OUTCOMES:
The need to ensure better lives and brighter futures for young people who leave foster care
Improving the lives and futures of all children and youth who experience the nation's foster care system is of primary importance to the National Foster Care Coalition. Providing better outcomes and opportunities for young people who "age out" of foster care is especially critical. Between 1998 and 2005, more than 165,000 young people left foster care due to their age, or "aged out." While the overall number of children in foster care is gradually decreasing, the number of young people aging out of foster care has increased by 41 percent since 1998 and is currently at an all-time high.
In 2006, 287,691 children exited the foster care system. Of those, 152,152 (53 percent) children left foster care reunited with their birth families; 49,741 (17 percent) were adopted; and 45,761 (16 percent) left to live with relatives. However, the number of youth who "aged out" of the system and made the transition to adulthood without a connection to a caring adult increased to 26,181 (9 percent.)
According to a longitudinal study of youth who aged out of care in Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin conducted by Mark Courtney and the Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago, these youth encounter more challenges than their peers.
- Fewer than three percent graduate from college.
- More than one in five will experience homelessness at some point after age 18.
- One in four will be incarcerated within two years of leaving foster care.
Shawn Semelsberger recalled aging out of Michigan's foster care system in the midst of her senior year in high school. "It was the middle of winter and I had no place to go. When I graduated from high school, I could not afford to buy a cap or gown, so I didn't walk with my class. I never purchased a yearbook, because I couldn't afford it. I had no one to teach me how to grocery shop, cook, or balance a checkbook. I am still learning today."
Nicole Dobbins of Oregon tells a similar story. "When I graduated from high school, in my cap and gown, I looked just like my classmates. My hopes and dreams for the future were identical to theirs. But that is where the similarity ends," she recalled. "At age 18, I 'aged out' of foster care and had to leave my foster home. I was a high school graduate, the first in my family to attend college, and homeless. I had nowhere to live and nowhere to turn."
The National Foster Care Coalition and its broad base of member organizations recognize that even as young people emerge into adulthood, they continue to need and rely on the emotional support provided by permanent connections to caring adults.
Contact:
Kathi Crowe
Executive Director
National Foster Care Coalition
kcrowe@nationalfostercare.org
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