Five Areas of Critical Needs

The key areas to address are housing, education, employment, mental and behavioral health, and permanency.

1. Housing

Housing is perhaps the most immediate need for emancipating youth. Many have been in the system for years and have no resources to obtain housing. Additionally, affordable housing is frequently not available.

What can be done?

Cities and counties can help address this critical need by:

1. Ensuring that there are a variety of affordable and safe housing options and choices for youth aging out of care.
2. Establishing policies to give priority for emancipated foster youth in subsidized housing.
3. Requiring housing agencies to leverage THP Plus Transitional Housing and Proposition 1-C funds and EPSDT funds. (See glossary for definitions)
4. Be aware of the number of youth who emancipate each year in your community their demographics and individual needs.

2. Education

Youth in foster care often have difficulty accumulating credits for high school graduation. Changes in placement mean changes in schools. Often credits from one district and/or school do not match those of another. Sometimes youth are not in a school long enough to complete a course. Other times the education they receive in a group home does not meet state standards. Although law requires the expedient transfer of student record, it frequently takes weeks or months for school records to be transferred from one district to the next. County offices of education have foster youth liaisons, as do some schools and districts. Their job is to ensure the educational needs of foster youth are met. However, at the school level this is a duty added to many others held by a teacher or other staff member and the time is insufficient for them to be fully attentive to the needs of foster youth.

AB 490, passed in 2004, is intended to improve public school procedures so that foster youth have a better chance to succeed in school. The bill intends to minimize the need for youth changing schools unnecessarily, requires that partial credits be given for work completed and that school records be transferred between schools within 2 days. The bill also requires designation of a foster youth education liaison in each district. Unfortunately, its implementation is uneven across the state.

What can be done?

Schools, cities and counties can improve educational outcomes for foster youth when they:

1. Comply with quality implementation of AB 490
2. Provide supplemental supportive services to foster youth.
3. Coach guardians and youth on meeting high school graduation requirements, college admissions requirements and on available resources including outreach and recruitment of foster youth into AVID programs. (See glossary for definition)
4. Cross train child welfare and school administrators and teachers on what information can be shared and what should remain confidential.
5. Partner with institutions of higher learning to supply mentoring/tutoring to foster youth. Consider programs such as the Guardian Scholars Program, which helps with financial aid, tutoring, preferential registration, and year-round housing.
6. Give foster youth priority for enrichment and other programs.
7. Ensure that non-public schools serving foster youth meet state and district educational standards.

3. Employment

Many foster youth are not prepared for the world of work when they leave foster care. They may not have had opportunities to develop employable skills or to have experience in a job. Foster youth typically earn far less than their non-foster peers.

What can be done?

There is a role for both cities and counties in addressing the employment needs of foster youth. They should ensure foster youth have meaningful employment and job skills training opportunities before aging-out of the system by:

1. Develop programs with local businesses, cities, counties and school districts and higher education to hire foster youth.
2. Train and provide incentives for youth in meeting job expectations, such as being on time and appropriately dressed.
3. Link Workforce Investment Act programs, high schools and community colleges with Independent Living Programs to coordinate outreach, recruitment and support of foster youth in career technical education and employment pathways
4. Provide paid internships in city and county departments
5. Make workforce development services youth friendly.

4. Mental & Behavioral Health

Seventy-five percent of children are in foster care due to their parents’ substance abuse. Children in these families frequently suffer serious emotional and behavioral problems, and they themselves will frequently exhibit a tendency to choose risky behavior, including the use of alcohol or other drugs later in life.

Youth in foster care have higher rates of mental health issues than other youth. Substance abuse is common. They need help in learning to identify their behavior and in thinking as an adult before they leave the system.

What can be done?

1. Allocate mental & behavioral health resources for foster youth in care as well as post-emancipation.
2. Address addiction issues.
3. Offer services to youth in after-school hours.

Fully utilize EPSDT funds (the child health component of Medicaid, the primary source of mental health services funding for former foster youth under the age of 21

5. Permanency

Regina Louise Ollison former foster youth and author of Somebody’s Someone points out that you are never too old to be adopted. She herself was finally adopted at age 41. All foster youth who emancipate need to be "somebody’s someone".

When foster youth were asked what permanency meant to them they said things like: someone to share special occasions and issues with, your picture on someone’s refrigerator, your side of the church is full at your wedding, someone to call when good things happen, or someone who will not let you not call.

What Can Be Done?

1. Adopt the permanency pledge (See www.cpyp.org) and utilize school, city and county communications to help families understand opportunities for providing permanency.
2. Develop programs, such as FosterClub’s Permanency Pact that creates a formalized facilitated process to connect youth in foster care with a supportive adult.
3. Utilize kinship databases and connect foster youth to living relatives. Develop procedures and train county child welfare staff in use of the software and in the procedures.