This website contains a downloadable list of 10 things that educators should know about working with students in foster care.
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This study examined youths’ experiences with the transitional planning process and the degree to which the plan mitigated homelessness after emancipation. Participants were 10 youths age 18 to 21 who emancipated from the Department of Human Services, Children and Youth in Philadelphia, PA.
The Foundation’s mission is to financially support agencies that provide programming that enhances the ability of foster youth to transition successfully to adulthood.
A review of child welfare research finds that many former foster youth go through an alarming number of placement changes and report a high rate of placement into congregate care settings and other unplanned events. Future research should take explicit account of substitute care contexts in designing and carrying out studies examining the adult outcomes of aging out foster care…
In an attempt to advance youths’ own narratives, we used critical ethnography to engage youth in sharing their perspectives on the process of ‘aging out’ of foster care. Youths expressed anxiety about their subjective experiences of ‘aging out’, including economic challenges and housing instability, loss of social support, and pressure to be self-reliant.
Using data from the Midwest Evaluation of the Adult Functioning of Former Foster Youth, a longitudinal study of youths aging out of foster care in 3 Midwestern states, and a bounds approach, we estimated the cumulative percentage of youths who become homeless during the transition to adulthood. We also estimated a discrete time hazard model that predicted first reported episode…
A classroom-based life skills training program may not be the most optimal model to support foster youth transitioning to adulthood. Further research is needed to understand the types of support that are most useful to helping youth acquire skills needed for a successful transition to adulthood.
This study provides a better understanding of the housing trajectories of young adults who exit foster care and residential programs for homeless young adults, including emergency shelters and transitional living programs. Using administrative data to follow a cohort of young adults, this study documents which housing resources are used by youth and assesses which youth may be suited for supportive housing or other specific housing resources.
This study uses a social exclusion framework to examine associations between independent living service receipt, adjudication status, and early adult outcomes for youth aging out of the U.S. foster care system. (Journal of Youth Studies)
We found that youth who aged out of care had significantly higher odds of graduating high school and enrolling in college than did reunified youth and youth who exited to guardianship, and they had similar odds as adopted youth. Earnings were similar across groups. Among aged-out (but not reunified) youth, odds of high school graduation and average earnings were higher…