The foster care system in America needs to change

I was watching Dr.Phil today and it was about how the kids in foster care age out without any help. No money, health care, place to live, work ethic, etc.

When I left the foster care system at 18, that's exactly what was going to happen to me. I worked at McDonalds for a few months when I was 16, I volunteered at the Boy And Girls Club a few summers, but I hardly had a work ethic. Didn't have a job, no money, still in HS. No plans for my future... And yet, they all expected me to just know what I was doing. They gave me no resources. No resume, no money, no nothing.

I went to live with J and S for about 4mo until I moved to AZ for about a yr to live with my grandma. I was released from the state on July 4th, 2003 "My independence day" haha. *rolls eyes*

I was in a group home prior to going to live with J and S for abut 8mo. This is my perception, whether it's wrong or right, it's mine. I was the favorite girl in the home. I don't remember ever getting in trouble, I never got taken down, physically or otherwise. I got special privileges all the time. I think I even got to go out more than some of the girls. I also played therapist to some of the girls. I felt very badly for some of the girls. They were so lost, and felt so hopeless. I tried to help them realize that every action has a consequence, whether it's good or bad, there is ALWAYS a consequence.   It felt really good to know that some of those lost girls looked up to me, and would sometimes follow in my footsteps.

I was put in foster care for the first time when I was 11, was adopted at 14, and then back in foster care when I was 16. I would NEVER allow my kids to be in foster care. It breaks my heart that my niece and nephews are in foster care because my uncle cant get his act together enough to get them back. I wish there was something I could do. If my grandma were here, I KNOW she would not allow this.

I hear and read stories of foster kids being abused and it makes me sick, They are already broken kids, and then you put them in houses sometimes worse than where they originally were. They are paychecks to those foster moms and dads. They don't care about those kids. They just want their money.

Now, I'm sure there are good foster care homes out there. The two that I was in, were not. I wasn't physically abused but I was mentally and emotionally abused..