Applying Change, Leadership, and Advocacy Theories to Disadvantaged and Vulnerable Populations - Research Paper Example

Applying Change, Leadership, and Advocacy Theories to Foster Care Applying Change, Leadership, and Advocacy Theories to Foster Care Foster care has for long been a weighty discussion in the American population. Children join foster care due to their parents’ inability to provide for them. This failure to provide for children usually arises out of poverty, incarcerated parents, substance abuse, and domestic violence (Chipungu and Bent-Goodley, 2004). As a result of this, children as forced to join a pseudo family set-up.

The foster family orientation is not always the best for the children due to the plethora of challenges that face it. This essay will examine limited support as a challenge to foster care as well as the role of advocacy in bettering foster care.Limited support in foster care emanates primarily from the lack of support by the government. Foster care requires a lot of resources to make it effective in achieving its objectives. The resources required transcend the identification of children required to join foster care and encapsulate, to a greater extent, the selection of suitable foster parents.

The realization of foster care objectives, therefore, requires a lot of support from the government especially in the realms of financing.Advocacy holds an essential pathway towards making foster care a successful intervention by the government. Advocacy encompasses the enlightenment and empowerment of particular cohorts of people in order to deal with setbacks that they undergo on a daily basis. When people have knowledge concerning societal issues, their propensity to affect change is enhanced.

In relation to foster care, advocacy needs to start from the selection of children to join foster care, to how the training of foster parents can be carried out successfully (Dalrymple and Boylan, 2013).One facet of foster care that would benefit from advocacy is the training and support of foster care parents. In this regard, it is prudent to start by educating the foster parents as to their roles in the process. Pseudo parents must be well informed that their role is to ensure the satisfactory development of the child in foster care by providing for their unique developmental needs.

Additionally, the foster parents must be enlightened to be in a position to understand the circumstances as well as the environments from where the children they cater to hail. Through the understanding of these conditions, the foster parents can then provide meaningful living experiences for the young people to ensure that they are as contented as possible (Dalrymple and Boylan, 2013).Acting as a social change agent in society is critical. When one assumes the role of a change agent, they are capable of bettering the lives of others.

Change agents selflessly dissociate themselves from the selfish, individualistic orientations towards open-minded inclinations that continually affect change in society. Additionally, in assuming the role of a change agent, one gains fulfillment and harmony that, in the long run, results in self-satisfaction and self-actualization.In a nutshell, it is explicitly clear that advocacy plays a crucial role in terms of bettering the lives of children in foster care. Children join foster care due to reasons such as incarcerated parents, domestic violence, substance abuse, as well poverty in the families from where they hail.

Foster care children require a lot of attention based on the circumstances of the homes from where they hail. It is through specialized attention that foster care children get to enjoy harmonious lives when they advance in age. ReferencesChipungu, S. S., & Bent-Goodley, T. B. (2004). Meeting the challenges of contemporary foster care. The Future of Children, 75-93. Accessible online at: http://www.whenyouwish.com.br/upload/9c35e260-6e56-47f9-bb71-107d19ce6ca2.pdf.Dalrymple, J., Boylan, J., In Wharton, K.

, & Scott, W. (2013). Effective advocacy in social work. Accessible at: http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/58102_Dalrymple_&_Boylan.pdf.