What we know about the effects of foster care

Social agencies have no more awesome power than the right-with due process of law-to take children from their parents for an indefinite period of time and dispose of them as they see fit. Although no one disputes the need for foster care, no one endorses it as a solution to the problems for which it is invoked. When children are abused or neglected by their parents, or when the parents cannot-for any of a number of reasons-care for their children, someone must intervene to see that the children are adequately looked after. That someone is usually the government, and the intervention is frequently foster care.