Foster Care Children
1 Department of Behavioral Sciences, School of Hygiene and Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, 605 N Wolfe St
In Reply.
Demb's perspective is an important one and merits discussion. I agree that children entering foster care do so with some degree of preexisting emotional disturbance. One would be surprised to find otherwise, given the neglect and abuse that prompt their placement, although there has been little published about this aspect of child abuse. Viewing this issue from a residential foster care facility would tend to exaggerate the truth of this conclusion. However, as Sokoloff1 has noted <20% of placements are for manifest difficulties of the children themselves; others2 have found an even lower proportion.




