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Mary Ellen McGuire's Files
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First Lady's office
MaryEllen McGuire 0823
-Adoption/Foster Care
- Gen
- CAN Event
- Foster Care Event
- Promising Practices
- WH Handouts
- Universe of Players
-Child Care/Kids at Risk
-Children's Health/Folic Acid
-Service/Service Learning
-Service/AmeriCorps 5th Anniversary
-Service/City Year
-International Child Abduction
-International Child Abduction Book
-Women & Girls Book
-Gore Commission Binder
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ENCLOSURES FILED OVERSIZE ATTACHMENTS 17350
1 box rec'd 8/25/2000
NARA# 14588
RL.
1 box filed 8/25/2000
R.L.
THE NATIONAL FOSTER CARE AWARENESS PROJECT
COPY
December 15, 1998
The President
The White House
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President:
On behalf of our respective organizations, as well as our collaborative work
as a part of the National Foster Care Awareness Project, we would like to thank you
and the First Lady for your continued interest and support of our nation's young
people.
After years of indifference, there has been a great deal of recent attention
directed to adequately address the needs and challenges faced by young people in
foster care who are making the transition to adulthood. Through the work of our
respective foundations, we recognize the need to strengthen systems of support for
the estimated 25,000 youth who leave state foster care each year - often with too
little preparation to lead productive lives as adults.
We believe that now is the time to move toward improvement of those
systems and policies through effective new approaches and innovative
collaborations that will ensure every foster youth's development into a self-
sufficient, contributing member of his or her community.
Your willingness to tackle this important challenge will have a positive
impact-one that can be easily measured because it affects a very specific number
of children. Providing improved economic opportunities for these young people as
they leave foster care is an achievable goal for your Administration-and one that,
no doubt, could be part of your legacy as President. We look forward to working
with you, and offer our experiences, research, and commitment to help in this
effort.
Respectfully,
Drugla
Ruth W. Massinga
Douglas W. Nelson
Chief Executive Officer
President
The Casey Family Program
Annie E. Casey Foundation
1001 G Street N.W., Suite 900E
Washington, D.C. 20001
(202) 393-1010
fax (202) 393-5510
www.kidscampaigns.org
THE NATIONAL FOSTER CARE AWARENESS PROJECT
December 16, 1998
Ms. Nicole Rabner
Office of the First Lady
100 Old Executive Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Nicole:
Thank you again for taking the time to meet with members of the National Foster Care
Awareness Project recently. We greatly appreciated the depth of the conversation, and
the special interest you and the First Lady have demonstrated on this important issue.
Per your request, our organizations have been working together to provide you with
information which we hope will be helpful as you work within the Administration to
review the current public policy regarding youth aging out of foster care, and seek to
develop an effort that will improve the lives of young people transitioning into adulthood.
Please find enclosed:
Policy Options to Improve the Transition from Foster Care to Adulthood
Administrative Steps
Universe of Players - Key National Independent Living Contacts
Federal Agency Contacts
You had also requested information on promising practices and model programs offering
services to youth in transition. The National Foster Care Awareness Project is currently
collecting data on programs from across the country and will forward that information
under a separate cover.
Again on behalf of my colleagues, thank you so much for your attention to this issue.
Please do not hesitate to call me if you have questions about the enclosed. I can be
reached at 206-270-4989.
Sincerely,
June
Susan A. Weiss
Director of Advocacy
The Casey Family Program
1001 G Street N.W., Suite 900E
Washington, D.C. 20001
(202) 393-1010
fax (202) 393-5510
www.kidscampaigns.org
THE NATIONAL FOSTER CARE AWARENESS PROJECT
Improving the Transition from Foster Care to Adulthood
Administrative Steps the Federal Government Can Take to Help¹
Young people in foster care are the proverbial "canary in the coal mine." That is, they are so
vulnerable that they are often the first affected when a public system doesn't work very well. The
distress of the canary warns that the miners are at risk. When public systems fail children in
foster care, they are also failing other vulnerable young people: the effects are just not as
immediately apparent.
Almost all public systems touch young people in foster care: education, training, juvenile justice,
health care, housing, welfare, substance abuse and mental health, as well as the child welfare
system. Just looking at one piece of the puzzle is inadequate and, too often, no one looks at the
whole.
The following pages identify specific cross-agency and administrative activities and initiatives to
help youth transition from foster care to independent adulthood, using current resources and
funding in a more holistic way. These-ideas-assume-no-newfederal_money.and-nochanges in
federal law.
Focus-Public Attention on the Issues
The issues faced by young people in foster care as they try to move successfully to adulthood
(often against great odds) are far below the radar screen of most Americans, including the press.
The White House has an unparalleled ability to raise the level of public awareness about this or
any other issue. The White House conferences on early childhood development (and the budget
and policy initiatives that have resulted from these conferences) illustrate this power. Similarly,
Cabinet Secretaries and others Administration officials can use their positions to highlight
important policy issues. Ideas:
Hold a White-House-conference that focuses on helping young people in foster care move
successfully to adulthood.
Involve juvenile court judges in this conference in a central way since the courts
actually place many young people in foster care, and since many children and
young people in foster care tangle with the justice system. Identify and highlight
1
Policy advice provided by Margaret Dunkle. Institute for Educational Leadership.
1001 G Street N.W., Suite 900E
Washington, D.C. 20001
(202) 393-1010
fax (202) 393-5510
www.kidscampaigns.org
Improving the Transition from Foster Care to Adulthood
Administrative Steps
strategies that recognize that children in foster care have fewer supports and are
consequently at greater risk than most other children and that respond by
providing an early "stitch in time" or extra support along the way.
(Judges could also be effectively engaged in this issue in ways other than a big
conference: for example, through a speech by a high-level Administration official
at an appropriate organizational meeting or conference of the National Council of
Juvenile and Family Court Judges, by hosting a White House or Justice-HHS
meeting of judges, etc.)
Use children and youth in foster care as the theme of Vice President Gore's "Family
Reunion" in the year 2000 or 2001. (The 1999 theme is families and communities.)
Provide one of the Vice President's "Hammer Awards" (for reinventing government) for
work that helps young people transition successfully from foster care to adulthood. Or,
alternatively special to an-agency, community or state at the conference or
"Family Reunion" suggested above.
Work with Andrew-Guomo, Secretary of the Department, of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD), to exert leadership concerning homeless-youth, expressly including
those who have been in foster care. Leadership efforts could include: issuing (with some
fanfare) a report on homelessness among youth (making linkages to foster care), getting
the word out about promising approaches to address these issues, giving speeches and
using the HUD seminar series to highlight the issues.
Events could be hosted by any number of Administration officials including the First Lady or the
Second Lady. These high-profile events could engage well-known people who are already
involved with these issues (just as Rob Reiner was involved with the White House conferences
on early childhood development). A possibility is Monty Roberts of "Horse Whisperer" fame: he
and his wife have had many foster children.
Key players at any event should cover a broad spectrum, not just the traditional "child welfare"
community. Important-players-include-school/educational-leaders (where we would hope these
young people would be), juvenile-justice/lawenforcement,faith-based-organizations.
corporations and homelessness leaders (where we hope these young people will not be), as well
as leaders of all of the systems in between.
Get the Facts Out
Most people don't know the facts about foster care and why it matters to them and their
communities. Most officials who run (or legislators who craft) public programs don't understand
the degree to which children and youth in foster care are over-represented in the "at-risk"
population (however one might define "at-risk" from substance abuse to domestic violence and
teen pregnancy). Ideas:
2
Improving the Transition from Foster Care to Adulthood
Administrative Steps
Have the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics publish- a special
on children and youth-ir foster care, much as they have done with their
"fatherhood" initiative. Include, for example, information about the degree of over-
representation of young people in foster care in various populations or programs. Also
include, to the extent possible, budget figures_about short-term versus long=term costs
related to foster care.
Have the Forum use an indicator concerning "foster care" as a "Special Indicator" in their
1999 or 2000 report-on-America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, though
this will be challenging since so much of the data about foster care is administrative in nature
and of relatively poor quality.
These efforts or, for that matter, any "data" effort would highlight the dearth, poor quality and
inconsistency across states of information about children and youth in foster care. This could be
a very positive result if it improved the information available to policy makers and communities
alike.
Use the Regulatory Process Creatively to Address "Transition" Issues
Several major pieces of federal legislation recently signed into law by the President have the
potential to improve the chances that a young person in foster care will move successfully into
adulthood.
The Workforce Investment Act (administered by the U.S. Department of Labor) totally
revamps the nation's federally-funded job training system. (WIA is especially important
for young people "the forgotten half" of whom do not pursue a post-secondary
education.)
The major student financial assistance programs for post-secondary education
(administered by the U.S. Department of Education) have just been reauthorized by
Congress.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is important because many
children and youth in foster care spend too little time in any one school to be properly
diagnosed, much less receive the services they need to learn and be ready for higher
education or the work force.
Ideas:
Instruct the Departments of Labor and Education to write regulations and implement
these laws in ways that help young people in foster care use these benefits and services to
make a successful transition through school and to adulthood. Ask these departments to
identify specific barriers and ways to overcome these barriers within the bounds of the
statute.
3
Improving the Transition from Foster Care to Adulthood
Administrative Steps
Especially look at such intensive programs as the Job Corps, a largely residential
program that serves more than 60,000 youth (age 14-24) each year, providing
such services as basic education, vocational skill training, work experience,
counseling, health care and other support services.
The Youth Opportunity Grant Program (in the Workforce Investment Act, $250
million) could also be important, because it focuses on EZ/EC (Empowerment
Zones/Enterprise Communities), where there is high poverty, high unemployment
and, most likely, also a high percentage of children and youth in foster care.
Identify ways to assure that schools quickly evaluate students in foster care for
their special education needs, and schools make sure that the resulting Individual
Education Plans (IEPs) follow these young people when they change schools. For
example, use the new coordination provision in IDEA towards this end.
Have a senior Administration official convene a meeting at which these agencies report
on their specific plans, including barriers, solutions and time lines. Possible conveners
include the Vice President, First Lady, Second Lady or Director of OMB.
Also, involve top policy staff from other agencies in this meeting, and have them follow
up by suggesting specific administrative or regulatory changes that they might make in
the programs that they administer.
Push the Departments and States to Use Existing Flexibility in Federal Laws
to Help Youth in Foster Care Transition Successfully
Few federal agencies (as well as few communities and states) use this existing flexibility
creatively to do more, better, with less. It is always easier, at least in the short run, to continue to
fund existing programs, practices and people.
Existing flexibility in federal laws includes, for example:
Being able to waive some aspects of federal education, training, health and welfare laws
(often as a "demonstration" program).
The ability of schools and school districts to use up to five percent of their federal
Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act (IDEA) funds to coordinate health and social service which has
tremendous implications for children in foster care.
HHS's ability to grant waivers to allow states to experiment with federal child welfare
programs, using the demonstration authority in the law.
4
Improving the Transition from Foster Care to Adulthood
Administrative Steps
Flexibility concerning Medicaid and CHIP that is available to states (either at their option
or by asking for a federal waiver).
Ideas:
Convene knowledgeable practitioners from the field along with the various departmental
experts on waivers and flexibility, with the charge of developing a "best practices" or
"bright ideas" manual with an emphasis on young people transitioning from foster care.
Train the waiver, "state plan," and flexibility "experts" in each agency about best
practices, and make these materials broadly available, e.g., in publications, on the Web,
etc.
Provide leadership to encourage states to open their federal Independent Living Program
(Title IV-E, $70 million annually)to_youngpeople_uptolage21 (States can do this at
their option, but it costs them money. There is a 50 percent matching requirement after
$45 million of the federal funds are spent.)
Have HCFA (the Health Care Financing Agency, which is in charge of Medicaid)
aggressively encourage states to expand Medicaid gibility to all children (not just those
who have been in foster care) until their 1st birthday. Specific actions could include, for
example: a letter to states from the Medicaid Director or HCFA administrator specifically
suggesting that states amend their state Medicaid plans to cover children up to age 21, a
"forcing event" (such as a speech by the President or Vice President to the Governors or
state Medicaid Directors, or a White House meeting).
These youth (age-18, and 20) would be defined as "children" for Medicaid
purposes: the significance of this is that they would be eligible for the more
comprehensive EPSDT services, rather than the more limited package of
Medicaid services available to adults. (EPSDT= Early and Periodic Screening,
Diagnosis and Treatment = the "kids" part of Medicaid.)
This expanded coverage for 18-20 year-olds is especially important, given that the
newCHIP (Child Health Insurance Program) only-covers-children-until-their 19th
birthday.
Create a "Re-invention Lab" to Focus on Foster Care Transition
The problems and issues faced by children and youth in foster care are important in their own
right. They are also often early-warning signs of systemic failures programs and policies that
don't work very well. The Vice President's National Partnership for Reinventing Government
(NPR) has designed "re-invention labs" throughout government to test ways to make government
work better, cost less and get results that matter to the American public. Ideas:
5
Improving the Transition from Foster Care to Adulthood
Administrative Steps
Explore having an interdepartmental "re-invention lab" to test successful
interdepartmental, interagency and intergovernmental ways to help young people in
foster care transition to successful adulthood.
Building on the NPR focus on "putting customers first," involve young people
who are (or have been) in foster care as well as practitioners in the design of this
re-invention lab.
Use foster care as a test case (or "model") to define meaningful interdepartmental
performance measures under the Government Performance and Results Act.
Mine lessons that have been learned in the relatively small Foster Care Independent
Living Program (created in 1986) and identify specific ways to apply these lessons more
broadly.
Highlight and Replicate What Works
Too often, people across agencies don't have models of success. They need to know what works
to help young people transition successfully from foster care to adulthood. Ideas:
Have the involved federal departments identify and disseminate 'best practices" to help
young people in foster care transition successfully. Some of these "best practices" will
involve asking for federal waivers; others will not.
Provide technical assistance through the departments, their "TA contractors" and/or the
WEB giving specific advice about how to use existing flexibility to serve young people
transitioning from foster care to adulthood successfully.
In instances where federal law requires states and agencies to develop "plans," train
agency staff so that they can suggest specific ways these plans can effectively address
foster care "transition" issues.
Push for Comprehensive Plans That Work for These Young People
Again and again, we hear about children and youth in foster care who have multiple case
workers and multiple but piecemeal "plans." For example, the same young person could have
one "case manager" in the child welfare system, another in the health system, a probation officer
in the juvenile justice system, and a disability that requires the school system to develop an
Individual Education Plan (IEP). Yet, these multiple case workers have typically never even met
one another, much less worked collaboratively to develop a sensible road map for the young
person in foster care. Ideas:
Have the departments identify specific "plans" for young people (and their families) that
are required or encouraged by various federal laws.
6
Improving the Transition from Foster Care to Adulthood
Administrative Steps
Scrutinize "confidentiality" requirements and provisions in federal law. And then identify
and disseminate ways for agencies to share key information without violating the rights
or privacy of young people in foster care.
Next, develop and disseminate specific suggestions for coordinating these plans more
effectively. Issues that are likely to arise include: different goals and accountability
measures for the various plans, the lack of incentives for coordinating across agencies,
different timing and reporting requirements, different professional training of the case
managers/"planners," etc.
Train professionals in the foster care system so that they are better equipped to coordinate
these multiple "case management" systems.
