Foster care.

The placement of children in foster care is a signal that families are in trouble and that our social system is struggling. Foster care, designed to provide remedial services to the child and family and thus to facilitate family reconstitution, often fails. Health care of children in foster care cannot be separated from the circumstances that led to their placement or from the structure and operation of the foster care system itself. Physicians caring for children in foster care should be aware of the challenges presented by these children's high rate of chronic illness and emotional problems and by the barriers imposed by the foster care system.