Your community can help former foster youth – particularly those aging out of foster care – with the support needed to help them transition to adulthood and protect them from experiences like homelessness and trafficking.
[Editor’s Note: This National Foster Care Month, we are looking at the state of foster care through three lenses – before, during and beyond – to assess what strategic actions make an impact in each unique area. This is the third article in that series. You can read the first and the second articles here.]
Foster care itself is only the middle of the story for children and families who experience the world of child welfare. To truly transform all the “not enoughs” of foster care in your community, the goal is more than enough for children and families before, during, and beyond foster care.
To reach more than enough, our communities can strategically play chess and fill the gaps that will make the biggest difference for children and families. At the beginning of the story – before foster care – your community can rally around children and families to prevent them from being separated. During foster care, your community can support foster and kinship families, caseworkers, and biological families to reduce the shortage of foster families.
Similarly, your community can make a tangible difference to help in the direction life takes for children and families at the end of the story – beyond foster care.
Beyond foster care: Life after foster youth turn 18 years old
For biological families who have been reunited, many of the same types of relational and practical support designed to keep families together before foster care is necessary can help families stay together after reunification. And when reunification isn’t possible, our communities can rally around adoptive families using many of the same practices that are helpful to foster and kinship families during foster care. For young adults who have experienced foster care, more tailored forms of support are essential.
After foster care, your community can support former foster youth – particularly those who age out of foster care – with practical and relational support to help them transition to adulthood and protect them from experiences like homelessness and human trafficking.
First and foremost, we care for former foster youth as a response to God’s call to love our neighbors who are vulnerable. Experiences like poverty, abuse, neglect and foster care involvement often form generational cycles. Walking alongside former foster youth to help them thrive in adulthood is both a beautiful embodiment of the love of Christ and a way of interrupting these cycles.
Former foster youth are vulnerable without relational and practical support
For former foster youth, vulnerability extends long after they turn 18. As they enter adulthood, former foster youth have to navigate the effects of trauma, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), and disruptions to the usual rhythms of growing up.
From “soft” skills like communicating with colleagues to practical skills like learning how to drive and getting a license, former foster youth face obstacles when transitioning to adulthood. And for the approximately 20,000 youth who age out of foster care without ever experiencing permanency with a biological or adopted family, they face these obstacles without the relational and material safety net of family.
Foster care and homelessness statistics
These realities can impact former foster youths’ ability to get and hold down a job, build strong relationships and community, or access social support services – all of which can contribute to high rates of poverty and homelessness.
Data shows that between 25-33% of youth and young adults experiencing homelessness had a history of foster care. In addition to youth who aged out of foster care without permanency, this percentage also includes youth who were adopted from foster care and youth who were reunified with biological families after spending time in care. And specific to youth aging out without permanency, a study of three states found between 31-46% of youth experienced homelessness at least once by age 26.
Foster care and human trafficking statistics
Current and former foster youth are also vulnerable to human trafficking. A background of trauma, family instability and abuse can make these children and young adults particularly vulnerable to the tactics traffickers use to exploit victims.
As trafficking is a difficult crime to identify and measure, there is limited data about the connection between experiencing foster care and human trafficking. But in 2020, of the children who ran away from the care of social services and were reported to the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, an estimated 19% were likely victims of child sex trafficking. At the state level, a study of Illinois investigations into child trafficking allegations showed that 28% of the children involved had experienced out-of-home care prior to, during or after the reported trafficking.
How to help youth aging out of foster care
While most states offer extended foster care services for youth after they turn 18, young adults often need community and relational support to actually access these services. Many benefits like free college tuition are underutilized because youth don’t know they exist or need guidance navigating the application processes. And youth on the verge of homelessness or other crises need more immediate help than what these benefits are designed to offer.
The Body of Christ is uniquely equipped to provide both practical and relational support to help youth aging out of foster care.
Organizations like Immerse Arkansas provide youth with access to emergency shelter, meals, laundry and more to meet their immediate tangible needs, while also connecting them to mentors and coaches, jobs preparedness and parenting classes, and long-term supportive community and reunion events.
Similarly, Connections Homes has developed a model to recruit families and mentors to walk alongside young adults – and then have youth choose which families and mentors they want to connect with, providing choice and autonomy that too few youth have experienced in their lives. Connections also has a career center in Georgia that provides everything from resume coaching to interview practice to headshots.
And across the US, local churches are providing former foster youth with relational and material support through their existing ministries – from addiction recovery programs to ministries with people who are unhoused to small groups that build relationships across generational or socio-economic differences.
Listening to the voices of former foster youth
As our communities play chess in foster care, there’s one last move that should help guide all the other moves: listening to the perspectives of former foster youth.
Former foster youth face real challenges, and many of their stories are simultaneously heartbreaking and inspiring. But they have far more to offer than just their stories.
Former foster youth have perspectives on the whole experience of foster care – before, during, and beyond – that can and should shape our programs and efforts to transform foster care. Listening to those with lived experiences will further sharpen and refine how our communities help youth aging out of foster care.
So let’s collectively keep playing chess together. Let’s focus on strategic actions to fill the gaps that will make the biggest difference for children and families before, during, and beyond foster care.
As we do, we can see the seemingly impossible “not enoughs” of foster care – not enough resources, not enough support, not enough families – transform into “more than enoughs.”
For more resources to help you work with others in your community to provide more than enough for children and families before, during and beyond foster care, explore your next steps with CAFO’s More Than Enough initiative.
