Source Analysis

1. http://www.youtube.com/CaseyFamilyPrograms This source explains the why the foster care system is struggling and what the Casey Family Program thinks needs to be done.  Their plan is to reduce the number of children in the foster care system by 2020 by giving help to families that need it most.  The Casey Family Program is a major organization within the foster care community, so this is an institutional source.  Stakeholders and researchers in the Casey Family Program comment in this video.  The audience isn’t the general public because the views on this video are very low, so it was most likely produced for those within the Casey Family and prospective donators, not to raise public awareness.  Since I first found this many weeks ago, the views have not increased much at all, maybe by 5 if anything.  If the video’s intensions were to raise public awareness it would give the wrong idea about foster care to many people because the video itself seems to be quite stereotypical.  If viewers watched all 30 minutes of video, they may feel differently.  The second video is stronger and makes the viewer want to help the system, but it has significantly less view than the first.  The introduction in the first video makes the viewer assume only minorities in poor excluded neighborhoods are in foster care, instead of the truth: children in need of foster care are in most neighborhoods across the country.
2. http://www.nfpainc.org/ This is the site for the main organization that represents foster parents.  It has links to its sponsors and local organizations for foster parents.  It links to journalistic doucments for foster parents, tells the stories about exceptional foster parents, and publishes relevant press releases.  It’s a very straightforward site that works to bring support to foster families.  It also has links to events going on that foster parents could come together.  Foster parent organizations are important for support and for the foster parents to know their rights.  Their corporate sponsors and donators are probably the ones paying for the NFPA’s website and the things that they publish, and there are links at the bottom of the page to these sponsors and donators.  A foster family recommended this organization as a valuable source of information.  It is important for foster parents to have a support system of other foster parents, which is what the site aims to do.  It would also be helpful to new foster parents and foster parents who don’t foster on a regular basis.  There is information about parent’s rights and children’s rights in a straightforward format.  A lack of accessible information is a common issue for foster parents, so this organization and website is immensely helpful.  This helps show foster parents what they can do to help themselves and their children.
3. http://www.casaforchildren.org/ This source is an nongovernmental institutional source that advocates for children in foster care.  It links to their Facebook, Twitter, YouTube sites as well as other foster care advocate and community sites.  It’s a little bit journalistic because it tells stories of foster kids and advocates, and it also tells about recent events.  This source is also trying to get volunteers and donations, so it’s promoting the CASA agenda.  It appeals to the general public, but specifically, those who want to help out in foster care situations without becoming a parent.  One of the most eye-catching things on this site is an interactive box, which allows the viewer to find a program near their community.  This site shows that the foster care system needs volunteers and foster parents.  CASA, and other organizations similar to CASA, work to set themselves apart from governmental organizations, but still make connections to them.  CASA makes it very obvious that it is looking to invest effort for the benefit of foster children while working side by side with government systems.  This shows the importance of community involvement and government funding working together to find the best solution.
4. http://www.ncd.gov/newsroom/publications/2008/FosterCareSystem_Report.html This is a government report  on how foster care has a serious problems, especially with helping foster children with disabilities. The report is both journalistic and institutional.  This government organization, the National Council on Disability, uses this report to further their agenda, cause, and budget. The report was written by the members of the NCD and addressed to the White House in February of 2008.  It outlines the problems of the current system and states what should be done about such problems and why those solutions would help.  Their recommendations include an increase of the following: local control, government funding, training to parents, the number of foster parents, training to professionals and parents, quality education, concentration on those transitioning out of the system, communication to other government and welfare systems, and quality of data.  It is quite a large list of things that needs to be done, but the argument is that this would help many parts of society, not just foster care.  This government report also gives examples of the solutions it proposes already functioning and producing positive results. It also gives examples of where past solutions were not inclusive enough and need to be added to.
5. http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/11/23/celebrating-national-adoption-day This is a press release on the whitehouse.gov website, so it is both institutional and journalistic.  It is an announcement that tells the involvement of the White House on National Adoption Day.  This article includes a short story about an adoption finalized on National Adoption Day, November 23; the main goal of National Adoption Day is to get courts to open their doors and finalize as many adoptions as possible.  The adoption story told on this page was of two children being adopted out foster care and into a permanent loving home.  This press release links to official government programs to gain more involvement within these programs and also to get more kids adopted out of the system. This document stresses the importance of good family lives for children, so they will become healthy and functional adults.  It mentions that President Obama also made November National Adoption Month.
   
