Foster Care We generally think of childhood in terms of the nuclear family, Mom and dad, or just mom or just dad, takes care of their kids. But the reality is things don't always work out this way. For any number of reasons, parents sometimes end up in a situation where they can't take care of their children, either temporarily or permanently. What happens then? Throughout history, the fate of these children has depended wholly on the goodwill of the community. In the past, if extended family, neighbors or strangers didn't step in as surrogate(代理) parents, parentless children would be turned out on the streets. Today, this sort of community childcare is institutionalized, but it still relies on the kindness and compassion of individual members of the community. Foster Fundamentals When parents are unable, unwilling or unfit to care for a child, the child must find a new home. In some cases, there is little or no chance a child can return to their parents' custody(监护), so they need a new permanent home. In 'other situations, children only need a temporary home until their parents' situation changes, In any ease, the children need somewhere to stay until a permanent home is possible. Over the past hundred years, the trend in North America and Europe has shifted away from orphanages and towards foster homes. The underlying philosophy of foster care is that children are better off, emotionally and psycho-logically, in a home environment, with someone filling the role of a parent. The logic is that with one or more foster parents taking care of a smaller number of children, the child should have more of the attention and love they need to grow into healthy adults. Today, there are roughly half a million U.S. children in the foster care system. Foster care and adoption both provide family environments for children who can't be with their biological parents, but it's important to understand that they are very different institutions. While foster parents are encouraged to connect emotionally with the children in their care, foster families are not meant to be permanent replacements for biological families. In most cases, the ultimate goal is to reunite children with their biological families, as soon as the family is able and fit. This could be as short as a few days or as long as a few years. Failing family reunification, the ultimate goal is to find adoptive parents who will take on all the emotional and legal responsibilities of birth parents. In the eyes of the law, adopting a child is pretty much the same thing as giving birth to them. Fostering a child, on the other hand, doesn't give the foster parents any major authority over the child's life. On occasion, foster parents will eventually adopt foster children in their care, but more often, the foster home is a means of returning the child to his or her birth parents or a stop on the way to another home. Unfortunately, many children end up bouncing from foster home to foster home, never finding a permanent family. In this regard, the foster care system is clearly imperfect, since it often adds more instability to a child's life. The fundamental mission of the foster care system, then, is very simple. Actually putting it into action is another matter. Fester care involves a lot of hard work on the part of administrators, social workers, parents and, most importantly, foster children. In the next couple sections, we'll find out a little about life in this world. The Organization In the United States, foster care operates on the local level, rather than on the national level. The structure varies somewhat from state to state, as do the specific names for government agencies and programs, but most states follow the same general model. In most eases, the state's division of social services, part of the state department of health a