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Time for Reform
Preventing Youth From Aging Out On Their Own


Quick Summary

Many significant improvements have been made to the foster care system over the years, and across the country, case workers and court officials have worked to facilitate better outcomes for children in the government’s care. Yet the number of foster youth aging out of care keeps rising. In 2006, the latest year for which data are available, 26,181 youth aged out of care, a 119 percent increase since 1998. On average, youth who aged out of foster care in 2006 spent five years in the system, compared with less than two years for children who left through reunification, adoption, guardianship or other means.

Time for Reform
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Report Project

Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care

Report Topic

Health Topics

Executive Summary

Foster care is a critical safety net for many neglected and abused children. Federal law directs case workers to ensure that children in foster care are returned home safely or, when that is not possible, provide safe, permanent families through adoption or guardianship. But the number of youth “aging out” or emancipating from foster care without a family continues to rise at a record pace. According to the latest available figures, more than 26,000 foster youth left the system on their own in 2006—up 119 percent since the federal government began collecting data in 1998.i About 9 percent of all children leaving foster care nationally aged out; however, in some states, the percentage is significantly higher, including Virginia (32 percent), Maine (22 percent) and Massachusetts (19 percent).ii Overall, nearly 200,000 youth have aged out of the foster care system without families they could rely on.iii Appendices A and B summarize these findings. The consequences are stark:

  • In one study, 25 percent of the foster care alumni who had aged out did not have a high school diploma or GED.iv Less than 2 percent had completed a college education, compared with 23 percent in the general population, another study found.v
  • Over half of foster care alumni who had aged out had experienced homelessness or unstable housing and nearly 30 percent had been incarcerated.vi
  • Foster care alumni who had aged out experienced disproportionate rates of unemployment or underemployment and were more likely than the general population to lack health insurance.vii

The federal government must act to improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of children in foster care and prevent their aging out with no family of their own. Specifically:

  1. The Adoption Incentive Program should be reauthorized and updated so that states receive the full amount authorized—$43 millionviii—to improve necessary child welfare services.
  2. All children, regardless of their birth parents’ income, should be eligible for federal adoption support when they leave foster care to join adoptive families.
  3. Federal support should be available for relative caregivers who become legal guardians of children in foster care.
  4. Congress should provide tribes direct access to federal Title IV-E foster care funding so they can provide critical services to American Indian children within their communities.

With these changes, the foster care system will be better equipped to place every child with a safe, permanent family and prevent youth from aging out of foster care on their own.

Table of Contents
 

Date added:
Sep 30, 2008
Project:
Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care
Topic:
Health Topics
References:
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References:

i A 2007 Kids Are Waiting Report titled “Aging Out and on Their Own” showed a 41% increase in the number of youth emancipating or "aging out" from foster care from 1998-2005. Revised data now available from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data Systems (NCANDS), a federal data warehouse, shows the 1998 to 2005 increase was 102%. For the period between 1998 and 2006, there is a 119% increase in the number of youth aging out of foster care.
ii Mark Courtney, Amy Dworsky, Gretchen Cusick, Judy Havlicek, Alfred Perez, Tom Keller, “Midwest Evaluation of the Adult Functioning of Former Foster Youth: Outcomes at Age 21.” Chapin Hall Center for Children, University of Chicago, (December 2007): 68-70.
iii Peter Pecora, Ronald Kessler, Jason Williams, Kirk O’Brien, Chris Downs, Diana English, James White, Eva Hiripi, Catherine White, Tamera Wiggins, & Kate Holmes, “Improving Foster Family Care: Findings from the Northwest Foster Care Alumni Study.” Casey Family Programs, (2005). http://www.casey.org/Resources/Publications/NorthwestAlumniStudy.htm (accessed August 15, 2008).
iv M.B. Kushel, I. H. Yen, L. Gee, & M.E. Courtney, “Homelessness and Health Care Access After Emancipation: Results From the Midwest Evaluation of Adult Functioning of Former Foster Youth.” Archives of Pediatric Medicine 161 no. 10 (2007).
[iv] Peter Pecora et al. “Improving Foster Family Care: Findings from the Northwest Foster Care Alumni Study.” v National Conference on State Legislatures, “Reauthorization of the Adoption Incentive Payments Program.” (December 2003). http://www.ncsl.org/programs/cyf/adoptact.htm (accessed August 20, 2008).
vi US Department of Health and Human Services. The AFCARS Report: Preliminary Estimates for FY 2006 as of January 2008. http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/stats_research/afcars/tar/report14.htm (accessed August 20, 2008).
vii Mark Courtney et al. “Midwest Evaluation of the Adult Functioning of Former Foster Youth: Outcomes at Age 21.”
viii Peter Pecora et al. “Improving Foster Family Care: Findings from the Northwest Foster Care Alumni Study.”

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