   
6. http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/stats_research/afcars/statistics/entryexit2006.htm This is a government institutional source and is in the form of a statistical report, which makes it a bit journalistic.  It includes state statistics about children entering and exiting the foster care system from the fiscal years of 2002 to 2006. The report outlines the trends of foster children in care and where they went after exiting care.  The main purpose of this site is to promote the budget of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ foster care division.  It gives a lot of data that could be used to focus in on the struggling areas of the system, or a reallocation of funds.  Although the site is for public view, it was probably created as a reference point and just published for public transparency and knowledge.  The Administration for Children and Families home page links to other programs, besides foster care, they are working with as well as other governmental sites.  Many of the ACF services directly deal with foster care because much of them deal with child welfare and community involvement.  The entire foster care division of this site gives all the technical answers that current and prospective foster parents and children need to know.  There are also multiple reports and answers to frequently asked questions.
7. http://www.cffo.org/ This institutional source is the website for the Children First for Oregon organization, a non governmental agency with the motto, “We get results for kids.”  Their goal is to help the children struggling in Oregon by helping with finances, obtaining healthcare, and supporting the children with whatever they need to succeed. The people that are paying for this are asking for assistance to keep the organization helping kids.  It creates awareness that kids need help, and this site makes the issue a personal one because you can see how many kids are struggling in your community.  The sources within this site are other foster care sites and has an entire section devoted to the Casey Family Foundation.  It shows that foster care is a complex system and every part of it needs funding to benefit the children.  This site is a more local site than the sites dedicated to foster care from the national government.  It is much more personalized and touches the hearts of prospective donors or volunteers.  Under the “Latest News” section the first story is all about saying, “Yes!” to helping kids.  It is much more interactive and tries to make the issue hit as close to home as possible for all the viewers of this page.
8. An Interview with Pat and Pearl Ireton. The Iretons have been foster parents in the Medically Fragile branch of the system since the 1980’s in Oregon and California, and they have fought many legal battles to gain rights for their foster children’s specific needs.  They are a citizen source, but have been actively involved in making legal changes to the system. The legal changes they want to make include more rights for foster parents and more funding for the system. They said that funding is hard to find, but it can be found in strange places and from different branches of the foster care system.  The interview took place on November 8^th 2009 in their home. The Medically Fragile foster care branch is a unique sector of foster care.  On top of having an unfortunate biological family situation, these children also have mental and physical disabilities. The Iretons currently have five children at home, they have permanently adopted two and the other three were chosen for long-term foster care.  Another child they adopted was forced out of their home and into a family friend’s home due to a law that mandated only five mentally fragile adults could live in one house. The Iretons suggested few foster parent organizations as well as some people they worked with on the legal side of the issue.
9. An Interview with Ellen Herman.  Ellen Herman, department head of history at the University of Oregon, published a book on the history of adoption in America.  In this book there is a section about fostering.  The interview took place on October 26^th 2009.  Herman is more of an expert on adoption, but does have some knowledge of and experience with foster care.  She worked in court cases on the Citizen Review Board, or the CRB.    There, she and a panel of others decided court cases about where an individual foster child would go, usually either reunite with parents or terminate parent rights indefinitely.  Every case was confidential and very different from one another.  Most involved many people, but some involved only a few.  Some cases were very complicated and long, but some were very close to resolution and short.   She noted that overall most court cases were not the best solution for the children, and the goal in these cases was to get the children back to their biological family, if possible.
10. http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/06/oregons_foster_care_kids_shoul.html This is an article intended to recruit volunteers to CASA. It is a journalistic source, but is also an institutional source, in a sense.  Since the author is advocating for more volunteers, specifically male volunteers, he is pushing an agenda. He mentions how an increase in funding would be helpful, but also how community organizations cost less money because they are usually non-profit and staffed by volunteers. It was written by George Reed on June 27, 2009.  He directly linked the phone number and website to the organization he was advocating for.  The OregonLive website links to other articles from the Oregonian, and has corporate sponsors down the side of the page.  Besides that, there are not links to other foster care articles.  There are only six comments on this article, which isn’t that many since this article has been up for many months.  It proves that the subject of foster care is a subject many people don’t know much about.

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