To answer this question, consider:

• The significant degree to which safety, stability and nurturing has been absent in the lives of most of the children in out-of-home care, as described in the Endless Dreams video and the previous scenarios.
• The definition of out-of-home care – “...temporary around-the-clock care...”

Children in out-of-home care continue to struggle after placement because:

• The overwhelming majority have experienced trauma, and the impacts of trauma do not dissipate when a child is removed from the situation. Although to a large extent unavoidable, the removal from the home is, in itself, traumatic for the child.
  
• Out-of-home care is designed to provide safety and nurturing for a child, but it does not provide stability because it cannot provide permanence. Permanence for the child - safe and nurturing relationships that can be expected to last for a lifetime – is the goal, but out-of-home care itself is only a temporary solution. In fact, the out-of-home care system introduces a different kind of instability in the lives of children in out-of-home care: temporary homes and, often, temporary schools.