Develop a Web site that a case manager or a young person in foster care could use to
identify possible sources of support (including, but not limited to, funding) as he-or-she
moves into adulthood.
Explore modifying the content and administration of the written case plans for each child
in foster care (as required by federal law since 1980) to make these plans more
coordinated and comprehensive across departments, systems, programs and levels of
government. In these plans, place an increased emphasis on transitioning to adulthood as
a desirable "permanency arrangement."
The lessons learned from looking at young people transitioning from foster care will also be
relevant to other children, youth and families especially those at risk and those affected by
multiple public systems as well.
7
THE NATIONAL FOSTER CARE AWARENESS PROJECT
Improving the Transition from Foster Care to Adulthood
Policy Options
There has been a great deal of well-deserved attention recently to the challenges that young
people face as they make the transition from foster care to adulthood. News articles and young
people themselves point to the need for stronger systems of support for these most vulnerable
citizens. We must now move toward improvement of programs and coordination of policies that
will enhance the child welfare system's ability to help every youth in foster care become a self-
sufficient, contributing member of his or her community.
Improving the transition of young people from foster care into healthy adulthood requires a clear,
consistent goal that guides a child's experiences and becomes the primary theme for organizing
service delivery. Throughout the foster care experience, a relationship must be established and
sustained between each child and one or more caring, committed adults. Such relationships
would support a developmental approach to meeting youth needs, and would create desperately
needed stability in the life of the young person. The responsible adult or adults would facilitate
connections for that young person both within and beyond the child welfare system.
These connections must be broader than currently defined so that decisions affecting young
people involve not only service providers within the child welfare system but also the young
people themselves, their foster families, legal guardians, service providers (such as teachers and
employers), and other concerned community members. A wide array of connections must be
established while a youth is still in foster care, and continue beyond the time of emancipation.
This diverse web of supports will ensure that housing, healthcare, employment, education and
other needs are met. We must ensure that young people have both the stable relationships with
caring adults and broad, community-wide connections that will help them make the transition to
adulthood in healthy and successful ways.
How do we our to promote more for the 25,000
young people who must leave the foster care system each year? Federal and state policies play a
critical role in determining what supports and opportunities are available to this group of youth.
Child welfare, education and youth development policies mustsupport.thefollowing_program
and service strategies: promoting-supports-for-youth, providing ongoing preparation for self-
sufficiency, strengthening_independentliving_services, promoting-academic-achievement,
emphasizing career development, teaching ey-management, ensuring safe and stable place
to live and meaningful attachments between youth in care and one or more caring
adults. The following outlines possible policy enhancements and reforms within current federal
statutory authority that will support best practice for helping older youth in foster care.
1001 G Street N.W., Suite 900E
Washington, D.C. 20001
(202) 393-1010
fax (202) 393-5510
www.kidscampaigns.org
Improving the Transition From Foster Care to Adulthood
Policy Options
Promote supports for young people in care and after leaving care
Young people report that relationships with people who care about them and are there for them
consistently make all the difference in the world when they are on their own. In addition to
education and support in making decisions about permanency, children and youth in care must
have opportunities to establish and maintain long-term supportive relationships with caring
adults and that continue after emancipation. Opportunities to develop such relationships can be
created through participation in mentoring, recreation, community service, and other youth
development programs. These relationships can only develop and flourish, however, if children
and youth in foster care have access to stable community placements and strong case advocacy.
Young adults need consistent, accessible support after they leave care that will enable them to
overcome short-term instability in meeting housing, transportation, child care, employment and
education needs. These youth should be able to return to a caring family, child welfare providers
or youth development programs for assistance when they need it An aftercare system would
assist young adults in addressing-short-term crises, as well as supporting them as they struggle to
sustain long-term independence. While the lead agency may vary by community, formal aftercare
systems would help connect young people to existing adult support systems and other
community resources.
Policy Ideas:
Offer incentives for child welfare agencies to provide aftercare services to emancipated
young adults
Encourage coordination at the federal and state level with the Workforce Investment Act
(WIA) for outreach to youth leaving the foster care system
Explore existing programs within the Departments of Health and Human Services,
Housing and Urban Development, Labor, and Education, and the Corporation for
National Service as resources for enhanced support
Provide policy guidance through creating incentives, performance measures and standards
within the Independent Living Program
Reward programmatic improvements from states such as: (1) identifying and training a
group of caring, committed adults who will support young people as they prepare for this
transition and beyond the age of emancipation as needed; (2) creating a resource person
on staff in each child welfare agency responsible for broader connections; and (3) forming
alumni groups among young adults leaving-the foster care system
Require measurement of outcomes and evaluation of services for those young people who
do emancipate from the foster care system to adulthood
Promote active youth participation in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of
services, as well as in advocacy and system reform efforts
2
Improving the Transition From Foster Care to Adulthood
Policy Options
Promote Early and Ongoing Preparation for Independence
In addition to planning for permanency, preparing youth for self-sufficiency must begin early.
Foster parents, legal guardians, family members, other involved adults (including birth family
members) and youth themselves should participate actively in the planning process. Guiding
principles and strategies to promote positive long-term development must be integrated into
ongoing services from the time a child enters care, and must help forge connections to birth
family and community of origin. Life (and social) skills, work skills: and academic skills training
should be implemented on a continuum of developmental readiness: for children and youth of all
ages Maximizing educational continuity-and achievement for young people in foster care is of
paramount importance. It must go-hand in hand with promoting placement stability for a child.
Specifically, the child welfare system must connect children and youth to community services
and-supports that promote academic achievement and readiness for community participation a and
productive citizenship.
Policy Ideas:
Integrate early assessment and provision of developmentally appropriate independent
living skills into the case plans for all children and youth in care
Examine current "best practices' around educational-attainment for youth in foster care
(i.e., programs and partnerships involving schools and child welfare agencies; role of
special education and disabilities statutes)
Promote stability and consistency for youth in educational settings through incentives for
tutoring and other services that promote high academic achievement
Encourage coordination among systems to ensure stability and consistency, i.e.
coordination between schools and child welfare agencies (e.g., an education "passport"
for youth)
Examine best practice in school-to-career initiatives (i.e., programs and partnerships
involving employers, post-secondary institutions, and high schools)
Create incentives to improve educational stability for foster youth within the existing
federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act
Increase professional development:opportunities-for-teachers foster parents and other
adults working with foster youth within current child welfare and education statutes
Strengthen Current Independent Living Services
Improve-the quality-and delivery of current independent living and other critical services that
support successful transitions and promote more effective transition planning while young people
3
Improving the Transition From Foster Care to Adulthood
Policy Options
are in care. Ensure that resources are allocated fairly to states according to their youth population
in foster care. Enhance professional development for case workers and all adult caretakers
especially foster parents, teachers and other significant adults in a youth's life to facilitate self-
sufficiency skill development while in care and to sustain connections to community resources.
Enhance planning for youth in group homes and residential facilities who may not have the
support of a family structure during the transition to adulthood. access to high quality
independent living services through promotion of standards for service planning and delivery.
Policy Ideas:
Utilize existing tax incentives, waivers, interagency agreements or initiatives and other
cost-neutral policy mechanisms to encourage effective use of existing resources and
funding for independent living and other services
Increase outreach for use of Medicaid for mental health and other health-related services
Strengthen the requirements of Independent Living Programs to encourage the child
welfare system to coordinate with other institutions' school-to-career and post-secondary
education programs
Strengthen the requirements of Independent Living Programs to meet minimum standards
of case management, service coordination and planning, and service delivery
Connect Americorps volunteers to independent living programs to provide mentoring,
tutoring and other educational planning assistance
Promote academic achievement and emphasize career development
Children and youth in foster care often have lower educational outcomes than young people who
are raised by their birth parents, and may experience more challenges to successful employment.
Contributing factors include unstable school experiences caused by changes in home placements
and the lack of focus on developing social skills, work skills and work experience to enable a
young person to function effectively in a job. In order to improve these outcomes, the foster care
system must promote high academic achievement and strong vocational preparation as goals that
all youth in the foster care system can achieve. All young people have equal potential to be
successful learners, and should receive the supports and opportunities needed to achieve
educational goals. Professional development and coordination among institutions are critical.
Extra support for participation in post-secondary education and vocational training should be
available to each youth leaving care.
4
Improving the Transition From Foster Care to Adulthood
Policy Options
Policy Ideas:
Identify opportunities for policy coordination across the child welfare system in relation
to those federal statutes that address K-12 education, post-secondary education, adult and
vocational education, disabilities, workforce, and other relevant opportunities for
education and career advancement
Consider a comprehensive approach tlinking existing federal programs to create- a
regulatory "G.I. Bill for Youth in Foster Care" that would include promotion of academic
achievement, vocational training and career development
Ensure that educational achievement, career development, and coordination of services
and supports are consistently addressed through case management and planning policies
Increase Emphasis on Fiscal Management and Savings
Allow children and youth in the foster care system to accumulate savings without penalty so that
when they leave care they have a capacity to secure basic necessities (e.g., rental deposit for
housing, food, transportation and other services). Provide every child who enters the foster care
system with a long-term financial plan. The plan needs to include information regarding state
laws and financial literacy/training for child welfare providers, foster families, young people, and
other adult caretakers. When a young adult leaves the foster care system, a plan.for.earning and
managing money should already be in place.
Policy Ideas:
Evaluate utility of TANF/individual development accounts for youth in foster care
Ask the National Endowment for Financial Education to develop potential strategies
Collect information state-by-state regarding current laws and regulations that affect asset
accumulation
Consider a comprehensive approach linking existing federal programs to create a
regulatory "G.I. Bill for Youth in Foster Care" that would address financial needs
Promote a focus on accumulation of assets in addition to generation of income
Improve Housing Opportunities for Youth Transitioning From Care
Assure that every young adult leaving the foster care system has a plan for immediate short- and
long-term housing. Increase access to emergency shelter, transitional housing and longer-term
affordable-housing. This housing could include foster families, group homes/residences,
5
Improving the Transition From Foster Care to Adulthood
Policy Options
transitional living arrangements, community-based placements, and visiting mentor homes (i.e.,
for young adults who need places to live while in college but not necessarily subject to
restrictions of foster care placements)
Ensure that no young person is discharged to homelessness. This is crucial given the numbers
of youth who end up in homeless shelters upon leaving the foster care system.
Policy Ideas:
Promote public/private partnerships for development of affordable transitional housing
(within current programs such as the Transitional Living Program) for young people
leaving the foster care system
Invite the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Foundations to create challenge grants in high-
impact communities to increase supply of affordable housing
Look at overlap with existing TANF funding regarding opportunities for housing for
young welfare recipients
Examine provisions of Section 8, Supportive Housing, the Family Self-sufficiency
Program, the Family Unification Program, and Public Housing statutes to determine
feasibility of targeting youth leaving foster care for housing services and support
Explore potential of flexibility for states to draw down funds for housing through waiver
authority
6
1998 Federal Document Clearing House, Inc. NPR
SHOW: NPR TALK OF THE NATION (NPR 2:00 pm ET)
JULY 29, 1998, WEDNESDAY
Trascript # 98072902-211
-Uof Wisconsin
GUESTS: Mark Courtney; Valli Matthews
BYLINE: Ray Suarez, Washington, DC
HIGHLIGHT:
Though foster care is supposed to be a temporary arrangement many children bounce from home to
home for years, until they've aged out of the system. For those turned out of foster care at 18, the
transition from teen to adult is abrupt. With little or no guidance, they must now find jobs, feed and
clothe themselves and take complete responsibility for their well- being. Join Ray Suarez and guests for a
look at the plight of former foster care teens making it on their own as adults.
BODY:
RAY SUAREZ, HOST: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Ray Suarez.
If you're a child in the United States who cannot live with your parents but are still legally tied to them
through parental rights, you're in for a tough time. There's a desperate shortage of foster parents in the
United States.
The placement of children becomes more and more difficult as they get older. And if your parents are
judged unfit to raise you, yet parental rights remain, or if parental rights are taken away but no one steps
forward to adopt you, you can make it all the way through to young adulthood what's often called
aging out and find that at that point, nobody's going to take care of you. Not your parents. Not a foster
parent. Not the state.
The machinery for helping children at-the-end of their eligibility for foster care. is in many places
shockingly inadequate. Wegot you this far, the system seems to say,good luck. The problem with this
conversation comes from talking about situations as varied as foster homes, and making broad
generalizations. I recognize that.
As some family agencies have learned the hard way, the shortage of foster parents has let some
less-than-ideal foster care givers slip through the net. Some merely neglect the children, feeding them
cheap food to see a profit from the state's stipend or emotionally starve these highly needy kids, while a
tiny number actually abuse and hurt them.
At the same time, there are foster parents whose faces should be on postage stamps and on the cover of
magazines. They're heroic, loving, generous people who accept the sometimes shattered cargo of a child
nobody wants and provide care, nurture, and stability. While still other foster parents want nothing
more than to adopt the children in their care, but find the way blocked by courts, social workers, and
parents who still hold out hope for family reunification.
So at the end of this process, on-their 1-8th birthday, some foster children are ready to assume the
responsibilities of adulthood, and are, a mess. And agency rules based on birthdays and
Celigibility are-not equipped to make a distinction between the two-
Foster care and aging out this hour on the program. Mark-Courtney is an associate professor of social
work at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and co-author of "Foster Youth Transitions to
Adulthood: Outcomes 12 to 18 Months After Leaving Out-of-Home Care," a report by the Institute of
Research on Poverty. Welcome to TALK OF THE NATION.
MARK COURTNEY, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF SOCIAL WORK, UNIVERSITY OF
WISCONSIN, MADISON, CO-AUTHOR, "FOSTER YOUTH TRANSITIONS TO ADULTHOOD:
OUTCOMES 12 TO 18 MONTHS AFTER LEAVING OUT-OF-HOME CARE": It's a pleasure, Ray.
SUAREZ: And Valli Matthews is here with me in Washington. She's the community education
coordinator of For Love of Children here in DC. Good to have you with us.
VALLI MATTHEWS, COMMUNITY EDUCATION COORDINATOR, FOR LOVE OF CHILDREN:
Good afternoon.
SUAREZ: Our number in Washington 800-989-8255. That's 800-989- TALK.
Mark Courtney, you should us some opening statistics which will give us an idea of what
happens to these young people after they're cut loose.
COURTNEY: Well, my colleagues and I in Wisconsin, Irving Peliavin (ph) and myself, looked at youth
aging out of care in Wisconsin. And we found a number of things. First of all, they're generally satisfied
with the system, about three-quarters of them when you ask them questions like, you know, did foster
parents have your interests at heart? They'll say, yes. They strongly agree or agree with that kind of
statement. And about 75 percent of them felt that they were lucky to be in out-of-home care.
We asked whether they thought there was anything that would have allowed them to stay with their
families, and 90 percent of them said no. So on the one hand, you get a clear picture that most of them
feel very lucky to have been in foster care.
And I want to clarify that by foster care I'm referring to the entire system. And actually, a fair number of
these youths spent some time in a group home or residential treatment center, although most of them were
living in foster homes at the time they aged out.
They have high hopes and aspirations. About 70 percent of them expected to go on to college, generally
thought they were going to do well. But when we interviewed them about 12 to 18 months after they had
left the system, after they had been discharged from the system, we found that about half of them were
sort of doing marginally well, and a significant proportion really had had some serious problems making
that transition.
