Astudy of life in institutions and group homes revealed firsthand testimony of poor nutrition, upended education and excessive use of psychiatric drugs, and urged an end to their use to house foster youth.
A team of seven researchers produced “Away From Home: Youth Experiences of Institutional Placements in Foster Care,” some with lived experience in the child welfare system.
“People can disagree about the extent of harm they do,” said Sandra Gasca-Gonzalez, the vice president of the Center for Systems Innovation at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, during a Wednesday press conference. “But you can’t dispute the youth experience as told in their own words. Now really is the time to hear their truth, and heed their wisdom.”
The study included 78 current and former foster youth from across the country who were 18 to 25 years old and had lived in group care settings; 37 were interviewed, and 41 were given “cultural probes,” assigned tasks aimed at eliciting feelings and memories about an event or period of time.
Among the 52 findings in 11 subject areas, almost all reflect negatively on life in group care:
Despite the widespread assumption that group settings are a last resort, many youth said they experienced them as a first placement in foster care.
The nutritional quality and taste of the food served at institutions is routinely subpar, causing some youth to gain weight and others to lose weight because they found much of it inedible.
Youth experienced “mental, physical and sexual abuse” in group care, as well as discrimination.
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