In my family and human services class, we were required to pick a book / novel following a human service occupation or issue. I, of course, chose a book about the foster care system. I read To The End of June: The Intimate Life of American Foster Care by Cris Beam. Here is my final paper on this memoir.
The foster care system is an immediate concern within the human services profession. It involves social workers, case managers, legal advocates, and mental health professionals working together to protect some of the most vulnerable people in America. As someone who has seen the life-altering impacts of the foster care system in her very own home, I knew this book was going to do something to me, make me re-experience the plethora of feelings I know all too well. I went into reading this book knowing these facts yet I was still faced with overbearing emotions and anger that I could recognize before it even hit. To the End of June: the Intimate Life of American Foster Care is an incredibly upsetting yet accurate mirroring of the foster care system. It follows foster mom Cris Beam over the course of five years of her own experiences and stories while also following other foster families and the struggles they endured as well. So many different systems, supports, and groups of people are involved in this process yet hundreds of thousands of kids still find themselves in this flawed and hurtful apparatus. Social workers, biological parents, biological siblings, foster parents, foster siblings, lawyers, case workers, and who it’s all for, the kids themselves, are interlinked by this system. Beam’s display of the ecological system is unique in the way in which she illustrates policies within the macrosystem, pressure under the mesosystem, and bonds created by the microsystem through her own personal narrative, while also utilizing numbers to recognize patterns.
The macrosystem is built of societal norms, cultural values, laws and legal systems, economics, and political systems and their policies. The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) of 1997 is an example of the macrosystem in use and in application to this book. This act originally promoted the adoption of children in the foster care system but has had many revisions made and clarifying aspects added. In specific relation to foster care and adoption, this act “rewarded States that increased adoptions with incentive funds”, “Required criminal records checks for foster and adoptive parents”, and “Required States to use reasonable efforts to move eligible children in foster care toward permanent placements” (Childwelfare.gov, 1997). All of these work together for the betterment of a system that needs whatever help it can get to make this process easier for the kids involved. When it comes to economics, Beam mentions how poverty is one of the greatest factors of children entering the system. “Poverty is and always has been the one constant in child welfare: the poorer you are, the more likely it is your child will be taken into custody.” (Beam, 2013, p. 65). Beam also goes on to describe how race and poverty intertwine, another example of the macrosystem and how societal and cultural norms play into such a defective system. “Another way to look at race and foster care is to look at money, because this is one area where the numbers match. African Americans accounted for two-fifths of the 558,000 children in foster care in 2000, which is similar to the proportion of all poor children who are African American (40 perfect).” (Beam, 2013, p. 46).
The most immediate layer of a child’s world are those they are directly entangled with in the same environment. In this case, the foster home is the child’s microsystem. This is typically the child’s closest definition of a family depending on how long the placement is. The bond between foster siblings is not anything anyone could ever understand until they’ve experienced it. “Sekina had a particularly proprietary hold over baby Allen, claiming to anyone who would listen that he was the only foster child she originally wanted. And Sekina, maybe even more than Bruce or Allyson, was terrified of losing him.” (Beam, 2013, p. 6). The small moments and snapshots within the foster home are some of the most important both for the child and the foster family. Family meals together, quick outings, bedtime stories, and game nights are some of the most principal moments for this kid to bond with this newfound group of people and create a routine and schedule with. I remember those moments more than anything. Throughout the book, we hear and learn about the relationships within this family and grow up with the foster kids in the home. “‘Oh my God, oh my God, is she OK?’ Fatimah gasped when I told her where we were. Even though they didn’t see each other so much anymore, Fatimah still considered Dominique her sister. They had lived together at the Greens’ for seven months, but more than that, they shared a kind of unspoken understanding about growing yourself up in the free fall of foster care.” (Beam, 2013, p. 256). The perpetual bonds that the foster care system creates are unlike any relationships anyone will ever have. It bonds you forever and genuinely makes for some of the most important friendships and kinships in one’s life.