Only about half of them were employed when we interviewed them 12 to 18 months after discharge.
That's actually slightly less than had been employed when we talked to them while they were in the
foster care system. Even those who were employed were earning less on average than a full time
minimum wage worker. Maybe that's not real surprising given their limited education. Thirty-seven,
percent of them hadn't finished either high-school or obtained an equivalent degree, and fewer than-10-
percent have gone on for any kind of college: When they needed medical care, about half of them
reported that at some point they needed medical care. They couldn't get it. A number of them had been
using mental health services, counseling of various sorts. Not surprisingly, given their backgrounds,
while they were in the system, about half. But when we interviewed them after they left the system,
fewer than half that, about 21 percent, were able to obtain any services for mental health needs.
And then we sort of looked at some things that we thought would be indicators of whether the transition
was working for them: employment or not, education or not. And we found that a lot of them
experienced outcomes that I think any parent would be really hard pressed to feel good about. And as
(sort of aparent of the system, a citizen, Insort of hang my head thinking about this.
Thirty-seven percent of these youth had had one of the-following things happen to them. Either they had
been seriously physically victimized -- beaten up, attacked with a weapon, sexually assaulted, raped,
homeless, or incarcerated at least once in the 12 to 18 months after they left care. So for a significant
proportion of them, at least one pretty horrendous event had taken place. It was an indication that the
transition- to f-sufficiency really wasn't working very well:
I guess one last thing is, it was interesting to us, is the role that both foster families and the families of
origin of these youth played when they were making that transition. About a third of them were able to
stay-for some period of time in their foster home after the system discharged them.)
So, there clearly are a lot of foster parents out there that try to help with that transition by even allowing
the youth to stay there. At the same time, when we interviewed them the second time around, almost a
third of these young adults were living with their families, living either with a parent or another
relative.
And that's really striking, giving that the focus of independent living programs in general, the programs
that try to prepare these youth to make it when they're young adults, is not on connecting them,
reconnecting them or maintaining their connections with their family, trying to make the most out of
those connections while minimizing any harm or stress that can come from those connections.
SUAREZ: Mark Courtney is with us from Madison, Wisconsin.
Valli Matthews, you know, when you think about being 18, it's tough enough to move toward
independence if you've had a stable, coherent family life for much of the 18 years leading up to that day.
But now, you're talking about people who have often had tumultuous lives until their 18th birthday. And
now they've got to worry about rent and a gas bill, doing their own marketing and cooking and so
on. It's a tremendous change.
MATTHEWS: Right. I think it's really important to think about your own family and when your own
children grow up. Frequently, they are not prepared to leave at 18, at 21, at 28. Sometimes they even
come back. And the system is considering foster children who always have some trauma connected to
being in foster care, to going from home to home. Some children are sexually and physically abused.
And then in addition, there are various breaks from foster families they may have connected to.
So when they leave the system, all those separations, sometimes they can't get back to foster families to
get that support they need. And many of the -- in you're I'm now serving in the District area, it's split
between children leaving foster care at 18 -- foster families. And many of them are living in group
homes, and that's another situation where you're dealing with a counselor, an agency person, maybe very
supportive. But it's still a transitional person.
So if at 21 you really need some assistance, many of the kids come back to the agency to get assistance
and hope that same social worker is there. But it's not like being with a family when you can go back to a
family and say, hey, I need a loan. I need someone to co-sign an apartment or a car. It's just really
different and difficult.
SUAREZ: So the District does provide some---it's-not a cold turkey-cut-off at 18, and even that you're
finding isn't good enough?
MATTHEWS: Well unfortunately, they' changing the rules. They used to stop at 21, but the rules are
being changed to have a cold cut-off at-18, unless the young person has special needs or they're in school,
or they have, you know, they have -- they're trying to do something to become independent.
But the unfortunate thing, if young people are not doing those things at 18, those are the young people
who go on to become homeless, because they haven't finished high school, they have no social skills.
They can't move on into an independent world. So those are the-young people least prepared to-be
released.
SUAREZ: We're talking about this at a time in America when governments are trying to preach the
gospel of self-reliance, of giving people minimal necessary training that they need to be self- reliant and
have them make their own way.
It would seem to be a case of bad timing to go, not only to the District of Columbia, but a county
government in Minnesota or a state family services agency in New Mexico and say, you know, I'm not
quite ready, but I don't need the full set of resources anymore. Maybe there's something in the middle
you can give me. And it doesn't sound like it's a good time to ask for it.
MATTHEWS: Right. I was noticing the article that Mark wrote, which I thought really covered a lot of
bases. There are -programs that really realize kids need more than just money; they actually need,
you know, an entry-level-employment position. They need job, housing, they need other pieces. And
that's something different states could put together.
Locally, the only thing that the District is offering is a program called of This is a life skill
preparation program, but every teen does not-get that program. And many of the teenagers live in
Maryland and Virginia, even though they're DC wards. So transportation to those programs are difficult.
And my understanding is that the District is not spending their full allotment.,
In many of the states, they contract with private agencies to support this effort. And for example, locally,
that would be a good effort to ask some of the private agencies to help out with that.
SUAREZ: Mark Courtney, you mentioned that some of the young people you surveyed did stay in
contact with their foster families. But I guess naturally, those families don't any longer get any support
from the state for helping these kids?
COURTNEY: That's right. They -- in Wisconsin, I mean, and in general they don't. I mean, at 18 or in
most states they do the same thing that Valli's saying. If a youth is going to finish high school, let's say,
before their 19th birthday, then the foster parent can continue to receive a foster care reimbursement
until that point in time. But that's really the extent of it. After that, the foster parents are expected, if
they're going to provide any support, to do that on their own.
And some of them do that. As Valli said, some of these youth are living in group care situations at the
time they age out. That's actually what brought me to interest in this. I worked in group care in
California, and I really had a hard time with the fact that we had to just let them go. They'd be living
there with us, and then the next day we wouldn't be reimbursed to care for them anymore, and we simply
couldn't keep them.
So it really is a radical cut-off, and as Valli says; there are states that actually don't even use their
entitled allotment or their entire allotment of federal funding to try to provide support to these youth?
SUAREZ: Well, I'm wondering whether you could make acase for this being a smart way to spend
money, to continue spending it on the -year-olds, given the fact that some of them get in trouble with
the law, some of them are less than optimally employable, some of them have children out of wedlock
after their placements. That they come back to the system way or another in more expensive ways, if
we don't spend the money_up front.
COURTNEY: Well, yeah, I can give you a few examples. The comparison I like to make is when we
interviewed them the first time, none of them were homeless. And 14 percent of the males in our sample
were homeless at least once. Twenty-seven percent of these males had been incarcerated at least once.
Incarceration's a very expensive thing for society to be doing. None of them were incarcerated the first
time we interviewed them. And I could go on down the list.
And I think, from my perspective, as a prevention intervention, this is a very "high group." And I
think a very sound investment, given the homes that they've come from, what we know about the
challenges are when they reach the age of 18, to goand provide some more transitional support for this
population.
Not all of them are going to need-it, and the ones that don't need it will go on and do just fine. But for
those who really do-need it need significant help -- and in our study, it looks like about one- third, I, think
it would be a very wise investment.
SUAREZ: Valli Matthews.
MATTHEWS: I just wanted to mention, for example, we have a program for teenage mothers, and some
of our mothers are as young as 13 and have two or three children. This is a very high risk group also for,
one, child abuse and neglect, but also to be homeless, if they're released from care without any skills.
So in our agency, for example, we have a continuing program. They can live in foster homes, group
homes or independent living. And it's a continual process of helping them to become independent and to
become, you know, appropriate parents for their children as well.
SUAREZ: If you're just joining us, we're talking about foster care and what happens to the young people
who age out of the system this hour on TALK OF THE NATION.
Valli Matthews is here with me in Washington, community education coordinator of a program called For
Love Of Children here in Washington. And Mark Courtney is an associate professor of social work at the
University of Wisconsin at Madison who's been looking into this particular population. He joins us from
Madison, Wisconsin.
Our number's 800-989-8255. And our first stop this hour is San Jose, California. Hi, Wanda.
CALLER: Hi. I was thinking about volunteering for this program I heard about in California for
mentoring kids coming out of the foster care program, and I was wondering if any of your people knew
anything about those, and whether they were successful or not.
MATTHEWS: Well, I think mentoring in general is very successful, and I think it's great, Wanda, that
you're going to volunteer because many of the young people need role models. And particularly, we try
to encourage young people who have been in foster care to come back and reach back to some of those
young people to say, you know, I'm successful, I can do it.
CALLER: Yeah, I was in foster care 20 something years ago, and did it on my own. But so that's part
of why I want to volunteer is because I've been there, done that.
SUAREZ: Oh, so you were a person who aged out?
CALLER: Yes, I was.
SUAREZ: Well, talk about what kind of help, if any, you got back then.
CALLER: Well, I was lucky because I had a scholarship to college. And so, I did go to college. And my
family that I was with the final family I was with was very supportive, and I'm still in touch with them
today. I'm 41 years old. So, that's a long time.
And so, I was very lucky. But I still had problems. I still faced the shock of -- that's what medical care
costs. Oh, my goodness, when I go to a dentist, I do get a bill, and doing a checking book -- checking
account, and, you know, thank God I had their support. I could call and talk to them about how to do this,
because I didn't have anybody else in the world.
MATTHEWS: Did the state offer any classes or life skill programs?
CALLER: No, I think it was $125 was that -- that was it. You were given enough to set you up in a room
basically. And I think at that time -- this was 1976, I think it was like $125. And that was it, you know,
here's $125, goodbye, have a nice life.
SUAREZ: Wow.
COURTNEY: That's not surprising. That's actually why the federal government created the program.
They did it 10 years after you left care, Wanda, so that's not surprising. And being a mentor for exactly
the reasons you pointed out, I think, is really important.
that the youth who got them when they had to
and find a house, to help them when they had to find medical care, that's they seemed to be doing
better. The who got training classes that are offered typically by the system, that training really
appear to have much of an effect on how they did afterwards.
CALLER: Well,are-these-programs-successful? Or, is it too early to have any numbers on that, or what?
COURTNEY: Well, one-ofthe-real-shames-is-that-this-program-now-in-staterand-federatmoney-has
probably spent a billion dollars, and we don't have any decent data evaluating these programs. To
Wisconsin's credit, they -- actually, the money that funded our study was independent living money,
federal and state money.
But that's the only state that I'm aware of that's really even gone to the effort to track kids the way we're
doing here in Wisconsin. So if you talk to people who run mentoring programs, they're very positive
about them. And based on what we see, it seems to make a difference in who does well and who doesn't.
I would say that they're a promising program, but they haven't been really evaluated.
CALLER: OK, thank you very much.
SUAREZ: Wanda, thanks for your call. Wanda, joining us from San Jose, California. Mike's with us
now from Bemidji, Minnesota.
CALLER: Yeah, hello.
SUAREZ: Hi, Mike.
CALLER: Well, I have a question. I was in the system, too, you know, back in the early 1970s. And my
father had a mental illness. So he was like on Social Security.
And when they dumped me out into the street without any training or any place to live or anything, then
the government also refused my real my genetic father's Social Security benefits which should have
taken care of us until we were like 21, had we gone on to college. So, you know, that definitely created
a tremendous hardship as you were ill prepared to face the real world, you know. So is there any
programs out there to help these kids today, and what about with the Security part of it?
SUAREZ: For parents who are still living and on those forms of benefit? Can they tap into -- campeople
in the situation Mike was in parental benefits? ]
MATTHEWS: Yes, they can. you as your one
the problems was to prove who your birth was. I don't know if that was a concern.
CALLER: No. Everybody knew who he was.
MATTHEWS: OK.
CALLER: When I made inquiries, of course, being 18, I probably didn't make all the inquiries. And then
the other thing, too, in the State of Washington, there was a notification, you know, after -- it was during
the time the kids turned 18 and they became adults and they got the right to vote. And the state at that
time used that as a cut- off point to save some money on a budget.
Well later on, they gave these children that they threw out in the street some money, you know. I don't
know how much it was, but they never contacted me personally. And they probably -- what they did is
they put an ad in some obscure paper, and, of course, 18-year- olds probably don't read the paper very
often -- the back page or something.
And so, there was a lot of monies that probably not collected that should have been collected by these
youth that were out there in the streets.
SUAREZ: Well, Mike, how did things go for you?
CALLER: Well, I went on to college. But statistically, it's a pretty abysmal deal. Probably 90 percent of
your foster kids who get out there that go to school fail in college and don't graduate. I think there's a
failure rate of like 90 percent the first two years.
Myself, I didn't finish, but I did go to five years of college. I had to work, you know, a couple -- three
jobs. And as far as total life skills, you're out there in the street all the time. And you're -- even as an
adult, you're in fear always because there's no net to catch you should you fail. And there's -- you know,
when you want to buy a house, there's no one to co-sign so you get -- you know, it's a much more
difficult situation than the, say, average
American, regardless of race, would have. And then if you put factors of race in it, I can't imagine, you
know, very difficult for them.
SUAREZ: Mike joining us from Bemidji, Minnesota. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from
NPR News.
Let's go next to Janice. She's calling us from Minneapolis. Janice, welcome.
CALLER: Thanks for taking my call. I'm really pleased that you're having this conversation. I just
wanted to share an observation. I've worked in the past in residential treatment for women, and they had
their children there with them.
The women at their -- one of the biggest issues was that -- was abandonment. They had been basically
raised as wards of the state or in foster care, and I've had an opportunity to follow their children who
now have children. And who-- the children of these women, they're struggling as parents.
And so I see it kind of a generational thing, and cycle -- there's some -- definitely some cycles to be
broken. And I'm just really pleased that this is on the table today.
SUAREZ: Well Mark Courtney, know about kids who come out of foster care, that they are
more or less likely, or about the same likely as any other Americans to have children who end up in
foster-care_themselves?
COURTNEY: Unfortunately, say that we don't. There are a of studies out there that our
study and another one in the Midwest, I think, have some chance of demonstrating that But there really
hasn't been very much good research that was able to follow these folks.
T ypicall that have tried to them researchers that have tried to follow them have lost half
of them. And I think that's an indication of how unstable the lives of many of these people are. And so,
I
can't say one way or the other really that they're more likely to enter foster care. I wouldn't be surprised.
I'm really glad that the last two callers raised that issue, because the thing that our young adults felt least
comfortable about was parenting. We asked them how prepared you feel at a number of things -- find a
home, get a job, get medical insurance, et cetera. Parenting was the that they felt least prepared for.
And I think, given their backgrounds, that's really telling. Kids I worked with, really were worried about
that. wanted to be good parents; but they were worried about it>
MATTHEWS: Right. I another that's important if we can young people to
birth families, they some support. I think you kind of alluded to some of the young people
actually live with their birth families. But just to know, even if the birth family can't help out financially,
emotionally it's a kind of a safety-net. But I think it also stops kids -- children from having -- foster
children from having -- when they have their own children, they're very concerned about their children
not going into care.
So they try extremely hard to be really good parents, to be really careful about what messages, they're
sending because maybe in foster care they got a lot of negative messages. So I think their parenting
skills, even though they might feel inadequate, they're really being super parents because they don't their
kids to be in care.
