Remembering the Forgotten Children

I saw filthy living conditions

These were the living conditions found and reported by Texas Comptroller Carole Strayhorn in 2004 when she investigated the Texas Foster Care System.

She called her report Forgotten Children.

Although those facilities pictured here from her report may not be housing children in this manner since her report, there are otherhomes and residential treatment centers that are still housing foster children, and sadly, not all are up to standards. Not all facilities are bad either, there are many good homes too.

What’s important is that we do not forget that these children are out there, needing us to keep an eye on them.

To that end, I am republishing these photos. To remember the Forgotten Children from 2004 to more than a decade later in 2015.

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"Pee wall" next to sleeping quarters at therapeutic foster camp.
“Pee wall” next to sleeping quarters at therapeutic foster camp.

make-shift outhouses

4a (Large)
“playhouse” at a therapeutic foster camp

unsanitary food storage in so-called outdoor camps

Sleeping facilities outside at therapeutic foster camp.
Sleeping facilities outside at therapeutic foster camp.

 

where children must sleep in sleeping bags – no walls, no fans, no heat – for months and months and in many cases, year after year.

Water hole where children at therapeutic foster camp are forced to shower year round.
Water hole where children at therapeutic foster camp are forced to shower year round.

That’s not care.

Isolation area to punish foster children in attic with lock on outside of door.
Isolation area to punish foster children in attic with lock on outside of door.

That’s cruelty.

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Worker at therapeutic foster camp demonstrating a technique in restraint of foster child.

That’s not educating.

Foster Child in Army Fatigues
Foster child in army fatigues?

That’s endangering”

 

Carol Strayhorn on Texas Foster Care System in 2004

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