Orphans and disadvantaged children are tomorrow's adults. Orphan care is usually looked at as providing for the child's basic physical needs and education, while often neglecting their emotional needs. This is not the fault of carers, child welfare workers or foster parents, but due to a lack of resources earmarked by politicians.

Children who are in foster care need more attention than children who have grown up in a well-adjusted parental home. In the United States there are over half a million children in foster care. The impact of these children on the future society is not trivial.

A brief look at statistics show only the surface of the problems and cost to society as a whole. 23% of children entering foster care in the United States are under two years old. The American psychologist Erik Erikson described the developmental stages of child development. It is during the first 18 months of the child's life that its attitude to the world develops. The baby is totally dependant on the parents or carers.

In an environment of neglect, the child learns not to trust. If there is domestic violence or abuse as well, the child is scarred emotionally in its first year. The child taken from the home and placed in foster care starts this new phase in its life with an emotional handicap.

This is probably the biggest difference between children orphaned later in childhood and social orphans, children permanently removed from their parental home because of neglect or abuse. The first group suffer the trauma of losing their parents, but a good emotional start in life, enables them to adapt to foster care.

Some of these emotionally scarred children become special needs kids with learning disabilities. Alcohol or drugs during pregnancy can cause a learning disability in this group, but emotional trauma can also result in learning disabilities. Treating the learning disability for these children is treating the symptom not the cause.

Coaching and therapy for their emotional problems are an investment in the society's future, while not giving them that support should be considered as society letting them down. They are not responsible for being dysfunctional children, their parents are.

Many children with a history of neglect and abuse have difficulty to develop a relationship and some foster parents give up on the child. This can lead to a series of partially bonding and then separation with different foster parents and carers. What the child learned in its first year becomes fixed; adults are not to be trusted.

It is heartbreaking to hear young people speak about not wanting to grow up. Seeing adults as the enemy, these youth do not want to be a part of the adult world. They are innocent victims of their parents' and extended family's dysfunctional attitudes and emotions. What makes it even more tragic is that many of their parents were themselves in foster care.

There is a likelihood that those who have not healed from their early emotional traumas form tomorrow’s dysfunctional families. The costs to society include supporting on social welfare, jail (an expensive form of housing), crime and being a general drain on their communities through drink and drugs.

Foster care should be a high priority in society as there are few activities that can be as rewarding as healing an emotionally damaged child. Providing foster parents with back up resources, such as psychologists and counselors, should be seen as an investment in the future of our communities.