SUAREZ: For those people you've met, Valli, who've come through a lot of separate homes or moved
around a lot, is there a lack of willingness to trust, a difficulty in making friendships and tight bonds,
because they've had to be broken so many times in the past?
MATTHEWS: I think it is difficult. A lot of children experience that, have difficulty connecting to other
people. And they have a tendency to come back to people they know and they trust from the past. And
that's an OK thing. But also, they don't they can't make that leap to make new friendships and meet
new people. There's always that fear, mistrust of, you know, why are they doing this, what's their real
motive, are they trying to get something out of me. So that's lacking -- the trust piece.
Unless they've connected with a foster family that they can go back and say, you know, Mom and Dad, I
need some help now, what can you do to help me out with?
SUAREZ: You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. I'm Ray Suarez.
My guests are Mark Courtney and Valli Matthews. We're going to take a short break right now. When
we return, we'll talk to a former foster care client about her life after she aged out of the system, and
we'll take more of your calls at 800-909-8255.
You can e-mail us at [email protected] or send us a card or letter to:
TALK OF THE NATION Letters 635 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20001
At 33 minutes past the hour, it's TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.
Welcome back to the program. I'm Ray Suarez.
Today, we're talking about the plight of foster care kids after they've aged out of the system. We're
joined now by Lisa Foster (ph), former foster care client from age months until 18 years. Welcome
to TALK OF THE NATION.
LISA FOSTER, FORMER FOSTER CARE CLIENT: Hi, thank you for having me.
SUAREZ: Well, tell us about your life after your 18th birthday. Were you given much preparation for
being on your own?
FOSTER: No, not really. I guess at about -- well it started for me at about 16, because I stared to get very
defenseful (ph) toward -- you know, I had so many moves. I had 11 moves in foster care altogether, so
when I got about 16, I started to really get like oh my God and worry about where I was going to go
after I graduated from high school.
So, I somewhat sort of put myself into this independent living program. And, you know, got some help
from some people, you know, in that organization, and they offered college opportunities to me, and I
decided to go there but I was so on the defensive about being dropped when I turned 18 that I, you know,
dropped out of college because I didn't know -- OK, I'm gonna to do one more year and they're gonna
drop me totally, so I was even afraid to even get up there to graduate. And I ended up going into the
Navy and I did the Navy for three years and I've been pretty much, you know, in good standings ever
since.
I got married pretty early. But like you guys brought up the issue about having kids, you know, all while
I was in foster care, I didn't want any kids I -- you know, as a matter of fact, from like third grade on, I
was like I am not having any kids, I do not want them to go through what I'm going through, I do not
want them -- and, you know, like the system is your family, so you have to, you know, -- you have to
turn to them for everything. But then you think, well what am I gonna do when I have aged out of the
system? I don't have any family left so, I had to find some find my own family, you know.
SUAREZ: Well, it's interesting that you chose the Navy because at first blush that would seem like a very
big, very supportive, and very structured family. I mean, they know what your life is like morning noon
and night, and you wear the clothes that they tell you and all that.
FOSTER: Yeah, that too. And I that I have to admit that did get on my nerves because
LAUGHTER
that was somewhat sort of like being in the system too, you know. I didn't want to I wanted to do it
because -- see it's like when you're in foster care, you have to ask permission to go to the next state
sometimes, so when I -- I had never been out of -- really out of the state, so I wanted to go to
different countries, different parts of the world, so I really went there so that I could travel, and as soon as
I did that, I got out, you know, to get out of that little systematic thing.
SUAREZ: Right, but it accomplished what you needed for?
FOSTER: Yeah, it served the purpose, it served the purpose, you know. And when I got out of that, 1
just felt -- and like I still feel now, I totally -- I want total independence. I don't want to have to depend
on anybody, no job or anything, and that's why I am taking the total entrepreneur approach to life, period.
SUAREZ: Well, you talked about how, in your late teens, how difficult for you to relax about where you
were going to be because your situation was so unsettled
FOSTER: Right.
SUAREZ: is that something that hampered you later on, in your married life, in your young adult life?
FOSTER: Most definitely. Yeah, it's still, you know -- like I said before, when you're in foster care and
you're switched from home to home, like I said I went to 11, it is so hard to even sleep in a new bed in a
different bed. You know, I had so many nightmares and everything.
So when I got married I don't -- my poor husband, I sent him through some things because it was like I
just wanted to stay in one place and just, you know and then with the military, you move anyway, but
you know, my husband was with me there, you know, and -- through thick and thin, but it was like OK
we're here and we're gonna stay here, but when it was time to move back to -- from California where I
was stationed, back to DC, I got really nervous because I didn't know what was gonna happen -- was
gonna happen, you know. I have never been -- I've never had that -- I had never had that -- the plan or
the goal already set, you know.
SUAREZ: So, looking back on it what could have helped you in your particular situation that you didn't
get just before you turned 18?
FOSTER: have helped Well, the one that was but guess a
little more support, a little better emancipation program, you know, something that would -- that I
could fall back-on-something I don't know, something_lguess_financially. I had nothing really, you
know. I had no family to fall back on. I guess the family support, support system, that
call,-people-that-Il-could-say-well-what-do-l-do-next Things that you would normally get from a family
and, you know, that you'd ask your mother, what should I do now, you know? And that wasn't there for
me.
SUAREZ: Well Lisa Foster, it sounds like things have turned out rather well for you though, in spite of
everything. Good to talk to you.
FOSTER: Thank you very much
SUAREZ: Lisa Foster is a former foster care client, she spoke to us by phone from Maryland.
My guests for the remainder of the hour are Mark Courtney, associate professor of social work at the
University of Wisconsin and co-author of the recent report Foster Youth Transitions to Adulthood:
Outcomes 12 to 18 Months After Leaving Out of Home Care. And Valli Matthews, community
education coordinator for the program For Love of Children.
If you want to join us, our number in Washington is 800-989-8255. And Valli Matthews, for all the
unsettled part of her life before leaving care, it sounds like Lisa, you know kept her eye on the ball and
didn't make some of the mistakes that you've talked about earlier.
MATTHEWS: Yes. I personally know Lisa and I know some of the struggles that she's had throughout
the years, and I think she still is struggling with different issues. And she actually comes back and works
with kind of a mentoring program to help other young people.
And I think as she said, one of the things that really helps is to have a family. And even if you can't have
the family you lived with, even if families would say, you know, I'm willing to help young people aging
out of foster care, I didn't raise them, but I'm willing to be resources, so when they need
a meal, when they need some help, there's some adult that's there, either adult or couple, that are
interested in supporting these young people.
SUAREZ: Let's go to Shaker Heights, Ohio. Karen, welcome to the program.
CALLER: Hi, I wanted to just make a few points that I think your guests probably already have. But, you
know, part of independent-living, I think, what teenager wouldn't like independent living? That's a great
idea, get your own apartment, get your own finances. And lthink-that-we-haven'tdonethe-kidsin
hesystem-any-favor-by-doing-that---think-its-been-an-excuse-for-the-child-welfaresystem-to-bacEout-on
some of these-kids. And quite frankly, you know, I needed my mom after I was 18, and my parents, and
I still do.
The other that want to are some of the trends in child welfare, the circles of support in
permanency for teens, reconnecting them to the parents, to their birth parents, and to those who really
care about them, because your guests are absolutely right, that these kids leave and the folks they come
back to are the folks that they know. So, their parents couldn' care for them when they were
young, but their parents could care for them now. That's what I wanted to say.
SUAREZ: Mark Courtney.
COURTNEY: She's absolutely right. In some ways, I think some of the things that are really missing,
and this is we need to do more looking at this, but transitional living, we focus too much-on what we-
call Lindependent-living-services, that we're_going-to-somehow-train-people that when they'r 18,
you on your own, and now prepared and you can your own. And I think all the
callers have really pointed to the fact that that's just not the way most that transition.
And really, having places for people to fall back on in terms of support, from who are supportive,
who know what it's like, and also in terms of housing, job assistance, et cetera, is essential: And the other
Cthing-is-this reconnection.
All of child welfare practice, and I get the sense that the last caller was a child welfare worker
somewhere, once kids are in term foster care, we tend to forget they have families: And the fact is
they have families, and most of our youth have had active contact with their families fairly frequently
since they ve-left-the system, and that not always positive, but I think that we need to pay attention to
that and hopefully make that as helpful to them as possible.
SUAREZ: And that there you need support from the state to the degree that there almost has to be a
referee-sort of watching the encounter, because a lot of the children who come into the system come in
wounded and damaged by the very people that we're referring to as their families. And it's not such an
uncomplicated thing to continue to have contact with them. In some cases, it's wonderful; in some cases,
their parents are dealing with the complications that forced them to put their children into foster care in
the first place. In other cases it's not, but there has to be.a third party, doesn't there, to sort of say
COURTNEY: Absolutely.
SUAREZ: you know, this kid probably shouldn't know his mother and father.
MATTHEW: Well, I'm a trainer and I actually train foster and adoptive parents who prepare to take
young people. And Ithink-its-really-critical-that-allchildren-know_their families, whether they've been
adopted, whether they've been separated. And the reason I encourage that is because we've had people in
their 50s and 60s that say I still don't know who my dad is, and it's still bothering me.
And even if they reconnect to families that are not totally in order, that really can't help them, it still helps
them with their own identity, and to a They-have-aheritage-and.they
have.a.connection.
So, I think there is some importance in that, sometimes you do need a third party, because as you're
saying, Ray, some of these reconnections are not pleasant, but people do have a right to know, and young
people: have a right to know.
COURTNEY: I couldn't agree with Valli more.
SUAREZ: Well, but I did a program out of KCTS in Seattle last year called "Take This Heart," where we
talked with people, both foster parents and foster children, and one kid in particular just had a horrendous
background. And the foster parent in this case had to look to the state for some help, and some backup in
making sure this child did not have continued regular contact.
In another case, with another set of boys, one parent said that when the boys would come home after
spending a period of time with their mother, they were bouncing off the walls and incorrigible for days,
because it was such an upsetting, grueling experience for them to spend a weekend with their mother,
from whose house they had to be removed when they were kindergarten-first grade age.
I understand your endorsement of it in general principle, but boy, there are some cases where these poor
kids are just being put through the wringer by this experience.
MATTHEW: Well, part -- the way the system-used to work, and they trying to change that, is birth
family-visits were not encouraged, so children were separated from parents, even parents that maybe did
not abuse them but maybe-they-were just neglectful. So there's not a lot feeling -- emotional feeling
about them seeing those parents. The system would set it up so they didn't -see-the parents, and the
connections were damaged between the child and the parent.
So, then you have a parent who hasn't seen their parent in over a year, they're attached to new foster
family, and now we're to reconnect them to birth families. So, what we're trying to:do in the
system: now as children come care, we're trying to keep them in their own neighborhood, we're trying
to find foster homes to keep them connect to their birth families.
Those children who are in danger of risky situations, are always supervised by an agency staff person,
they would not be allowed to spend a weekend in a birth family where they're at risk, so that wouldn't
happen.
SUAREZ: Go ahead, Mark.
COURTNEY: The other thing is even if they -- you know some of -- by the time that they're older
teenagers, in my experience in what we find in interviewing these youths, is that most-of-them-know_on
some-level when their parents are really a problem for them. That doesn't always mean -- in some cases,
they decide they don't want to have contact with family, but by and large they do, as Valli says.
And the system doesn't necessarily-facilitate-making. that a helpful thing for them. In some cases, it
to work with them you a third party to them sort out their feelings
SO that when they are on their still are going to deal with their family, they're able toodeal
that -- do that that's not harmful to
In other-cases family, and I think we want to look at that broadly, the have aunts and uncles and siblings,
these are sources of support for them. And when the system doesn't attend to those sources of
support, it overlooks, you a major:factor that plays role in how they do after they leave:
It's not to say that there aren't cases where you want to be really careful about that, I agree with you, but
Valli mentioned the fact that a lot of these kids come in because of neglect. Most kids coming into the
child welfare system these days are placed because of neglect, not because they've been physically or
sexually abused by the parents.
SUAREZ: St. Louis, Missouri is next. Gloria, welcome.
CALLER: Oh, thank you so much for your show, Ray, thank you for taking my call.
I was a foster child from 1952 to 1967, as an emancipated minor I had to get out of that house, that foster
care system in -- the system failed totally, the foster parents should have been given Oscars for their
performances, you know, the social workers, I don't know -- I don't know what was wrong with them.
I'm just an advocate for really close monitoring of the foster care family, because these people, a lot of
times, they're not about anything but the little bit of money. And little bit that it might be, it's enough to
pay the utility bills, or it's enough to get their hair done or do whatever they want to do with it. You
know, and the children are just I mean -- for so long, I was just a mess. If it hadn't been for the Job
Corp, and I was thinking about the military, but I had no choice back then. 1968 here in St. Louis, no one
prepared me for anything, but I was just tired of being treated like, I don't know, less than human in that
family.
There was physical abuse, there was sexual abuse, there were just so many things going on. I was
hopeless; I was helpless. That's just the way 1 felt. And I just feel that, you know I don't know how
much worse orphanages could have been compared to some of these places. Physical -- our physical
surroundings were better than our real mother could provide for us, but I don't know that it was
necessarily better, you know, emotionally for us. And especially, the physical and sexual abuse that went
on.
I just -- I don't know, I think it's awful. I'm an advocate for something other than what I went through.
And consequently to this day I have no children. When I did contact my real mother, this woman was
totally undesirable, she had started a new family and she was repeating the cycle. She had about five
children in foster care already and she had six children additional.
SUAREZ: You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News.
Now, Gloria's call points out some of the shortcomings that she found in individual foster parents. How
does this relate to the over all shortage of foster parents? There aren't nearly enough foster parents to
handle the number of children that there are in need of care, in need of placement, but you'll hear stories
like Gloria's told by children coming out of care today, not in 1968 pointing, to shortcomings.
Do we take on people that, if we had a sufficient supply, we would say. well, thanks for their offer but- no
Cthanks, just because of the shortage?
MATTHEW: Well, I'd like to say, you know, we're recruiting foster parents all the time It is much more
difficult. We're asking to take children that have many more severe problems than they had before. And
the motivations for people wanting to foster and adopt range from very appropriate reasons, to very
inappropriate reasons. For example, if say they're infertile, that can be appropriate, if you've resolved that
you're infertile, and you're not trying to take a foster child to replace the child you can't have. So,
children -- foster children very often don't see, why do I have to be in a foster home when I'm abused and
neglected I could have just stayed at my birth family?
But, screening people to have to know whether or not they're potentially gonna abuse and neglect
children is extremely difficult. And one of the things many states have started is the preservice training.
It's at least 30 hours of training, and there's several different programs around the country, but the idea is
that trainers see them in this process and they also do the home studies, so they have a better in-depth
feeling of how what are the what's the family's motivations? What's their style-of-parenting? What's
their Ediscipline because as you know they're not supposed to use corporal punishment, that's a
big issue for many foster parents, because most people in America use corporal punishment, but we're
telling them we're gonna give you a really difficult child and you can't use corporal punishment. So,
those are some of the issues in screening parents we try to look for.
SUAREZ: Mark Courtney, how do we address this shortage which seems to be the nexus for a lot of
other problems?
