Should Children in Foster Care Receive Help After Turning 18?
Many states are beginning to realize that children from the foster care system "might" need help after they turn 18. The Florida Divorce Law Blog reports that the premise of helping foster kids beyond the day they turn 18 is taking hold in at least 17 states across the nation.
The New York Times reports that many states are expanding efforts to help young adults prepare for life outside the system, offering transitional housing, education, medical care and mentoring as they step out on their own, sometimes to age 21 or even beyond.
The American Bar Association supports a universal option for children to remain in foster care until age 21. A study conducted by the Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago indicates that those who remain in foster care longer are faring better than those who leave at 18.
Those advocating additional services point out that most young adults in our country are not prepared to fend for themselves on their 18th birthdays. They believe that foster kids are even less prepared by virtue of being raised in foster care, and that explains why so many end up in jail, shelters and unrelenting poverty.
Of course, others claim that youths do not benefit from others taking too much care of them, because they are deprived of the opportunities and experiences that come from caring for themselves. You can read more about this complex issue in the New York Times article "Offering Help for Former Foster Care Youths".
Source: Thanks to Janet Langjahr of the Florida Divorce Law Blog for her post "Foster Care: Is the Job Complete on Youths’ 18th Birthdays?" on this subject.
The New York Times reports that many states are expanding efforts to help young adults prepare for life outside the system, offering transitional housing, education, medical care and mentoring as they step out on their own, sometimes to age 21 or even beyond.
The American Bar Association supports a universal option for children to remain in foster care until age 21. A study conducted by the Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago indicates that those who remain in foster care longer are faring better than those who leave at 18.
Those advocating additional services point out that most young adults in our country are not prepared to fend for themselves on their 18th birthdays. They believe that foster kids are even less prepared by virtue of being raised in foster care, and that explains why so many end up in jail, shelters and unrelenting poverty.
Of course, others claim that youths do not benefit from others taking too much care of them, because they are deprived of the opportunities and experiences that come from caring for themselves. You can read more about this complex issue in the New York Times article "Offering Help for Former Foster Care Youths".
Source: Thanks to Janet Langjahr of the Florida Divorce Law Blog for her post "Foster Care: Is the Job Complete on Youths’ 18th Birthdays?" on this subject.
I have several questions in regards to this manner.
1. Why should we entrust an agency that may have been the root cause of the social inability of the young adults to be part of the rehabilitative action?
2. Who would provide oversight over the actions of the department? Or, would the present lack of oversight continue?
3. This sounds vaguely like a attempt to grab more federal dollars, and have the uses of the money hidden from public view. Just which politicians are supporting this, so I know who not to vote for?
3. Would the young adults have the ability to sue the department for mismanagement, or would the SS department workers retain thier present vaguely masked imunity?
As a former foster child who aged out of the system solo, www.sunshinegirlonarainyday.com , I don't think that helping foster youth make the transition to adulthood 'deprives them of opportunities and experiences of caring for themselves.'
After all, according to Children's Rights, half of young adults ages 18-24 in the United States who do NOT grow up in foster care live at home with their parents.
Young people in foster care have already survived harsh circumstances, such as neglect, abuse and/or abandonment.
Afterwards, they are expected to leave the foster care system and transition to the adult world, without the knowledge, skills, experience, attitudes, habits, and relationships that will enable them to be productive and connected members of society.
More often than not, teens in foster care are not equipped to find gainful employment. Many have untreated physical and mental health needs, and no health insurance. Most have no housing options. Some have no immigration status.
Speaking personally, I didn't know how to cook when I aged out of foster care. I had no medical insurance. It was only after finishing both college and graduate school that I bought my first car and, with the help of a friend, taught myself how to drive.
I want more than that for my children (I am married with two stepdaughters), and I want more than that for young people who are currently in the foster care system and preparing to age out of it,
Lisa
The real question is and should be, does a state have the right after a mother has signed her rights away to other children and then have another one, should they be allowed to step in a take an infant child from the mother and then lock her up for false allegations? It has happened in Newton County in Missouri, this is the 4th time that the system has been involved in this 1 paricular family, we need help to get this stopped and taken out of missouris hands