Removal and its Effect on Education

We know that children who are removed from the home and placed in foster care suffer trauma due to the removal. In the child welfare agencies and courtrooms, efforts are made to mitigate this trauma. What is rarely talked about though is the effect of removal on the education of the child. We all know it does affect education, we have the studies that prove it and laws in place that are supposed to prevent it, but it is still rarely talked about.

Recently a report came out discussing the effect of a child being placed in foster care and its effect on his/her education. (I’ve linked to the Chronicle of Social Change article regarding the report below). The results are not good. These children perform at the lowest levels and have the highest dropout rates in Arizona.

Now I advocate keeping a child in home as much as possible, but it a child is removed we must argue to minimize disruptions. One thing we can do to assist these children is to take pains to minimize the disruption that removal causes. Unfortunately, this rarely seems to be the case, so you have a child moved not just from his home, but also from his social support network. With regards to education, we must strive to keep the child in the same school where possible. Parents, social workers, and legal professionals can do this by reminding everyone that the child deserves as little disruption as possible.

For more information on this subject I recommend reading: https://chronicleofsocialchange.org/report/15508/15508