COURTNEY: Well, I think that we have to recognize that -- what Valli's saying that these are really
challenging -- a lot of them are really challenging children to care for.
I believe that we need to sort of recognize that for many of these folks, we need to professionalize foster
care. Weneed to treat these people, the foster parents; as members of a treatment team? And we need to
really provide a lot of support to them that quite often public child welfare agencies simply aren't able to
provide, they don't have the resources to do that.
You see some what are called treatment or therapeutic foster care agencies, that are beginning to do₂
those: kinds of things, and they retain foster parents. They're able to recruit:and retain foster parents, but
costs more money to do that, you have to pay the foster parents somewhat more money, and you have
to provide them a lot more support.
do want to say that in our study, and in a lot of studies, you don't find a lot of abuse of children in foster
care. And we ask these folks, you know, where you maltreated? We ask very specific questions, very
small percentage -- I think it was about 3 percent, experienced anything that you would call child>
cmaltreatment. And as I said, the vast majority were generally satisfied with the system, looking at how
they fare afterwards you can question whether they were naive in their satisfaction, but, you know, the
overwhelming majority really feel that they-were lucky- to be in care and generally have good things to
say about their experience and care.
SUAREZ: Gloria in St. Louis, thanks for talking to us and telling us your story, and good luck. Gloria
joining us from St. Louis. That's all the time we have for today thanks to everyone who called, and
thanks to my guests. Valli Matthews, good to talk to you.
MATTHEWS: Thank you very much.
SUAREZ: Valli Matthews is the community education coordinator at For Love of Children, she joined us
here in studio 3A. Mark Courtney, good to talk to you.
COURTNEY: Thank you.
SUAREZ: Mark Courtney is associate professor of social work at the University of Wisconsin in
Madison and co-author of the report Foster Youth Transitions to Adulthood: Outcomes 12 to 18 Months
After Leaving Out of Home Care. He joined us from member station WHA in Madison, Wisconsin.
Earlier, we heard from former foster care client Lisa Foster, she spoke to us by phone from Maryland.
Tune into TALK OF THE NATION at this time tomorrow for a look at the crisis in Sudan, a
long-running civil war coupled with a drought has led to mass starvation in Africa's largest nation.
In Washington, I'm Ray Suarez, NPR News.
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The Providence Journal-Bulletin
June 29, 1998, Monday, ALL EDITIONS
HEADLINE: Fostering support for kids
BYLINE: JOHN MARTIN; Journal-Bulletin TV Writer
The Rhode Island School of Design Museum is not a typical place to interview a Hollywood star.
But Victoria Rowell is by no means typical.
The actress, who plays Drucilla Barber Winters on CBS's The Young and the Restless and Dr. Amanda
Bentley on the network's Diagnosis Murder, had called 30 minutes earlier wondering if the newspaper
was interested in an interview.
It was an easy sell: She explained that rather than talking about television and the movies, she preferred
to discuss having grown up_as_ a foster child and what she been doing in the past eight years to =
promote better lives for children placed in foster care.
Rowell was on her way to work on Federal Hill, where she is starring in Michael and Vincent Pagano's
feature film A Wake in Providence. She wanted to see the RISD collection on the way and, it was agreed,
that might be a good place to meet.
Sitting on a small bench in an anteroom outside one of the museum's large galleries, Rowell is politely
but firmly evasive if you try to start at the beginning: to ask how it came to be that she ended up in a
foster home. She is a Portland, Maine, native, she says, one of six children. She and her two sisters
had the good fortune of being placed in the care of a Maine couple, Agatha and Robert Armstead.
What happened to Rowell is the exception, not the rule of foster care. At the age of 8, she was granted
permission to live with another family in Cambridge, Mass., where she began studying ballet. She later
was reunited with the Armsteads when they moved to Roxbury.
At 16, she received a scholarship to the School of American Ballet and became a member of the
American Ballet Theatre's junior company. She later became a model and actress, landing a recurring role
on The Cosby Show and guest-starring in other series. Since then, she has appeared in several movies,
including Leonard Part VI, The Distinguished Gentleman, Dumb & Dumber and Eve's Bayou.
"I do have the Eliza Doolittle scenario, in that I was placed with parents enriched with love and morals
and academics," she said in a soft voice that echoed off the museum walls. "It was an amazing thing. I
had no idea I was a minority in terms of foster children. Because of that, I've been inspired to promote
better care for foster children."
1990, Rowell founded the Victoria Rowell Children's Positive Plan, which provides
scholarships and pays for other expenses for foster children studying ballet and other performing
participating in sports.
She stops to point out that the organization isn't in the business of scouting out top talent. "We don't
expect our children to become the next Baryshnikovs or Margo Fonteyns or Judith Jamisons.
"But we know that people walk away with a great sense of discipline as a result. And being a foster
child, you really do need an extraordinary amount of discipline in your life, because it is so easy to go the
other way and be depressed and self-pitying."
An overtaxed system
Rowell also lobbies on behalf of better-foster care. is a system that, she says, is, at best, inconsistent?
"It works some of the time, but there is a lot of disparaging news;" she said, citing as an example the
practice of dumping foster children into group homes.
"Juvenile sexual offenders are being placed with sexually offended children," she said. That's a recipe
for mayhem, and we have repetitive behavior.
"The system-doesn't work a lot of the time, because we are overtaxed. The genesis of foster care at the
turn of the century was an interim service. It has now become a type of adoption agency. It has left
children in what I call a nebulous labyrinth of care.
"We have 500,000 American children in foster care. In Los Angeles, we have 170,000 children in
foster care - mainly due to drugs, cocaine specifically. We have social workers with 100 cases, which is
impossible."
Prepare them for life
Even in situations where foster care works, childrent face legal emancipation at 18, leaving many,
without financial support or medical insurance. Rowell and others are asking states to delay
emancipation to age 23, providing foster children stay in school; or are studying a trade or the arts.
"They are literally dumped out of the system - there's no polite way of saying it," she said. "I was
studying very hard and got into one of the most prestigious ballet schools in the world. And yet, when I
needed help at 18 to pay my room and board - I was already on scholarship - it just couldn't be done. And
the medical end was equally disparaging."
Most foster children- at 18 are still finding their way she said. "That's why I emphasize to foster parents
that if they see an inkling of interest in something, push the foster child in that direction."
Dance, she says, prepares one for life. Among friends she studied with as a child in Cambridge, Mass.,
are a high-risk obstetrician at Massachusetts General Hospital, an executive with Gillette in Paris and a
teacher.
"They all shared the discipline of dance, and it's carried through to all things they have done," Rowell
said. "So, I'm hoping that skill - that tool - can be given to foster children."
Copyright 1996 Capital-Gazette Communications, Inc.
The Capital (Annapolis, MD.)
December 15, 1996, Sunday
HEADLINE: What happens when foster care ends?
BYLINE: By MARY GRACE GALLAGHER Staff Writer
Raised in a series of group foster homes, it has been many years since 21-yearold Rich Christianson
had a place to call home for the holidays.
For that matter, he has no place to call home at all now that he has been liberated from the system that
fed and housed him for eight years, then showed him the door.
In as much as he lacks parents and a place to live, Rich is utterly on his own. With no car, no insurance,
no skills, his prospects are bleak.
But, by virtue of the fact that there are many young people in similar straights, he is not alone.
Rich's story is one of a life lived in foster care limbo a place where
unadopted children exist until they can be emancipated.
In at least one sense he is lucky Maryland is one of only states in the nation to continue to support
fosterlings-after-age-18.
But child advocate Trish Frederick says Rich's path from one temporary placement to another is a
dismal reminder of the community's failure to reach out and embrace needy children.
"There is a segment of this society that has been deemed throw-away," said Mrs. Frederick, who with
her husband, Rod, provides temporary shelter for 30 to 40 county foster children each year. She would-
dike to see more churches support foster families.
"Maybe-then more people would-sign up-and give these kids the long-term-stability-they-crave," she
said.
Rich, who first stayed with the Fredericks and their three children for a month when he was 14, moved
back into the basement bedroom of their Cape St. Claire home last month after a series of calamities left
him homeless.
"You can't understand, but he has nothing. No parents to fall back on. No money and no possessions,"
Mrs. Frederick said. "He-may be 21, but he's still a child with a child's dreams. He never childhood.
That's what's so sad."
A life-alone
Unfortunately, Rich is not the only young man to exit the foster care system to such dismal prospects.
There currently are 50 young people, ages 15 to 21, enrolled in the county's Independent Living Project.
by Department of Services in conjunction with foster care, the HEP targets those
children in -foster care who are unlikely to be reunited with family or adopted by anyone else due to
their age or special emotional or physical needs.
The program, which is federally mandated and funded for the 16- to yearold age group and
statefunded thereafter, attempts to prepare foster children for emancipation by teaching them about>
personal finance, hygiene, apartment living, job and car maintenance.
Another objective of the ILP, according to coordinator Patrick Patrong, is to help children develop
support systems in the community.
"Caseworkers do try to locate family or group support systems for these children, but it's sad to say that
sometimes they are unsuccessful," he said.
Mr. Patrong said ILP graduates are encouraged to donate their time to organizations like churches or
political groups.
"The more you contribute to a community, the more likely you are to be embraced by it,": he said.
When all else fails, "there' always adult services,' Mr. Patrong said, indicating that someone like Mr.
Christianson, with no resources, would qualify for government-assistance.
But the last thing Mr. Christianson wants is to be back under DSS' wing.
There, he was jostled between group homes and new caseworkers almost on a yearly basis.
"I always thought a better situation would come along," he said, considering the six different places he
stayed during his eight years with DSS.
He was neglected by his own mother, who he says never made an effort to contact him during that
time. His brief stay at the Fredericks' busy house gave him a taste of family life he has yearned for ever
since.
But because it was a temporary shelter, he was only permitted to stay there 30 days.
When he was 17, Mr. Christianson insisted upon leaving foster care. Within two weeks, the teen-ager
took his first nosedive into homelessness.
"It was a bitter cold winter night and my husband got a call from Rich," Mrs. Frederick recalled of
Rich's first foray into independence. She allowed him to spend the night and the next day convinced Rich
and foster care authorities that he should go back into the system.
"Here is a child I hadn't seen in three years calling me for a place to stay because he has nowhere else to
turn," she said. "Why can't there be a few more doors out there open to these kids? Why didn't he have
anywhere else to turn?"
When he turned 18, DSS allowed Mr. Christianson to move out of the group home he had been staying
in. Still receiving a $ 450-a-month subsidy, Rich moved in with his girlfriend and her father to save
money. A year later, his daughter, Felicia, now 1, was born.
Rich doesn't wallow in regret or berate himself. He just worries, night and day.
"I don't want (Felicia) to grow up like I did," said Rich, who visits his daughter weekly. He does not
pay child support, but says he is trying to.
Pragmatic choices
Shy and solemn, with a mind for math and an Annapolis High School diploma, Mr. Christianson
recently tested high on the the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery Test and in January plans to
join the Army.
It's a pragmatic choice - one made by 25 of the 372 Maryland youth who left the ILP in 1994.
But it's not exactly what Rich had in mind.
"I thought I'd be in college studying engineering," said Rich, who spends free time working on the
Fredericks' personal computer. He was enrolled in classes and doing well at Anne Arundel Community
College last year thanks to a tuition waiver through the ILP program.
Back then, with ILP's help, he landed a well-paying job with United Parcel Service, bought a new car
and found his own apartment. He had to work at Pizza Hut to make the car payments and child support,
but he was making it work.
"It was working," Rich recalled with a grin. "I kept thinking, this is too good. Something is going to
happen."
Something did.
Needing to have ankle surgery while still receiving medical assistance, Rich took time off from work.
But he hadn't been at the job long enough to earn disability pay, and during his convalescence, his car
was repossessed. Unable to get to work, he lost his job and, just last month, his apartment.
Out of desperation, he again gave "Miss Trish" a call.
To make matters worse, the landlord kept all of Rich's 18 possessions, including an electric razor,
winter coat and a set of bed sheets.
A slap in the face
To Mrs. Frederick, each loss is like a slap in the face.
"How- do you prepare kids for life's trials when they're not your children?'
she asked.
Just last week, she learned that one of "her children" a 21-yearold who had just graduated from ILP
and was recently sent out on his own committed suicide in the detention center.
-
"Anyone else could have turned to Mom, Dad, uncles, aunts," she said, turning back to Rich's
predicament. "If I had only known he lost his car, I would have helped him find a new one. He could
have kept the job."
And for each child like Rich, she said, "There are others at Jessup or the detention center who just get
sick of it and go-to drugs and crime. What else is there?"
For Rich, January brings basic training in South Carolina, then communications training in Georgia.
And in four years, there may be college, money for Felicia and, he hopes, a career in computers.
Mrs. Frederick calls him a survivor.
Rich is working on it.
"All these years, I've been wanting this kind of life," he said, tapping his finger on the Fredericks'
kitchen table. The room is alive with the sounds of shuffling hermit crabs and squawking parakeets, a
droopy-eared Dalmatian and a crying baby. "Someday I'm going to have all the luxuries. I can't give up
that chance."
PBS 1998 Winter/Spring Season Highlights - TAKE THIS HEART
http://www.pbs.org/whatson/1998/winterspring/heart_pr98.html
Tell what you want...
stoc coptions
higher salary
yearend bonus
seasonal highlight
TAKE THIS HEART
- Friday, January 9, 10:00 p.m. ET -
The day-to-day struggles and rewards of life in a Seattle foster family are captured in
TAKE THIS HEART, a one-hour special that explores the complex issues surrounding
foster care in America while focusing on the personal stories of three boys.-The
documentary airs on PBS Friday, January 9, 1998, 10:00 p.m. ET (check local listings).
TAKE THIS HEART is introduced by actress Victoria Rowell oung and the Restless,"
"Diagnosis Murder"), who was in foster care during her own childhood and who today
actively works on behalf of children in foster care.
One any given day, nearly-half a million children in the United States are living in some
form of foster care because their parents are unable or unwilling to care for them. This
number has increased by 65 percent over the past decade, due to a variety of causes,
including drug and alcohol abuse, AIDS, and physical, sexual and emotional abuse. Yèt,
despite their growing numbers and needs, children-in foster care are often invisible in most
communities.
TAKE THIS HEART explores the experiences of three children and their foster mother in
one foster family, and in so doing, gives a voice to a population that is often not heard and
generally not understood. The film spends eight months with this state-funded foster family,
made up of Tess Thomas and the six children in her care. The film focuses on three of the
boys in Thomas' home. Each of the boys has moved from one foster home to the next,
eventually coming to live with Thomas. Each is struggling to make sense of his fate in his
own way.
When he arrives at Thomas' house, 10-year-old Robert is lost and frightened, yet strangely
inured to the trauma of being handed into the custody of a stranger. The program follows
Robert as his anger and fear slowly give way to a tentative trust, and he allows Thomas into
his life.
Celebrating his 14th birthday during the course of the film, Jamil walks a precarious line
between an abiding, conflicted love for his birth mother, who struggles with drug addiction,
and his desire for stability in the Thomas home.
Joaquin is a 17-year-old at the threshold of emancipation from the state foster care system.
After five years in Thomas' household, he is struggling with the challenges that face him as
he moves into adulthood - bright, articulate, but unable to read.
