Comment: Foster children are abandoned not once, but twice | wendy_squires
Kids don't ask to be born. Some who have been taken from neglectful or abusive parents and thrown into the foster care system likely wish on occasion they never had been. Because these unlucky children – and that is the only difference between them and us, luck – are cruelly abandoned at least twice in life.The first time is by their parents, be it through force or tragedy.
Within the first year of foster kids being forced out of the system, a whopping 39 per cent are homeless. While this figure alone is something we should all be ashamed of, it gets worse. Again within that first vital 12-month period, 46 per cent of boys and 22 per cent of girls will find themselves in the criminal justice system. More than half of all the abandoned teens will suffer mental health issues and 22 per cent of the girls will be pregnant.
Just what a financial burden not helping these kids is will be part of the discussions taking place at the Home Stretch Symposium in Sydney next week , when state and territory representatives and child experts will come together to urge Australia to join other countries in increasing the financial cut-off age to 21.
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