In response to one of the posts on our charity’s Forever Homes for Foster Kids Facebook page about foster kids aging out, one commenter wrote, “Why not help them instead of posting about it?” You can almost feel the frustration -- and perhaps anger -- coming from this person about the terrible outcome that roughly 20,000 foster kids annually experience once they age out.
Many, if not most, people are not aware of the challenges facing foster teens once they age out of the current system. These include:
- 20 to 30% will become homeless.
- Almost half must find ways to complete their high school education while searching for food and safe shelter.
- Nearly 50% of female foster teens will become pregnant by age 19.
- Some foster kids become sex trafficking victims in as little as six hours from the time they leave their foster or group home.
Recent changes and proposals in some states allow kids to stay in the system longer than 18 in order to help them finish high school and/or get into college. Even so, foster kids still face many financial challenges as such having money or landing a job to afford food, a room or apartment, clothes and transportation. This lack of income for thousands of youths has led to a growing focus by federal and state agencies on helping these foster kids once they leave the system. A handful of states are already aiming to establish programs to aid former foster kids until they turn 25. Additionally, more non-profits are springing up or expanding their existing programs to encompass these aged out children.
With the coronavirus hitting the U.S. hard, many agencies across the country are scrambling to find ways to keep foster youths in place, or find other accommodations so they aren’t added to a vulnerable, potentially infection-carrying homeless population. It is important to ensure that aging out youths are cared for. After all, we make a societal commitment to each child who is removed from their parents or guardian, no matter the reason, and placed under government care. Yet is the foster care system really doing its best to help these tens of thousands of kids before they age out? Sadly no.
The problem is that agencies are choosing to put the majority of their budgets toward foster parent recruitment and retention. The decision to focus a high percentage of energy and finance on foster parents may sound like a good idea, but the concept is flawed. The need for foster parents will always be greater than the supply because adults who foster a child will inevitably grow too old for the job, become ill, move to another county, adopt a child, or quit the program.
However, a faster and better solution to give these kids a chance at an improved, brighter future is the underused and often ignored help of family finding.
What is family finding? It is a process based on a simple premise: actively identify and locate as many adult relatives of the foster child as possible. From this pool of family members, it is likely that at least one adult will step up and take in the child or, at the very least, offer to be a part of the child’s life and to provide some form of family support. Here’s the best part, though: It only takes one relative, preferably a parent of course, but even an aunt, adult cousin, or grandparent to completely change the life of a foster child.
Our charity, Forever Homes for Foster Kids, helps foster kids by performing this family finding work and locating those relatives who do very often take in the child, getting them out of foster care. Others kids can be adopted because we locate an absent birth mother or father who then decides to give up their parental rights, which then allows a stalled adoption to be completed.
We have always felt that it makes much more sense to have a child back with their family where they have love, stability and a much greater chance at finishing high school, going to college, and graduating. The alternatives for roughly 80% of aged out foster kids are becoming homeless, ending up in prison, being a sex trafficking victim, or dying on the streets.
Because of our work, hundreds of foster kids aren't having to worry about finding a place to live and figuring out, every day, how they're going to get enough food to eat because they now have a forever home with people who love and support them. This is the path our charity has chosen to help foster children. While I understand the frustration, even the anger, of the person who made the comment about “doing something,” our chosen activity is precisely aimed at getting foster kids out of the system and back to their families.
The foster care crisis cannot be solved by just one charity or government agency. The system is vast and in need of multiple solutions because each child is unique. Every foster child deserves to have an outcome that is best for who they are rather than choosing something that works best for those responsible for caring for these children. Agencies must look inward at their process and management and search out ways to innovate so that our foster children are cared for now. Transitional programs and those to help aged-out foster youths are part of the solution, but the primary effort must come from a combination of family finding coupled with good foster parent programs. Foster children deserve our best now.
Owner/Editor - Chris Chmielewski