America’s Foster Care System (Tom Ashbrook, On Point)

Interview:
http://onpoint.wbur.org/2013/08/29/foster-care

In her new book, “To The End of June,” author Cris Beam casts a searing eye on the labyrinth that is the American foster care system.  Her exploration was a daunting task, but Beam had a personal investment – she’s a foster mother and she wanted to make sense of the world she was part of.

It’s a world that manages about 400,000 children a year. That costs nearly 20 billion dollars annually.  “And yet nobody,” she writes, “not the kids, not the foster or biological parents, not the social workers, the administrators, the politicians, the policy experts – thinks the system is working.”

This hour, On Point: confronting America’s foster care system.