Actually there is nothing wrong with a well run orphanage..Babies don't end up there anyways. There are many people waiting to adapt babies, get it straight
Most end up in foster care and are eventually adopted. Lots of good programs for these kids... See Heart Gallery just to name one.
I have my own [contrary] personal family experience that the foster care system isn't "good" as a whole. I'll admit a lot of it is personal experience, but here's some of my supporting sources:
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9 things to know about kids in foster care. Plus an unforgettable view into their lives.
2. Foster kids can suffer from PTSD at almost two times the rate of returning veterans.
And PTSD can mimic a lot of other mental illnesses, and it can manifest as nightmares, flashbacks, fight-or-flee responses, anger outbursts, and hyper-vigilance (being on "red alert" at all times), among other symptoms.
3. The average age of a foster child is 9 years old.
They're just on that edge of childhood, and chances are, it's been a pretty messed up childhood at that. Trauma does that.
4. About half of all foster kids are in non-relative foster homes.
8% are in institutions, 6% are in group homes, and only 4% are in pre-adoptive homes. Read that again — only 4% are in pre-adoptive homes.
5. Some of foster children experience multiple placements. In some cases, eight or more.
That's eight homes that they move into — and out of. And just consider ... that means they lose not just adults and other kids with whom they are establishing a bond, but friends, schoolmates, pets.
6. The average foster child remains in the system for almost two years before being reunited with their biological parents, adopted, aging out, or other outcomes.
8% of them remain in foster care for over five years. Of the 238,000 foster kids who left the system in 2013, about half were reunited with parents or primary caregivers, 21% were adopted, 15% went to live with a relative or other guardian, and 10% were emancipated (aged out).
7. In 2013, more than 23,000 young people aged out of foster care with no permanent family to end up with.
And if you add that up, year after year, hundreds of thousands of foster youth will have aged out of the system. What does that look like? "You're 18. You've got no place to live and no family. Good luck — buh-bye now!" One-quarter of former foster kids experience homelessness within four years of exiting the system.
8. Foster "alumni" (those who have been in foster homes and either adopted, returned to parents, or aged out) are likely to suffer serious mental health consequences.
They are four-five times more likely to be hospitalized for attempting suicide and five-eight times more likely to be hospitalized for serious psychiatric disorders in their teens.
Oh, and if you cry easy, I'd skip that video "ReMoved", part two is on link. I'm pretty non-emotional and that shit really tore me up. >.< Reminded me of what my adopted step-sister went through; the bio-parental abuse, bio-mom losing custody, and being placed "anywhere that'll take her, but only if we like them" policies of the gov. I'm just happy my bio-dad stepped up and adopted her, including mortgaging his home to pay for all the legal fees to "beat the gov." to be "allowed" to do so. - The court felt that because he was a farmer he didn't make enough money, because he was single he couldn't care for her, because he wasn't college educated he wasn't a good parent, and worse because he'd given custody of me to my mother in their divorce, he wasn't a fit parent.
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Adoption Statistics Statistic Brain
Included as a supplement to the above article; 43% of adopted children lived with their birth family before adoption.
Also as a counter/supplemental to my personal experience. The stats reflect that negative social/emotional wellbeing of adopted kids are outweighed substantially by the positive well being at 88%. I do try to balance that with my family experience, but, ya know, my sister is one of those 9%, those 14%, "experiences" and /she/ didn't do anything wrong in the mess; it's not her fault but ultimately, intentionally or not, she /was/ punished for it.
Her bio-mother dumped my dad and left for Cali. As no notice or anything, just one day my sister and here mom weren't there when he got home from combining, he received divorce paperwork in the mail citing "irreconcilable differences" a couple months later. Then out of the blue, just over a year after she left him, he gets a call from my then 11 year old sister in a total panic; her new step-dad was beating the shit out of her and her mom so she'd run away from home and she didn't know what to do. My Dad, of course, dropped everything and jumped on the next plane to Cali to do what he could, which wasn't much. He [mistakenly?] went to the police after picking up my sister and calming her down, they took my sister away from him that night, told him to go home, and put her in some kind of half-way house while they "investigated." We don't even know what the police and CPS or w/e found out, it's all sealed, my sister doesn't even know. Next thing she knows she's called into court to testify about her new stepdad's abuse of her and her mom. Couple months later she's back in court cause her bio-mom's parental rights are being terminated for child neglect abuse and drug addition and she's immediately put into foster care with a family that she said had 6 other foster kids. Her first instinct, again, call my dad, so she calls him up and within a month he's mortgaged the house to hire a lawyer and petition to adopt her (they rejected his non-represented request because he was an "estranged" step-parent, apparently it's SOP?) Then her bio-mom committed suicide. Dad had to fight the system for a year to adopt her, even though he helped raise her from age 5 to 10, even though she, age 12 now, wanted him to adopt her... Apparently the system doesn't feel that 5 years is enough time to establish a "meaningful" bond as a step-parent.
Sorry, I'm going off on a tangent, back to the subject...
I find this stat "concerning," percentage of adoptive parents receiving adoption subsidy: 87%. I mean I can see ya know, it's there so why not take it, but at the same time it leads into a worrisome thought that people adopt for the subsidy. Don't know how much money it is though so maybe I'm just biased against the system. I have a serious love / hate thing with adoption in general; we can't just abandon these poor kids [again], but we shouldn't /need/ to financially motivate people to adopt either. The system is idk it needs work, it needs... something, I just don't know what (and that really frustrates me, usually I have an idea for a solution or something, but I think I'm just too "close" to the subject)
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Statistics Intercountry Adoption (You can see the global trend, also check out the adoptions by state and individual years.)
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Facts and Statistics
Only 101,666 of 397,122 children living without permanent families are "available" for adoption (Article doesn't say, but I'm guessing the majority are kids taken from their parents with the eventual hope to reunite them?)
In 2012, 23,396 youth aged out of the U.S. foster care system without the emotional and financial support necessary to succeed. Nearly 40% had been homeless or couch surfed, nearly 60% of young men had been convicted of a crime, and only 48% were employed. 75% of women and 33% of men receive government benefits to meet basic needs. 50% of all youth who aged out were involved in substance use and 17% of the females were pregnant.
Nearly 25% of youth aging out did not have a high school diploma or GED, and a mere 6% had finished a two- or four-year degree after aging out of foster care. One study shows 70% of all youth in foster care have the desire to attend college.
Adopted children make-up roughly 2% of the total child population under the age of 18, but 11% of all adolescents referred for therapy have been adopted. Post-adoption services are important to all types of adoption, whether foster care adoption, international adoption, or domestic infant adoption.
And specifically the stats on "orphanages" related to the quoted:
No child under three years of age should be placed in institutional care without a parent or primary caregiver, according to research from 32 European countries, including nine in-depth country studies, which considered the “risk of harm in terms of attachment disorder, developmental delay and neural atrophy in the developing brain."
Children raised in orphanages have an IQ 20 points lower than their peers in foster care, according to a meta-analysis of 75 studies (more than 3,800 children in 19 countries).
As of 2012, more than 58,000 children in the U.S. foster care system were placed in institutions or group homes, not in traditional foster homes.
