Foster Youth Given New Lease On Life In California

A spate of recent legislation has considerably improved the lives of youth in foster care.

While legally adults, many youths in the foster care system are not prepared for the difficulties of leading independent lives after turning 18. Many were placed under state care because of abusive or unavailable parents, and lack the stability a family home affords.

In 2008, Congress and President George W. Bush gave the federal government the power to encourage state authorities to extend the benefits foster youth receive from the age of 18 to 21.

The law, The Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008, enhanced the transparency of the foster home system and installed new provisions for monitoring the health, academic performance, and job skills training of foster youth. The law also opened up federal funding to Indian Tribes for the first time.

While roughly 50 percent of young adults received assistance past the age of 21 from their parents, foster youth that “age-out” do not have the advantages of a family network to help them shoulder the weight of adulthood. A recent study by the Urban Institute analyzing Los Angeles County foster youthoffers some disquieting numbers. While 60 percent of the sample pool obtained a high school degree or an equivalent, only a quarter was enrolled in a two-year college. Matriculation at 4-year schools was a low 7.5 percent. Obtaining work also proves difficult; at age 19, less than half of the sample pool was employed, while those who did work had difficulty maintaining a job consistently. Without parents or relatives, the financial and emotional burden these young adults face can be severe. Drug abuse and incarceration are some of the consequences.

A comprehensive report by the Chapin Hall policy group of the University of Chicagoshowed similarly contrasting fortunes between foster and non-foster youth living in the Midwest. The study concluded that foster youth are “too old for the child welfare system, but often not yet ready to live as independent young adults. [T]he approximately 24,000 foster youth who [age out] of care each year are expected to make it on their own long before the vast majority of their peers.”

In October of 2010, California’s then-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Assembly Bill 12 into law, which catches the state up with federal standards for foster youth services and opens the door for the state’s Department of Social Services (DSS) to receive 50 percent in matching funds for federally qualified foster youth. Implementation of AB12 will be carried out through the next two years, beginning with structural changes within DSS. Actual training to fully roll out the program doesn’t begin until October of this year.

Jody Green Leibman, Policy Director at Children's Law Center of Los Angeles, an organization that co-sponsored AB12, believes the new initiative will help curtail some of the problems of releasing foster youth from state services too early. “The advantages of having youth stay in a different type of foster care until age 21 include a plethora of benefits, including the opportunity to ensure that these youth are better prepared for independence and have adult connections to help support them once out on their own,” she says.

To continue receiving state allowances for clothing and living expenses, a youth who joined the foster care system after the age of 16 must be completing her high school equivalency, enrolled in some type of college program toward a degree or certificate, or holding down a job for 80 hours a month. Youth with health problems are excused, and ones that cannot find work must enroll in a job placement program.

Leibman says the living options for those over 18 will include a wide range of arrangements. “Yes, the youth can elect to stay with his/her current foster parent if that situation works out, but the youth can also choose to move into an apartment with friends, just like any other young adult may do who is in school or working.”  Each youth will have a social worker ensuring her safety and stability while still allowing the youth to be independent and be an adult.

AB12 only provides funding until the youth turns 20, meaning state legislators will have to come up with funding for the final year.  Those who are currently adults will not be grandfathered into the program.

Still, the improvements are meaningful. “Our goal in co-sponsoring AB 12 was not to simply add three more years to the current cutoff at age 18, but rather to ensure that those extra years are ‘quality’,” says Leibman, “and that the participating youth are truly prepared for independence once they fully exit the system.”

Other states like Texas and Michiganhave taken advantage of federal Fostering Connections legislation.

For more details on what AB12 offers, click here.

Mikhail Zinshteyn is a staff writer for Campus Progress. You can e-mail him at mzinshteyn@googlemail.com.

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