ue, according to a 2002 report (McCormick, 2002). Children taken from their abusive parents are bounced from one foster home to another and some are returned to their parents, who abuse them again. Some are even abused by their foster families. California is home to 12 percent of the U.S. population, but to 20 percent of its foster child population. Because the number of foster children has doubled since 1988 in California, there is a shortage of qualified foster parents. Social workers are overloaded with as many as 60 to 70 cases each.
Compared to foster children in other states, foster children in California stay in foster care longer; about one in five experience three or more placements within their first year in the California foster care system; one in 10 California children who have faced proven abuse or neglect suffer a repeat instance within six months; and one percent of foster children are abused in the foster home (McCormick, 2002).
There are many grounds for not allowing parents to be reunited with their children after instances of child abuse. These include mental disability of the parent; that the child has been removed previously for abuse, then returned to the parent, and is again being removed for abuse; that the parent has caused the death of another child; that there has been sexual abuse or severe physical harm to the child; that the parent willfully abandoned the child; that the parent has been convicted of a felony; that the parent has a history of extensive, abusive and chronic use of drugs or alcohol and has resisted treatment for this problem; and that the parent has abducted the child from his or her placement and refused to disclose the child's whereabouts (State, 2004).
Other factors involved in determining if a child should be returned to the parents include whether or not the child wishes to be reunited with the parent; the likelihood that the child can safely be returned to the parent...