - Interpreting the Shadows on the Wall: Reflections of Bullying in Foster Care from Two Former Foster Children, Now Adults

Objective When a child is removed from the home of abusive and/or neglectful parents by a child protective services Practitioner, he or she is expected to be placed in safe, loving, and nurturing foster homes, headed by... [ view full abstract ]

Objective
When a child is removed from the home of abusive and/or neglectful parents by a child protective services Practitioner, he or she is expected to be placed in safe, loving, and nurturing foster homes, headed by responsible adults be they relative or non-relative. For many children, this is far from reality. When foster parents perpetrate physical, emotional or sexual abuse toward children, they must suffer in silence for fear of grave bullying and retaliation by the foster parent. In this presentation, we will open the hidden world of Urban American foster care from the experiences of two former foster children, now adults. Each gives their account of being a child in foster care with crisp detail, and clarity. The discussion will explore topics such as using technology to perpetrate deception, stage-managing social worker home visits, bullying by other foster children in the same home, and blocking a child from returning home to their parents. Given these reflections of bullying and maltreatment in foster care, how can child welfare professionals learn from these horrors and create socially sustainable practices to assess the safety of foster homes accurately?

Method
Utilizing Time-space Intelligent Inquiry, this research will incorporate perspectives on bullying and deviance from Phenomenology, Emergence Theory, and Symbolic Interactionism.

Results
The extant literature suggests that child welfare workers can be slow to change previous assessments, despite mounting negative evidence, and fail to move about the foster home freely to examine, assess, and engage the children to disclose their feelings.

Conclusion
Future research might address ways in which social workers can better discern deception while they are conducting street-level bureaucratic services during home visits. This “intermezzo status” is the simultaneous embodiment of the bureaucracy, with its rule of law, and humanness working within the realm of Wilfred Bion’s “F in O.”