Shot in cinema verite style, TAKE THIS HEART is crafted from the modest and ordinary
events of daily life. Small moments become dramatic, illuminating the sense of loss and
hurt borne by these children. At the same time, the boys' stories reveal the remarkable
resiliency and tough-minded will with which they go on with their lives. association with
the program, a major national outreach campaign, The Foster Care Project, will bring
attention and coordinated action to foster care issues and outcomes, with an emphasis on
building community resources to improve the lives of children and adolescents in foster care
and the foster families that have stepped forward to care for them.,
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PBS 1998 Winter/Spring Season Highlights - TAKE THIS HEART
http://www.pbs.org/whatson/1998/winterspring/heart_pr98.html
TAKE THIS HEART is a prime example of PBS' commitment to presenting programs that
enlighten viewers to the many societal challenges in the United States.
Day & time: check with your local PBS station
credits
Underwriters: The Casey Family Program and The Annie E. Casey Foundation
Producer: Lark International in association with KCTS Seattle
Executive producer: Elizabeth Brock
Director: Kathryn Hunt
Producers: Jane Gibbons and Kathryn Hunt
Photography: Erik Daarstad
Associate producers: Kurt Streeter and Zola Mumford
Editor: Jeanne Slater
Music: Bruce Hunt
Format: CC STEREO
Return to Season Highlights
What's On TV II Satellite Schedule TV Schedule Picks of the Month Il Trivia Challenge PBS
Online
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AC
The Annie E. Casey Foundation
KIDS COUNT
Publications
AEC Initialives
News From AEC
Family To Family
Reconstructing Foster Care
A Program of the Annie E. Casey Foundation
and
The States of Alabama, Maryland, New Mexico, Ohio, and Pennsylvania
and
Jefferson County, Alabama
Los Angeles County, California
Chatham, Emanuel, Fulton, Jenkins, and Screven Counties, Georgia
Baltimore City, Anne Arundel and Prince George's Counties, Maryland
The City and County of Philadelphia
Columbia, Lehigh, and Northampton Counties, Pennsylvania
Cuyahoga and Hamilton Counties, Ohio
September 1997
BACKGROUND: THE CURRENT CRISIS IN PUBLIC CHILD WELFARE
A RESPONSE TO THE CRISIS: THE FAMILY TO FAMILY INITIATIVE
CURRENT STATUS OF FAMILY TO FAMILY
THE TOOLS OF FAMILY TO FAMILY
he Annie E. Casey Foundation was established in 1948 by Jim Casey, one of the founders of
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United Parcel Service, and his siblings, George, Harry, and Marguerite, who named the
philanthropy in honor of their mother. The primary mission of the Foundation is to foster public
policies, human-service reforms and community supports that more effectively meet the needs of
today's vulnerable children and families.
The grant making of the Annie E. Casey Foundation is grounded in two fundamental convictions. First,
there is no substitute for strong families to ensure that children grow up to be capable adults. Second, the
ability of families to raise children well is often inextricably linked to conditions in communities where
they live. We believe that community-centered responses can better protect children, support-families,
and strengthen neighborhoods.
Helping distressed neighborhoods become environments that foster strong, capable families is a complex
challenge that will require progress in many areas, including changes in the public systems designed to
serve disadvantaged children and their families. In most states, these systems are remote from the
communities and families they serve; focus narrowly on individual problems when families in crisis
generally have multiple difficulties; tend to intervene only when a problem is so serious that expensive
institutionalization is the only response; and hold themselves accountable by the quantity of services
offered rather than the effectiveness of the help provided.
Family foster care, the mainstay of all public child welfare-systems, is in critical need of reform- in each
of these areas.
BACKGROUND: THE CURRENT CRISIS IN PUBLIC CHILD WELFARE
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The nation's child welfare system continues in crisis. This crisis has four major characteristics:
1. The numbers of children removed from their families by the child-welfare system has continued to
grow, from 260,000 children in out-of-home care in the 1980's to more than 500,000 in care by
1995. This growth has been driven by increases in the number of children at-risk of abuse and
neglect, as well as by the inability of child welfare systems to respond to the significantly higher
level of need.
2. As these systems become overloaded, they are unable to safely return children to their families or
to find permanent homes for them Children are therefore experiencing much longer stays in
temporary settings.
3. Concurrently, the number of foster families nationally has dropped, so that fewer than 50% of the
children needing temporary care are now placed with foster families. As a result of this disparity,
child welfare agencies in many urban communities have placed large numbers of children in group
care or with relatives who have great difficulty caring for them. An infant coming into care in our
largest cities has a good chance of being placed in group care and to be without a permanent
family for more than four years.
4. Finally, children of color are vastly over represented in this group of disadvantaged children.
The duration and severity of the current crisis in child welfare makes this an opportune time for states to
challenge themselves to rethink the fundamental role of family foster care and to consider very basic
changes.
The Foundation's interest in helping communities and public agencies confront this crisis is built upon
the belief that smarter and more effective responses are available to prevent child maltreatment and to
respond more effectively when there is abuse or neglect. Often families can be helped to-safely care for
their children in their own communities and nitheir own homes--i if appropriate support, guidance, and
help is provided to them early enough. However, there are emergency situations that require the
separation of a child from his or her family. At such times, every effort should be made to have the child
live with caring and capable relatives or with another family within-the-child's own community--rather
than in a restrictive, remote, institutional setting. Family foster care should be the next best alternative to
a child's own home or to kinship care.
National leaders in family foster care and child welfare have come to realize, however, that without
major restructuring, the family foster care system in the United States is not in a position to meet
the needs of children who must be separated from their families. One indicator of the deterioration
of the system has been the steady decline in the pool of available foster families at the same time as the
number of children coming into care has been-increasing. Further, there has been an alarming increase in
the percentage of children in placement who have special and exceptional needs. If the family foster care
system is not significantly reconstructed, the combination of these factors may result in more disrupted
placements, longer lengths of stay, fewer successful family reunifications, and more damage done to
children by the very system which the state has put in place to protect them.
A RESPONSE TO THE CRISIS: THE FAMILY TO FAMILY INITIATIVE back
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ith the appropriate reforms in policy, in the use of resources, and in programs, family foster
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care can respond to the challenges of out-of-home placement and be a less expensive and
more humane choice for children and youth than are institutions or other group settings.
Family foster care reform, in and of itself, can yield important benefits for families and
children--although such reform is only one pärt of a larger agenda designed to address the overall
well-being of children and families currently in need of child protective services.
FAMILY TO FAMILY was designed in 1992 in consultation with national experts in child welfare. In
keeping with the Annie E. Casey Foundation's guiding principles, the framework for the initiative is
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grounded in the belief that reforms in family foster care must be focused on a more family-centered
approach that is: (1) tailored to the individual needs of children and their families, (2) rooted in the
child's community or neighborhood, (3) sensitive to cultural differences, and (4) able to serve many-of
the children now placed in group homes and institutions.7
The FAMILY TO FAMILY Initiative has been an opportunity for states to reconceptualize, redesign,
and reconstruct their foster care system to-achieve the following new system-wide goals:
(I. To develop a network of family foster care that is more neighborhood-based, culturally sensitive,
and located primarily in the communities in which the children live.
2. To assure that scarce family foster home resources are provided to all those children (but to only
those children) who in fact must be removed from their homes.
3. To reduce reliance on institutional or congregate care (in hospitals, psychiatric centers,
correctional facilities, residential treatment programs, and group homes)--by meeting the needs of
many more of the children currently in those settings through family foster care.
4'. To increase the number and quality-of-foster families to meet projected needs.
5. To reunify children with their families as soon as that can safely be accomplished, based on the
family's and children's needs--not simply the system's time frames.
6. To reduce the lengths of stay of children in out-of-home care.
(7. To decrease the overall number of children coming into out-of-home care.
With these goals in mind, the Annie E. Casey Foundation selected and funded three states (Alabama,
New Mexico, and Ohio) and five Georgia counties in August 1993 and two additional states (Maryland
and Pennsylvania) in February 1994. In addition, Los Angeles County was awarded a planning grant in
August 1996. States and counties funded through this initiative were asked to develop family=centered,
neighborhood-based- family foster care service systems within one or more local areas. Local
communities targeted for the initiative were to be those which have had a history of placing large
numbers of children out of their homes. The local sites would then become the first phase of
implementation of the newly conceptualized family foster care system throughout the state.
The newsystem envisioned by FAMILY TO FAMILY is designed-to
better screen children-being considered for removal from home, to determine what services might
be provided to safely preserve the family and/or what the needs of the children are;
be targeted to bring children in congregate or institutional care back to their neighborhoods;
involve foster families as team members in family reunification efforts;
become a neighborhood resource for children and families and invest in the capacity of
communities from which the foster care population comes.
The Foundation's role has been to assist states and communities with a portion of the costs involved in
both planning and implementing innovations in their systems of services for children and families, and
to make available technical assistance and consultation throughout the process. The Foundation also
provided funds for development and for transitional costs that accelerate system change. The states,
however, have been expected to maintain the dollar base of their own investment and sustain the changes
they implement when Foundation funding comes to an end. The Foundation is also committed to
accumulating and disseminating both lessons from states' experiences and information on the
achievement of improved outcomes for children. We will therefore play a major role in seeing that the
results of the FAMILY TO FAMILY Initiative are actively communicated to all the states and the
federal government.
The states selected to participate in the planning process are being funded to create major innovations in
their family foster care system--to reconstruct rather than merely supplement current operations. Such
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changes are certain to have major effects on the broader systems of services for children, including other
services within the mental health, mental retardation/developmental disabilities, education, and juvenile
justice systems, as well as the rest of the child welfare system. In most states, the foster care system
serves children who are also the responsibility of other program domains. In order for the initiative to be
successful (to ensure, for example, that children are not inadvertently "bumped" from one system into
another), representatives from each of these service systems were expected to be involved in planning
and implementation at both the state and local level. These systems were expected to commit to the
goals of the initiative, as well as redeploy resources (or priorities in the use of resources) and if
necessary alter policies and practices within their own systems.
In summary, the FAMILY TO FAMILY Initiative is founded on a few key value judgments: Reforms in
family foster care must be directed to producing a service that is less disruptive to the lives of the
people it affects, more community based and culturally sensitive, more individualized to the needs of
the child and family, more available as an alternative to institutional placement, and in general more
family centered. Further, an enhanced family foster care system also can be consistent with an increased
emphasis upon developing alternatives to out-of-home placement for children in the first place. Family
foster care can be constructed to serve as a less restrictive setting for children that can speed
reunification and assure that out-of-home placements which need to be made are not undertaken until all
reasonable efforts to preserve families have been explored. Finally, as a result of the reform, family
foster care services should also become a neighborhood resource for children and families, investing in
the capacity of communities from which the foster care population comes.
CURRENT STATUS OF FAMILY TO FAMILY
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t the outset of the initiative in 1992, the accepted wisdom among child welfare professionals
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was that a continuing decline in the numbers of foster families was inevitable; that large,
centralized, public agencies could not effectively partner with neighborhoods; that
disadvantaged communities could not produce good foster families in any numbers; and that
substantial increases in congregate care were inevitable. FAMILY TO FAMILY is now showing that
good foster families can be recruited and supported in the communities from which children are coming
into placement. Further, dramatic increases, in the overall number of foster families are possible, with
corresponding decreases in the numbers of children placed in institutions, as well as in the resources
allocated to such placements. Perhaps most important, FAMILY TO FAMILY is showing that child
welfare agencies can effectively partner with disadvantaged communities to provide better care for
children who have been abused or neglected. During 1997, child welfare practitioners and leaders--along
with neighborhood residents and leaders--are beginning to develop models, tools, and specific examples
(all built from experience) that can be passed on to other neighborhoods and agencies interested in such
partnerships.
THE TOOLS OF FAMILY TO FAMILY back to menu
e believe that FAMILY TO FAMILY is providing to the nation a successful model of a
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foster care system that is neighborhood based, family focused, and culturally appropriate.
There is also evidence that an audience exists at the community level, at the state level, and
at the federal level for the tools that have been developed to build such a model.
However, all of us involved in FAMILY TO FAMILY quickly became aware that new paradigms, new
policies, and new organizational structures were not enough to both make and sustain substantive change
in the way society protects children and supports families. New ways of actually doing the work needed
to be put in place in the real world. During 1997, therefore, the Foundation and our FAMILY TO
FAMILY grantees developed a set of tools which we believe will help others build a
neighborhood-based family foster care system. In our minds, such tools are indispensable elements of
real change in child welfare.
Tools developed or used in FAMILY TO FAMILY include:
1. Successful strategies to recruit, train, and retain foster families
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2. A decision making model for placement in child protection
3. A model to recruit and support relative care givers
4. New information system approaches and analytic tools
5. A self evaluation model
6. Methods to build partnerships between public child welfare agencies and the communities they
serve.
7. New approaches to substance abuse treatment in a public child welfare setting
8. A model to enhance worker safety and build resilience among child protection staff
9. Communications planning in a public child protection environment, including how to respond to
media crises
10. A model for partnership between public and private children service agencies
11. Strategies to support families when parents are in prison
12. Proven models which move children home or to other permanent families.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation and its state and local FAMILY TO FAMILY partners look forward to
the opportunity to share their learnings with interested communities and agencies.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation
AC
701 St. Paul St. Baltimore, MD 21202
ph: 410-547-6600 fax: 410-547-6624 e-mail: [email protected]
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National Alliance to End Homelessness
Home Page
Web of Failure:
Background and Statistics
The Relationship Between Foster Care and
Policy and Legislation
Homelessness
Best Practices & Profiles
Nan P. Roman
Phyllis Wolfe
National Alliance to End Homelessness
What You Can Do
April, 1995
Publications/Resources
Introduction
Discussion Forum
I never felt like I was loved -- that anybody really cared. I
felt like the black sheep of the family.
About The Alliance
Latasha
Contact Us
In the late 1980s, the National Alliance to End Homelessness (the
Alliance) began to hear from service providers around the country that a
Links
seemingly disproportionate number of homeless people had a foster care
history. Although based largely on anecdotal information, providers
reported that many of the people who were becoming homeless as adults
had been in foster care when they were children, often spending years in
a mixture of official foster care placements and other, less formal
"placements" with relatives and friends. At this time, the Alliance was
involved-in a national project on the prevention of homelessness. We
were motivated to pursue the foster care issue because we believed that if
foster care and homelessness were somehow connected, interventions-in
the foster care system might help to prevent homelessness.
As we began to investigate, we discovered that during the 1980s, both
foster care placements and homelessness increased in our nation. We also
found some research on individual homeless programs, and among
specific sub-populations of the homeless population, which did indeed
indicate that people with a foster care history were over-represented
among those homeless people surveyed. Moreover, there was evidence of
an intergenerational aspect to the issue. That is, homeless people with a
foster care history were more likely than other homeless people to have
their own children in foster care.
With over 730,000 people homeless on any given night, the Alliance felt
it was imperative to step-up our investigation of the relationship between
foster care and homelessness to aid in the development of homelessness
prevention strategies. So, in 1994 we initiated a research project to assess
whether, across the nation and among all sub-populations of homeless
people, there was a relationship between foster care and homelessness.
Our findings are contained in this report.
A few parameters need to be established before examining the findings.