Interactions between two or more systems is vital within a foster placement. Whether it’s biological parents to foster parents, foster parents to case workers, or educators to foster parents, the mesosystem is a crucial part of the foster care system. Though, it can be extremely complicated, difficult, and confusing to mix these systems, it makes for much better communication and contact between differing parties who are all, ultimately, working towards the same goal: adoption or reunification. Sometimes, as we see in the book, conversing with a foster kid’s biological parents can be extremely frustrating and exhausting. I know from experience as well that taking in a kid short term that you would adopt in a heartbeat is so difficult because it’s unrealistic. “For Shawn, these classes were particularly frustrating, because the lessons weren’t tailored to adoption at all. They were geared toward the general foster parent population, who would be contending with, or even working toward, a biological family reunification.” (Beam, 2013, p. 79). While so much of the time, it is the goal to reunite the biological family, it can be really hard on the kid and the foster family to coordinate it and let that child back in the life of someone who lost them. It’s also so incredible to see someone get better for the sake of their child and work towards gaining that lost trust back. It can be harmful and completely degrading to the child as well. “When she was placed with a new family in Queens, Dominique crossed adoption off her list of goals for the first time in her life. Even though her mother was long gone, Dominique wanted to hold out for the real thing, if only in her mind.” (Beam, 2013, p. 185). One thing that is noticeable in the foster care system is watching kids age through it and beginning to understand the process themselves. For teenagers, they understand what it means to go from home to home and they know the signs of an unsuccessful environment versus a healthy one. They learn the signs and the unspoken rules and regulations and figure it out on their own the things that no one tells them. These kids grow up much faster than the average kid. They learn the signs of an overdose by age eight and they know the sounds of their dangerous parents footsteps before they know how to count by sevens. This is what makes the mesosystem so important: it creates a bridge between the two parties so that no child ever has to stand in front of a dangerous situation by themself ever again. The mesosystem, though can be stressful, overall creates a much healthier and honest space for everyone.
I’m so grateful for this book on so many levels. First and foremost, it sheds a light on what truly goes on behind the closed doors of the foster care system. I love how Beam combined both lived experiences and journalism to create such a fragile story. She didn’t just state facts, statistics, and numbers but used real stories, humans, and relationships to convey and show, not only tell, how damaging this system is. People know it’s flawed and struggling but they don’t know how. This really puts into perspective how it works on all ends. Reading these stories had me constantly reflecting back on my own experiences and, unknowingly, comparing the two. It had me in an ongoing thought about the similarities and differences in my foster care encounters versus Beam’s but then I genuinely stopped in my tracks and pondered over the fact that not one foster care experience is like any other. My wounds regarding the placements in our home and how they came and left, trashbags in hand, is unlike any story I’ve ever heard and that’s something that’s so special about this experience is how unique it is for everyone in so many differing ways. I found it incredibly difficult to bring myself to read this book, if I’m being frank.
My family and I stopped fostering about a year ago and it was hard to be reminded of the gifts and love that comes with welcoming kids into your home. The other thing that made this a difficult read was it stood as a constant indication that this is not the field I want to enter. Before my family and I fostered, it was something that always sat at the back of my mind: social worker, case worker, CASA, psychologist, etc… Since becoming a foster family, I’ve learned that it’s absolutely not the right field for me. Not in a bad way whatsoever. It’s simply a fact that I’ve learned about myself over the years that I still haven’t come to terms with. This book showed me how so many foster stories differ and how important it is to be open and share these stories. Foster families change lives and give children a chance at a life that they never would’ve known otherwise. I have zero regrets about being part of a foster family and I even think I would do it as an adult. This book has also inspired me to write more about my own unique experiences to remind people that this is a growing and flawed system. These memoirs should be told in order to prevent repeating traumas and more horror stories. These narratives reinforced my need to stand up for these kids and advocate for the rest of my life. Not that I necessarily needed that reminder but it also showed me that I’m never alone in my stories and my experiences are valid.
I’ve had kids ripped from my home, come expecting a six month stay but only stay for a week, live with us for a week but wish it was eternity, and eight other kiddos whom I love with every fiber in my being. I wish every story I told about my foster siblings was a positive one. The foster care system is so scary and seeing it unfold in front of me has been so humbling, rewarding, and eye-opening. As I stated in my admissions essay, “I’ve been shown how to be empathetic and compassionate. I’ve learned how to set and respect boundaries. I’ve learned resilience. Most of all, I’ve learned how to offer a place of solace and an embrace of consolation to kids who have never known that. I feel I know these kids like my own blood. Being a foster sister has been a humbling, profound, unpredictable, emotional, rewarding, and flexible experience. I have never been so grateful for such a diverse and complicated part of my life.” (Rector, 2024). Even if this isn’t the workforce I enter, I will never not advocate for these kids who feel as though their voices have been torn from them. I will always stand as a voice for them and will speak nothing but the highest of words of them and my time as a foster sister.
References:
Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 – P.L. 105-89 | Child Welfare Information Gateway. (n.d.). Www.childwelfare.gov. https://www.childwelfare.gov/resources/adoption-and-safe-families-act-1997-pl-105-89/
To the end of June : the intimate life of American foster care : Beam, Cris : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. (2021). Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/toendofjuneintim0000beam/page/256/mode/2up
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