Category talk:Orphanages in the United States

US history of orphanages

24.50.151.151 (talk) 23:12, 9 January 2015 (UTC) http://www.faqs.org/childhood/Me-Pa/Orphanages.html The Attack on Orphanages

By the late nineteenth century, some reformers began to attack orphanages for being overly regimented and sheltering their children too long. Influenced by social Darwinism, Amos Warner, the prominent social welfare researcher, argued in American Charities (1875) that clustering children with similar backgrounds bred pauperism, and that institutionalized children were not prepared adequately for life struggles. He advocated dispersing the children into families. Beginning in 1854, American reformer CHARLES LORING BRACE had been sending dependent children from New York to live with and work in families in the Midwest. These PLACING-OUT operations, carried out by the NEW YORK CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY and copied in other cities, were later known as the ORPHANS' TRAINS. Children's Aid Societies continued the tradition of indenture and were the precursor to FOSTER CARE. Some children were adopted and some were exploited. Many lost contact with their natural families and were barely supervised by the agency after they were placed. By contrast, orphanages rarely sought to break up families; most encouraged connections with families and kept siblings together. The majority of children returned to their families once circumstances changed. Parents, and especially immigrant parents, preferred orphanages to giving their children to Children's Aid societies.

Progressive-era reformers intensified their criticism of orphanages, blaming them for obliterating individuality. In 1909, at a White House conference called by President Theodore Roosevelt to discuss children's welfare, two hundred social workers declared that the best method of caring for dependent children was at home or in an alternative family. Institutions, they said, should be considered the last resort. For children who needed an alternative home, they suggested placements in screened, unpaid foster homes under the supervision of social workers. The children were expected to attend school and work for their board.

The anti-institution movement of the 1960s closed most of the remaining orphanages. Federal Aid for Families with Dependent Children legislation (AFDC), which began in the 1960s, aimed at preserving biological families and preventing children from being placed out.

But the number of children in foster care did not diminish, and by the 1980s foster care was in crisis. The system faced a shortage of foster parents, inadequate supervision, high staff turnover, and children who were moved from one placement to another. In some cases there was also abuse, neglect, and death of children in foster homes. In 1994, Congressman Newt Gingrich, suggested a return to orphanages. His remarks reopened a century-old debate. Opponents looked at research done on residential treatments from the 1950s on and pointed to problems that arose when troubled children were concentrated in one place. Supporters emphasized the permanency, family preservation, and educational benefits that the Progressive Era's orphanages had provided. During the 1980s, historians and graduates of orphanages discovered that orphanages were discarded with little research and that the century-old debate was largely based on fiction and movies. The combination of their research and personal accounts cast institutions in a much more positive light than that in which they had previously been depicted. Some states and private philanthropists started building residential academies for preteens and teenagers who were not likely to be adopted or find placements. Others responded to the renewed debate and the continuing crisis in foster care by terminating parental rights in order to release children for adoption, by establishing permanent foster care units, and by enhancing services for families in crisis.

The combination of their research and personal accounts cast institutions in a much more positive light than that in which they had previously been depicted.

Again I ask, as in the above article, where are the permanent foster care units, what cities like Milwaukee are pursuing this, where is the data for the children assigned by court decisions, what graduation rates are from the private orphanages, how is a child admitted to private orphanages, are private orphanages run by foundations, churches etc.,

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General article for "Orphanages in the United States"

There needs to be a page for Orphanages in the United States; which would history, statistics, etc. How many orphanages are in the US? How many children are in all the US orphanages? How many are taken out of orphanages per year? Etc. NoToleranceForIntolerance (talk) 05:25, 25 September 2016 (UTC)