Forrest Knox, a Republican Senator from the 14th district in Kansas, supports Senate Bill 394, The Foster Care Parents’ Bill of Rights Act. This bill will require the Department for Children and Families to allow foster parents to be partners in decisions with the foster child, provide more training opportunities, requirements, and give the foster parent more of a voice in the decision to place the foster child with the foster parent. This Bill also aims to keep the foster families updated on the child’s progress following foster care and to allow preference placement if the parent has previously cared for the child.
Why We Chose This Cause:
We have chosen this topic because our group has recognized the problems within the Foster Care system in today’s society. A member of our group works with the high school ministry at her church, and she has witnessed first-hand how the misguidance of families in the foster care system can truly create lasting impacts with negative ramifications on young students. Another group member has been in contact with a friend over social media about the struggles behind taking care of a foster child with special needs, and how this information about the child is pertinent to their well being as a family.
Our target audience for this project is the foster families currently caring for underprivileged children and just raising awareness. People should care in general on this topic because it affects the next generation. TCU students will be our universal audience and the public. Nichole Hulather, a foster parent of 17 years, is in support of this Bill because she feels as if foster parents are treated like babysitters. They have little to no say on what happens to the child while under their care—who are often encouraged to keep quiet about the foster system’s shortcomings. Senator Forrest Knox is a parent who has adopted children himself and sees the flaws in the foster care system. He wants to help foster parents like Nichole Hulather.
Our Arguments:
We have decided to argue for the passing of the Foster Care Parent’s Bill of Rights Act by creating a video to raise awareness and a blog to get feedback and support. This blog will give us a valid look into who is looking at our video and we will leave the blog open for responses so we can get feedback on our topic. The argumentation techniques we will be using include incompatibility/contradiction and ethos. According to Perelman, a contradiction “makes the system incoherent and hence unusable” (54). The argument of contradiction in the case regarding foster care family’s rights is evident to its very core. The system wants there to be good, whole-hearted parents involved in foster children’s lives; however; the system does not want to spend money to go through more screening processes and training in order to provide children with the aspired homes. This argument is also incompatible to the situation because the foster care system aims to allow foster children to turn out the same as children who grow up in a normal home. This is impossible given the child’s circumstances, so the circumstances in which the system puts the children in must also be different. Perelman also states that ethos is “the appeal to reason through argumentation and the rhetorical procedures which aim at arousing the audience’s passions” (98). Our video will pull at the heartstrings of our viewers and hopefully create a sense of urgency to be active and make a difference regarding the rights of foster care parents.
Summary:
Overall, The Foster Care Parent’s Bill of Rights Act is a bill that desperately needs to be reintroduced to the House of Representatives in order to improve the overall quality of the foster care system in today’s society. We will use our video and blog to convey our passion behind this bill to proactively change the foster care battlefield with the argumentation of contradiction, incompatibility, and ethos and support the reelection of Forrest Knox.
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