Troubled Homes are Still Better than Foster Care

I was reading a href=”http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-07-02-foster-study_N.htm”an article in span style=”font-style:italic;”USA Today/span/a while on my beach vacation in Florida (possibly pictures to come later). Anyway, the gist of the article is that children who stay in troubled families fare better than those put into foster care: br /br /blockquoteChildren whose families are investigated for abuse or neglect are likely to do better in life if they stay with their families than if they go into foster care, according to a pioneering study.br /br /The findings intensify a vigorous debate in child welfare: whether children are better served with their families or away from them./blockquote br /br /Some statistics provided by the study were 14% of those who stayed with their troubled family were arrested at least once vs. 44% who were arrested if they were placed in foster care; 33% of those who stayed with their troubled family became teen mothers vs. 56% of those who went into foster care and finally, 33% from troubled families were able to hold a job for three months vs. only 20% for those in foster care.br /br /I agree with a professor in the article that says more research is needed to determine whether or not kids do better in foster care; however, if state intervention is found to lead to more problems for kids, perhaps figuring out how to keep children in their homes is a better solution.