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First, because of limited resources, this is a fairly modest study. We have
only tested the water on the issue, although we have looked at a broad
spectrum, both geographically and in terms of the demographic
characteristics of the individuals surveyed. Second, we have defined
foster care in a fairly strict sense as publicly supported out-of-home
placements, including those in group homes. However, our survey did
ask some questions about less official placements, and the interaction
between foster care placements and other out-of-home placements is
important and deserves further study.
The National Alliance to End Homelessness was encouraged and
supported in this project by the Freddie Mac Foundation, and personally
by Terri Freeman, its Executive Director, and Kathy Whelpley, its
Associate Director. These two committed individuals quickly realized the
important implications inherent in the connection between foster care and
homelessness, and have worked with us throughout to develop a strong
project. We also owe a great debt of thanks to Dr. Elizabeth Robertson, a
member of the project's Advisory Committee, who helped us to design
and implement a statistically strong research methodology, and then to
accurately assess the findings. Dr. Ralph Nunez (and his colleague
Aurora Zepeda), Judy Meltzer and Dr. Marsha Martin, all members of the
Advisory Committee, gave generously of their time by guiding both the
project's development and its conclusions. Notwithstanding the important
contributions of all of these individuals, the contents of this report are the
responsibility solely of the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
Alliance Project Team
Deborah Chang
Mike Mayer
Adam Rasmussen
NOTE: An Appendix to this report has been published as a separate
volume. It gives further detail on methodology and on research findings,
and contains the full text of ten case studies. It also contains an
Annotated Bibliography.
Executive Summary
The purpose of-this project is to examine the connection between foster
care and homelessness and to determine whether or not there is an
er-representation of people with a foster care history in the homeless
population.
In order to examine this issue, the project used four sources of
information: (1) existing research on the connection between foster care
and homelessness; (2) data collected from organizations which serve
homeless people and which gather information on their clients' foster care
history; (3) data obtained directly from a sample of homeless people; and
(4) case studies of people who are or were homeless and who have a
foster care history.
The principle findings of this study are as follows.
There istant over-representation of people with-a foster care
history in the homeless population.
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Homeless people with a foster care history are more likely than
other people to have their own children in foster care.
Very frequently, people who are homeless had multiple
placements as children: some were in foster care, but others were
"unofficial" placements in the homes of family or friends.
In addition, there were certain demographic factors which were revealed
by the research.
Those people with a foster care history tend to become homeless at
an earlier age than those who do not have a foster care history.
Homeless people who are white are somewhat more likely to
have a foster care history than people who are Hispanic or
African American.
Childhood placement in foster care can correlate with a substantial
increase in the length of a person's homeless experience.
The research did not find (nor did it examine) that foster care directly
caused homelessness To the contrary, most children who experience
foster care do not become homeless as adults. Rather, the indication was
that foster care has an impact on personal risk factors that may eventually
result in homelessness. Among the findings were the following.
The foster care system often fails to help children deal with the
cproblems that result from circumstances which caused them to be
removed from their homes (these circumstances include physical or
sexual abuse; parents with alcohol or substance abuse illness;
family dissolution; etc.). Foster care can also fail to help children
deal with problems that arise from foster care placements in
abusive homes or facilities.
Alcohol and other substance abuse illnesses and mental illness
<play a significant role in the relationship between foster care and
Chomelessness.
Youngsters emancipated from foster care often lack the
independent living skills that would allow them to establish a
household.
People who have experienced extensive foster care, particularly
multiple placements, extended group home placements, or foster
care in combination with multiple unofficial placements, may
become better acculturated to institutionalized living than to
living on their own.
Young-people who are emancipated from foster care and become
homeless tend to lack the support networks that other people can
rely upon in times of crisis.
Children who are moved from home to home over an extended
period of time (foster care and/or unofficial placements) learn to
deal with problems by leaving them behind.
It is clear from this study that what happens to children has a lifelong
impact on them. When you see a homeless adult, it is quite possible that
they are homeless because of people and systems that failed them as
children. In order to eliminate any contribution foster care may make to
homelessness, the National Alliance to End Homelessness makes the
following recommendations.
A better job must be done of supporting and strengthening families
(particularly those in crisis) in order to keep children out of the
foster care system.
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Once children are in the foster care system, extraordinary measures
should be taken to move them quickly into a permanent
situation (family reunification or adoption), taking all necessary
steps to avoid multiple placements.
If: children have experienced multiple placements, a much more
directed effort should be made to help them gain the skills and
other resources necessary to move to successful independence.
The service and housing needs of homeless parents with a foster
care history should be met so that their stability is promoted and
their own children are not placed in foster care.
Extraordinary steps should be taken to avoid placing children in
foster care solely because of their parents homelessness. Other
measures (such as housing, employment and/or training, and
services) should be taken, first.
Foster Care and Homelessness
This report examines the inter-relationship between foster care and
homelessness. Its purpose is to establish whether or not people with a
foster care history are over-represented in the homeless population.
The Complex Nature of Homelessness
In order to properly understand any relationship between homelessness
and foster care, we must first understand the complex nature of
homelessness. Homeless people are the poorest of our nation's poor, and
as such they reflect the face of poverty in America. They are families,
primarily with one parent, but often with two. They are people who work
but who do not earn enough to pay for housing. They are the unemployed
-- those looking for work and those, young and old, who have never
worked. And, they are women and children escaping from domestic
violence.
The National Alliance to End Homelessness estimates that on any given
night over 730,000 Americans are homeless. Over the course of a year,
between 1.3 and 2 million Americans are homeless. This is the number of
people who live on the streets, in emergency or transitional shelters, in
cars or in abandoned buildings. It does not include the millions of people
who are doubled up with family or friends; nor does it include people
housed in institutions, or the millions more who are precariously housed
-- paying such a large percentage of their incomes for rent that any
unforeseen medical expense or temporary job loss could dislodge them.
However, all of these individuals make up the pool from which people
cycle in and out of homelessness.
The homeless population exhibits a wide variety of characteristics --
some homeless people have mental illness or substance abuse illness
others are handicapped; some have a criminal justice history -- others are
escaping from violent domestic situations; most are men, and minorities
tend to be over-represented in the population. These are some of the
characteristics of homeless people, but they are not the causes of their
homelessness. The causes can be found in an inter-related set of
socioeconomic factors that have become prominent over the past two
decades.
Lack of affordable housing. Over the past twenty years the
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supply of housing available to low income people has declined. In
1970 there were twice as many low cost units available as there
were low income households. By 1983 this number had been
reversed -- there were two households competing for every
available unit. Currently, some four million households receive
federal housing assistance because they cannot afford housing
without it; almost ten million households are eligible for such
assistance but do not receive it because of lack of funding
availability.
Decreasing incomes. Over the past twenty years, neither wages
nor benefits have kept pace with increases in the cost of living. In
1992, nearly 37 million Americans were poor, up five million since
1989. One in five Americans who works full-time earns a wage
below the poverty level for a family of four: up 50% since 1979.
For those who rely upon public benefits for income, the picture is
no better. In 1992 the average combined value of AFDC and food
stamps for a family of four was approximately 66% of the official
poverty level. Between 1970 and 1992, AFDC benefits dropped in
value by approximately 46%.
Health Issues. The failure to address the increasingly important
role drugs, disabilities and chronic health problems play in the lives
of poor people has contributed to their vulnerability to
homelessness. While alcohol and other substance abuse illnesses
and other illnesses such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, etc. are on the
increase, the availability of treatment has, in many cases, decreased
or become prohibitively expensive. Similarly, the increase in poor
pre-natal care related to poverty and the increase in teen-age
mothers leads to economic and other pressures on families and
individuals.
Family Instability. In 1970 single parent families accounted for
14% of all families; by 1992 this had risen to 22%. In 1991, female
headed households accounted for 39% of the poor population of the
nation. Nearly half of all African-American children and over
two-fifths of Hispanic-American children live in such households.
Families in Crisis. One result of the economic and social changes
described above is severe stress upon poor and very poor families.
Parental: stress is often manifested in the form of family violence.
One example is child abuse and neglect, the reports of which have
almost tripled since 1980. Other reactions to family stress are
spousal abuse and divorce. Children who are abused or neglected,
whose parents become homeless, or whose families otherwise
dissolve often become involved in the foster care system.
The factors mentioned above, along with others, have contributed to the
instability of individuals and households and eventually to their
homelessness. Foster care, and the circumstances that lead up to it are
part of this complex web of structural factors that result in homelessness.
This report fürther examines one result of these structural social and
economic changes in our society -- the relationship between foster care
and homelessness.
Methodology
This study relied upon four sources of data: (1) existing research and
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reports investigating the foster care history of homeless people; (2) data
on foster care history gleaned from the intake or case management forms
of organizations that ascertain clients' foster care histories; (3) a survey
questionnaire administered, via homeless service and housing
organizations, to a sample of homeless individuals; and (4) a series of
case studies of homeless and formerly homeless people who have a foster
care history. We chose to diversify our sources of information in order to
avoid missing any critical point and to avoid over-emphasizing any
finding.
Existing Research: Studies and reports chronicling the relationship
between homelessness and foster care were examined. None of the
existing research examined was comprehensive in that none was both
national in scope and examined a broad spectrum of the homeless
population. However, existing research did point out several important
findings.
Collection of Data from Service/Housing Providers: The Alliance
collected data from 21 homeless service organizations in every region of
the country. Each organization provided client data for one winter week
and one summer week. Requested information included total number of
homeless people served, how many people had a foster care history, and
how many of both groups had children in foster care. Data were received
on 1,134 individuals.
Data from Sample Survey of Homeless Individuals: The Alliance
worked with 40 homeless service and housing providers to distribute
survey questionnaires to their clients and tenants. The questionnaires
were to be self-administered. The surveys were designed to ascertain the
individual's foster care history, their children's foster care history, and
demographic information. 1,209 completed survey questionnaires were
received by the Alliance.
Case Studies: Ten case studies were conducted in order to discover the
process by which someone becomes homeless; the length of time
between foster care emancipation and homelessness; any relationship
between mental illness, alcohol and other substance abuse illness and
foster care placement and homelessness; and other issues.
Results of the Research
As discussed àbove, four different sources of information were tapped in
this research. The Executive Summary contains a compilation of the
major findings from all sources. Following is more specific information
obtained from each source. Results are organized according to the source
of information. The Appendix (published separately) contains actual
data.
Search of Existing Data
In our search of the literature we found no research on the connection
between foster care and homelessness which examined a full spectrum of
the homeless populations (veterans, families, singles, racial groups, etc.)
and was national in scope. However, there were many more restricted
studies, using non-representative samples, that examined the convergence
of foster care and homelessness.
Several of these studies support the finding that there is an
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over-representation of people with a foster care history in the
homeless population. For example, Piliavin et al[2] found that of 331
homeless adults in Minnesota, 38.6% reported childhood placement in
foster care, as opposed to 2% of the general population. Susser et al[3]
found that of 223 men entering the New York City shelter system for the
first time, 23% reported being placed in, "foster care, group homes, other
special residences. " In a study of 1,228 New York City families, 10%
of heads of households had been placed in foster care homes as children,
and 10% reported having lived in a group home or institution. [4]
A key New York City study found that there may be an
intergenerational cycle of foster care among homeless families. [5]
"Homeless parents who had grown up in substitute care were almost
twice as likely as parents with no such history to see their own children
placed into the [foster care] system." 27% of homeless parents with a
history of foster care had children in foster care versus 15% of homeless
parents with no such history.
Other studies examined various trends among the subpopulations of
homeless adults. Owen et al[6] found that in Minnesota, rural or urban
residence made very little difference in the likelihood that a homeless
person would have experienced foster care. Examining several types of
rural facilities for homeless people, they found that 20% of the people in
transitional housing had a childhood foster care experience; 20% of the
women in battered women's shelters; and 13% of those in emergency
shelters. In urban Minnesota, the numbers were 21% in transitional
housing; nearly 22% in the battered women's shelters; and 26% in
emergency shelters.
Homeless women were found to be more likely to have experienced
foster care (17%) than men (10%) in a study of 1,400 homeless people in
northern California. [7] Among men, Davis and Winkleby[8] examined
the issue in light of ethnic or racial affiliation. They found that homeless
Caucasian men were most likely to have experienced foster care (13%),
followed by native-born Hispanic men (10%) and African-American men
(7%). Winkleby and Fleshin found that 12% of homeless veterans had
a foster care history. Rosenheck and Fontanal 10] found that foster care
had a, "significant direct relationship to homelessness," among veterans.
Homeless youth are also more likely to have been in foster care at some
time in their lives. In a Chicago study it was found that 45% of
homeless youth interviewed reported that they had been wards of the
Department of Child and Family Services.
Physical and mental health problems also interact in the homelessness
and foster care equation. Those homeless people with physical or mental
health problems seem to have higher rates of childhood foster care
placement than those without these problems. Winkleby and White[12]
found that homeless adults with substance abuse illness, physical health
problems or history of psychiatric hospitalization when they first became
homeless were more likely to have been in foster care (13.3%) than those
not reporting such disorders (8.2%). Susser et al [13] found that for
homeless people with a history of psychiatric treatment, 15% had been in
foster care and an additional 10% in group homes.
Some research demonstrates that childhood placement in foster care has
an affect upon the nature of adult homelessness. For example, Piliavin et
al [14] found that childhood placement in foster care substantially
increased the length of a person's homeless experience.
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Many of these reports examine or speculate upon what causes this
connection between foster care and homelessness. In summary, they
point to the following.
The foster care system can fail to adequately deal with problems
caused by sexual or physical abuse, or troubled or dysfunctional
families.
The foster care system can fail to adequately deal with physical or
mental health problems of children.
Caregivers assigned by the foster care system can be abusive.
Multiple placements can preclude the development of nurturing
bonds that have been shown to be critical to normal personal
development.
Institutionalization can be established as the normative life style for
children in the foster care system.
Children in foster care may be unable to establish support networks
that can carry over into adulthood.
The foster care system can fail to help its wards achieve
educational and training goals.
Foster care may improperly prepare children for emancipation.
Children in foster care may have difficulty making the transition
from a dependence mode to an independence mode.
Data Collected from Service/Housing Providers
Information was received from 21 organizations concerning 1,134 people
participating in their programs during two, one-week periods during
1994. The data was compiled from case files. Of those homeless
individuals for whom data was obtained:
36.2% had a foster care history.
Of those with a foster care history who were parents, 77% had at
least one child who had a foster care history or was in foster care.
Of those without a foster care history who were parents, 27% had
at least one child who had a foster care history or was in foster
care.
Data From Homeless Individuals
Data was collected directly from 1,209 clients and tenants via a
self-administered survey questionnaire. Of those surveyed in this
manner:
9% reported having lived in a foster care or group home. [15]
43% reported having lived outside of their home when they were
children.
16% of the respondents who were parents and had a foster care
history had their children in foster care or a group home versus 7%
of those who did not have a foster care history.
23% of mixed race homeless people reported a foster care history;
13% of Native American people; 12% of Caucasian homeless
people; 8% of African-American homeless people; and 5.3% of
Hispanic homeless people.
13% of female homeless respondents reported a foster care or
group home history versus 7% of male respondents.
