In Their Own Words: Challenges Facing Youth Aging Out of Foster Care
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In Their Own Words: Challenges Facing Youth Aging Out of Foster Care Maria Scannapieco Æ Kelli Connell-Carrick Æ Kirstin Painter
Published online: 2 September 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007
Abstract Since 1999 there has been a renewed effort addressing the challenges youth face exiting foster care in adolescence, yet outcomes for most youth are still indicating heartbreaking results and it is still not clear what more is needed. Presented is a study addressing what is needed for successful transition. Three major themes emerged; youth focused practice, need for collaboration and better communication with youth, and unmet needs and permanent connections. Keywords Research
Foster care Aging out Adolescent Positive youth development
Not until 1984 did it become public the disservice the child welfare system was doing for youth leaving foster care. Driven by requirements of the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 (P.L. 96–272) for case planning and reviews, it came to light in 1984 that approximately half of the children in care were teens (CWLA 2003), and upon aging out of the system did not have case planning. Additionally research was indicating poor outcomes for these youth (Bohman and Sigvardsson 1985; Festinger 1983; Minty 1987; Triseliotis 1983). Twenty years ago, 1986, for the first time the U.S. Congress recognized the difficulties youth face aging out of foster care and enacted the Title IV-E M. Scannapieco (&) University of Texas at Arlington, School of Social Work, Center for Child Welfare, Box 19129, Arlington, TX 76019, USA e-mail: [email protected] K. Connell-Carrick University of Houston, School of Social Work, Houston, TX, USA K. Painter Texas Woman University, Denton, TX, USA
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Independent Living Initiative. Since then states have developed programs and services for youth to assist them in transitioning out of foster care to independent living. Evidence of the effectiveness of the first 15 years of implementation of independent living programs was scarce (Courtney and Barth 1996; Courtney and Pilliavin 1998; U.S. General Accounting Office, GAO 1999). As a result, the John H. Chafee Foster Care Independence Program (part of the Foster Care Independence Act (HR 3443), 1999 P.L. 106–169) was enacted with the main goal the provision of more flexible funding to enable states to design and implement a variety of programs to assist youth in the process of making the transition from foster care, as well as young adults who have left care but not reached age 21, to independent living and self-sufficiency. Since 1999 there has been a renewed effort and emphasis addressing the challenges youth face exiting foster care in adolescence, yet outcomes for most youth are still indicating heartbreaking results. There is some evidence youth who access Preparation for Adult Living (PAL) services have better outcomes than those that do not (Kerman et al. 2002), but it is still not clear what more is needed. In attempt to discover some answers, i
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