Case Studies
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Ten case studies were conducted around the country. All were arranged
by service or housing provider organizations. The case studies show us
many things that empirical data does not, most fundamentally how foster
care fits into the homelessness experience. Case study synopses are
scattered throughout this report and the full case studies appear in the
Appendix (published under separate cover). Following are some of the
findings from the case studies.
The foster care system often fails to provide children with any type
of therapy to help them to address the problems that brought them
into the system in the first place. These problems include the
effects of sexual and physical abuse, family dissolution, alcohol
and substance abusing parents, abandonment or being orphaned, as
well as their own behavioral problems.
Foster care placements can, themselves, be abusive situations.
Several of the respondents were sexually and physically abused in
their foster families.
Children in foster care may fail to learn the nature of stable family
life.
Children in foster care may never experience unconditional
acceptance and love. This may result in feelings of insecurity and
self doubt, both when they are children and as adults.
Multiple placements (either in the foster care system or in a
mixture of official and unofficial placements) can teach children
that the way to deal with problems is simply to exit the situation --
go somewhere new.
Multiple placements seem to inhibit the ability of the foster care
system to provide treatment to children for their disturbances or
illnesses.
Foster care may not prepare children for independent living.
Frequently, alcohol and substance abuse illness interacts with
foster care and homelessness. Several respondents describe using
alcohol and drugs to escape their problems. One described abusing
substances as another way of running away from his problems.
Children recognize the difference between parents and foster
parents, who are paid to take care of them.
Foster care can fail to help people develop networks of support that
they can use when they fall upon hard times as adults.
People who have had a foster care history often manage to hold
things together for a while after they become adults, but many
eventually find themselves unprepared to maintain residential
stability.
People who were in foster care as children may find their own
children placed in foster care or in unofficial out-of-home
placements.
Some people, especially those who were in foster care for a limited
time, were pleased to have been removed from unbearable
situations and felt foster care had done its job. In at least one case,
this reassured a parent that it could be beneficial to place her own
children in foster care.
Summary
All sources of data support the primary finding that people with a foster
care history are over-represented in the homeless population. Numerous
sources, including the data collected from individual homeless people,
indicate that there is an intergenerational aspect to the problem. Also
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there is a strong indication that unofficial placements with relatives and
friends often supplement official placements and lead to a series of
multiple placements which can be very disruptive to a child's
development.
The sources also indicate some interesting demographic and causal
factors. Among homeless people, women are more likely to have a foster
care history than men and Caucasians are more likely than Hispanic
people or African-American people to have a foster care history. Some
subpopulations of the homeless population, including youth and veterans,
also exhibit a tendency to have disproportionate representation of foster
care histories.
The research does not indicate that foster care, itself, causes
homelessness. Rather, foster care seems usually to be one element in a
complex web of familial, social and institutional failures that affect some
children. All indications are that this web of failures occurs more often
for poor children. The result is that by the time children become adults,
they are unable to establish independent households or to maintain
residential stability, and have fewer economic and social supports to fall
back on.
One way to prevent people from becoming homeless is to intervene when
they are children and before they become caught up in this structural web
of failure. Foster care is designed to intervene in this way for children.
Obviously, for some children, its intervention is not adequate. The
Alliance recommends working first to strengthen at-risk families. If
children do enter the foster care system, they should be moved through it
and out into a stable residential situation as soon as possible. The foster
care system was not meant to provide long term care. Clearly, when it
does so, one result can be homelessness.
CASE STUDIES
Absence of a nurturing family life leads to low self esteem.
Latasha
Birmingham, Alabama
[The foster care system] pretty much called me a nuisance.
Latasha is a 24 year old white female. She has never been married,
has no children and has a ninth grade education. She has been
homeless. periodically since she was emancipated from foster care at
age 18. She currently lives at a hotel where she is in training for a job
cleaning rooms.
Latasha was taken from her birth parents at 4 years of age because of
physical and sexual abuse. She was placed in a foster home where she
remained until she was 13. Although she thinks of her foster parents as
her family, she never felt fully accepted by them. And in fact, when she
was 13 she began to drink and her foster parents asked to have her
removed from their home. She lived for the next 5 years in a series of
institutional settings, moving from group homes to mental hospitals, to
emergency rooms to half-way houses. She repeatedly tried to commit
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suicide and abused drugs and alcohol. Basically, this way of life
continued after emancipation, except that the group homes were replaced
by the streets or by homeless facilities. Although she currently has a job,
which also provides her with a place to live, her situation does not appear
overly stable.
Multiple placements interfere with treatment.
Michael
Birmingham, Alabama
I just left [my living situation]. The plan was to get away from all
the problems
Michael is a 29 year old white male, employed and living in his own
apartment. He was homeless some six years ago.
Michael's parents divorced when he was five. His father had custody, but
he lived with various relatives until he was 11 when he finally moved in
with his father. When he was 13 he was removed from this home because
of sexual abuse by his father.
From age 13 until he ran away at age 16, he had a series of foster
placements too numerous to count. Some were emergency placements,
some were group homes, two were long term placements that eventually
asked to have him removed because of his behavior. Although he feels
that he had problems controlling his emotions during this period, he
never received any therapy. This seems to have been due primarily to his
constant movement from placement to placement.
Michael found himself in a bad situation after he ran away at age 16, and
he got in touch with the State office of child welfare to ask for help. He
was informed that he had been dropped from their files -- this despite the
fact that he was still a minor. Left on his own, he began to abuse alcohol
and drugs. Although he held things together for quite a while, working
and going to school, eventually everything fell apart. He wandered the
country, became homeless and intermittently abused substances and tried
to commit suicide. Finally he hit bottom and had a personal realization
that he needed, and wanted, to pull his life together. He has now
reclaimed his life with excellent prospects.
Children in foster care may not learn how to live independently.
Dan
Portland, Oregon
I think the best way for me to have grown up would have been to
have a decent mother and father raise me.
Dan is a 24 year old white male living with his girlfriend and her two
children. He has just been released from prison.
Dan's father was sentenced to prison on a murder and robbery conviction
just before Dan's birth. Until he was eight, Dan moved around the
country staying with family members. His day-to-day care was the
responsibility of his much-resented older sister.
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At eight, Dan received his first in a series of placements in group homes
and juvenile treatment facilities. He seems to have been an "open case"
until he was 16 when he ran away to the street, joining a group or gang he
called the Brotherhood. He describes the Brotherhood as his only real
family. He continued to live on the streets until he was 19, supported by
his association with the Brotherhood and intermittently utilizing various
programs for troubled and street youth.
At 19 Dan was convicted of armed robbery and spent the next five years
in several correctional facilities. He does not have a negative view of this
experience, in part because many of his friends from the Brotherhood
were also in the correctional system.
Dan is now living in a substandard apartment with his girlfriend and her
children. She has recently completed a substance abuse program. He is
not using drugs, but is selling them until he finds employment.
Drugs and alcohol interact in the relationship between foster care and
homelessness.
Sara
Seattle, Washington
I really have a lot of anger and hostility about what happened. I
think it really caused my sister and I to have a lot of problems in
later life.
Sara is a 39 year old white, female single parent. She lives in a
transitional apartment with her 15 year old son, and is moving to a
permanent apartment shortly. Sara has been substance free for three
months, and she and her son, who is also in recovery, are struggling
to remain "clean and sober."
Sara lived with her mother and two sisters in public housing until she was
seven when her mother was hospitalized for a nervous breakdown. Sara
and her sisters were placed with a foster family 40 miles away. While in
foster care, she has only vague memories of being visited by a case
worker, and no recollection of any real discussion with him.
This is especially notable because Sara was sexually abused by the
natural son of her foster parents. She reported this to her foster mother
and to the police, but her pleas fell on deaf ears. She was full of rage
about the situation.
At age ten the sisters were reunited with their mother, who soon
remarried. The relationship with her parents was stormy and Sara
eventually moved in with a friend's family. A period of abusive
marriages, alcohol and drugs ensued. At twenty-five, and on her third
husband, Sara had her son Michael. The cycle of substance abuse and
treatment continued. During one difficult period, she placed Michael with
her mother. Eventually she and Michael became homeless. Michael
dropped out of school, became a member of a gang, and used and sold
drugs. Sara has recently been diagnosed as manic depressive. She and
Michael are in recovery.
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Foster care placements can, themselves, be abusive situations.
Gina
Washington, D.C.
I was not putting my children in foster care; I was not giving
them up.
Gina is a 38 year old African-American mother of five and
grandmother of two. She has been homeless, but recently moved into
a five bedroom home.
Gina was abandoned at birth and placed in a loving foster home for five
years. When her foster mother became ill, Gina was sent to their relative's
home where she was tormented by the family's ten children and sexually
molested by the father and older sons. Her foster mother died when Gina
was 13 and she was officially placed with this abusive family. The
sexual, and soon physical, abuse continued and Gina's pleas for help went
unheard. At age 15 she moved in with some friends and was allowed to
stay. She was stable for two years.
As an adult, Gina began having children and eventually this resulted in
her being evicted from her apartment for overcrowding. This was the
beginning of a cycle of homelessness and drug abuse. She was
determined, because of her own horrible experiences, that her children
would never be put in foster care. However, her drug abuse eventually
overcame her. Her children were placed with a foster family.
After hitting bottom, Gina got herself into a recovery program and
eventually back on her feet. With help from numerous homeless
programs, she has regained custody of her children and moved into a
stable home.
1. Foster care is defined in this document as publicly supported
out-of-home placements, including those in group homes. Back to
text.
2. Piliavin, I., R. Matsueda, M. Sosin & H. Westerfelt. "The Duration
of Homeless Careers: An Exploratory Study." Social Service
Review, 1990. Back to text.
3. Susser, E., A. Conover & E. Streuning. "Childhood Experiences of
Homeless Men." American Journal of Psychiatry, Vol 144,
1987. Back to text.
4. Knickman, J. & C. Weitzman. "A Study of Homeless Families in
New York City: Risk Assessment Models and Strategies." Health
Research Program, New York University, New York City,
Monograph, Vol. 1, 1989, p. 18. Back to text.
5. Homelessness: The Foster Care Connection. Institute for Children
and Poverty, New York City, Vol 2, Issue 1, 1992. Back to text.
6. Owen, G., J. Heineman & M. Decker. "Homelessness in
Minnesota: Homeless Adults and Their Children -- Final Report."
Wilder Research Center, Monograph, 1992. Back to text.
7. Winkleby, M., B. Rockhill, D. Jatulis & S. Fortmann. "The
Medical Origins of Homelessness." American Journal of Public
Health, Vol. 82, No. 10, 1992. Back to text.
8. Davis, L. and M. Winkleby. "Sociodemographic and
Health-Related Risk Factors Among African-American, Caucasian
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and Hispanic Homeless Men: A Comparative Study." Journal of
Social Distress and the Homeless, Vol 2, No., 2, 1993. Back to text.
9. Winkleby, M. and D. Fleshin. "Physical, Addictive and
Psychiatric Disorders Among Homeless Veterans and
Nonveterans." Public Health Reports, Vol. 108, No.1, 1993. Back
to text.
10. Rosenheck, R. and A. Fontana. "A Model of Homelessness
Among Male Veterans of the Vietnam War Generation."
American Journal of Psychiatry, 151:3, 1994. Back to text.
11. "Alone After Dark: A Survey of Homeless Youth in Chicago."
Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, Report, 1991. Back to text.
12. Winkleby, M. and R. White. "Homeless Adults Without Apparent
Medical and Psychiatric Impairment: Onset of Morbidity Over
Time." Hospital and Community Psychiatry, Vol. 43, No. 10,
1992. Back to text.
13. Susser, E., A. Conover & E. Streuning. "Childhood Antecedents of
Homelessness in Psychiatric Patients." American Journal of
Psychiatry, Vol. 148:8, August, 1991. Back to text.
14. Piliavin (1990), op.cit. Back to text.
15. We believe that the discrepancy between data collected by the
service providers and that collected in self-administered
questionnaires was due to the different methods of administering
the questionnaire. It is our suspicion that people under-reported
their foster care history on self-administered questionnaires either
because of misunderstanding or unwillingness to divulge
information. In light of this, the Alliance maintains that the 9%
represents a baseline figure in understanding the
over-representation of people with a foster care history among the
homeless population. That is, a minimum of 9% of homeless
people are likely to have been in foster care as children. Back to text.
Back to Publications and Resources.
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The Times-Picayune
December 27, 1998 Sunday, ORLEANS
EX-FOSTER CHILDREN EXIT SYSTEM WITH FEW SKILLS, LITTLE SUPPORT
BYLINE: By Beth Frerking Newhouse News Service
Alfred Perez, 21, a former foster youth in California, is a classic example of beating the odds. He
survived an abusive mother and, later, taunts from fellow foster youths (for being a bookworm) to
graduate from San Jose State University and get a job helping foster children.
He is an exception, unfortunately.
In one of the only studies of its kind, researchers at the University of Wisconsin in Madison have found
that young adults who are a year to 18 months out of foster care have lower rates of education and
employment, and are more likely to have been jailed, homeless and victimized than their peers in
general.
The study revealed a vast gulf between how prepared these youths thought they were when it came to
the skills of daily living -- how to find a job or get an apartment -- and how successful they were once on
their own.
Mark Courtney and Irving Piliavin, at the university's School of Social Work and Institute for Research
on Poverty, began interviewing about 140 foster youths who were still in the system in 1995, and then
followed up 12 to 18 months after their release from the system.
All had been in foster care for at least 18 months prior to emancipation. Nine of 10 said they believed
their placement in foster care was necessary, and most had a positive attitude toward the system.
While still in care, most had high hopes for their futures. Eight out of 10 said they expected to enter
college. Two-thirds reported feeling prepared to get a job and find a place to live.
But a mere year to 18 months later, they met a distressing reality. Nearly 40 percent hadn't completed
high-school. Only 9 percent attended college. Nearly a quarter had lived in at least four different places
since their release from foster care and 12 percent had been literally homeless at least once, living
either on the streets or in a shelter.
Only about half had jobs, and those who had jobs, on average, earned less than the minimum wage.
A quarter of the young men, and 15 percent of the women, reported serious physical victimization,
described as being "beaten up, choked, strangled or smothered, attacked with a weapon, tied up, held
down or blindfolded" against their will.
Additionally, one of every 10 of the women reported having been sexually assaulted.
One-fifth had been jailed at least once, including a quarter of the men and 10 percent of the women.
Courtney believes the study is especially telling, since it included former foster youth from all over
Wisconsin -- not only those from the most beleaguered Milwaukee neighborhoods.
Contrast these foster youths to middle-class and blue-collar kids who use their parents' homes as a
backstop between college (or high school) and that first job, Courtney said. The-findings provide bleak>
(illustrations- of how the-lack of family support can mean the difference between a safe place to sleep and
living on the streets.
"These kids are really disabled in many ways by the system," he said.
Courtney was being only slightly facetious when he said, "In many places, you get a better deal coming
out of prison than coming out of foster care. " Ex-cons often get probation officers, "gate money" and a
temporary bed in a
halfway house.
And sadly, many of these youths may be headed for prison. As Courtney and his colleagues wrote in
the report: "Policy makers interested in crime prevention would be hard pressed to find a group at higher
risk of incarceration than the males in our sample.
"In short," they continued, "it appears that the glass is little more than half full for the bulk of the young
adults we interviewed and near empty for many of the rest."