Foster Care Transition

Improved Essays
Youth in Foster Care and Transition to Adulthood
Many youth are dependent on their families, receiving financial and emotional support. A youth experiencing foster care does not have the same support network making transition into adulthood challenging. Adolescents in foster care require more intensive monitoring of their health care needs in all aspects. The foster care system in the United States strives to provide care and protect both children and adolescents from their biological family primarily for reasons of neglect, abuse, and safety concerns. In an article from the Child Welfare Information Gateway (2011), child welfare is defined as a group of public and private services that are focused on ensuring all children from birth to 21
…show more content…
The goal of the foster care system is to reunify children to their biological parents or an alternative placement when reunification is not possible such as adoption, replacement with relatives-kinship care, or independent living. The effects and multiple hardships on the health and development of adolescents in foster care are fundamental to understand their transition to adulthood. Foster youth with lack of supportive networks, transitioning to adulthood can be challenging. According to Cook, & Ansell’s (1986) summary article, adolescents that have aged out of the foster care system have a harder time transitioning to independent living. There is an estimate of 26,500 youths every year, age out …show more content…
When the child welfare system is unable to find a permanent home through reunification, adoption, or legal guardianship it is one of the major reason why foster youth becomes homeless. A supportive relationship can have meaningful value to a youth having experienced foster care, whether or not the caring adult is a family member. Many are limited in their ability to connect with their assigned care giver; in addition care givers have some issues forming a stable attachment towards foster child. It is important for foster youth to obtain positive youth development by forming a healthy supportive relationship with at least one caring adult who they can always turn to in time of need. A foster youth may also encounter the challenges of being unable to continue education. Transitioning from foster care to adulthood leads to lower access and succeed in college at much lower rates (Salazar, Roe, Ullrich, & Haggerty, 2016). The absence of support from a caring adult takes down encouragement that triggers youth decision to continuing education. By not supporting youth to pursue higher education can lead to problems such as instability in financial circumstances and housing. Many struggle with alcohol, substance

Related Documents

  • Great Essays

    Essay On Foster Home

    • 961 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Foster Homes Being a foster child is hard. They have to move home’s often, and they never understand the feeling of a permanent home. In most cases, foster children are treated as government property rather than humans who do not have a family. They are moved from home to home until they reach the age of 18. At this time they are left by the system, being told that they are adults and should take care of themselves.…

    • 961 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In 2014 a child entered foster care every two minutes (Statistics, 2014). Out of the four-hundred thousand children in foster care, twenty percent of those are teenagers between the ages of sixteen and twenty (Helping Youth, 2013). Out of that twenty percent, one in five teenagers will essentially emancipate or sign them out of care if they are not adopted before the age of eighteen leaving many jobless, homeless, throwing away education, and with very little independent living skills (Helping Youth, 2013). As well, once a teen is no longer in foster care any services they may have been receiving are completely stopped; in addition, they are also left without health insurance. This is particularly alarming since statistically speaking, foster…

    • 1251 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Recent research has proven that 25% of children in the American Foster System will more than likely endure homelessness, poverty, compromised health, unemployment, and incarceration after they leave the foster system (“All Foster Care Is Not Created Equal”). Though this is true for children who aged out of the foster system in many cases it is true for the children who are currently in foster care. A lot of times foster parents neglect to do the job they are supposed to do to keep these children healthy and educated. About 40-50 percent of these children will not complete high school and about 60 percent will experience homelessness or die in about a year of aging out of the foster system. 80 percent of the prison population once was in foster care, and that girls in foster care are 600 percent more likely than the general population to become pregnant before the age of 21 (Nunn).…

    • 1312 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    DCFS Mission Statement

    • 755 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Many of the crucial services are being shut down due to lack of funding. The biggest problem DCFS is currently facing is the absence of placement for foster youth. Becoming a foster parent is very demanding. Foster parents are expected to provide a safe and nurturing home to children that have experienced different types of abuse. Foster parents have to respond to the minor’s emotional and behavior needs.…

    • 755 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    A group that addresses these needs is advantageous in reducing the persisting systemic issues that prove to be obstacles in the way of foster youth’s journey towards self-efficacy. Brown, Courtney, and McMillen (2015) found that “behavioural health needs among young people aging-out of foster care remain high upon exiting care” (p. 167), and that “youth benefit from positive interpersonal relationships with family, peers, and/or community members which lead to more encouraging outcomes…” (Graham et al., 2015, p. 76; Collins et al., 2010; Hass & Graydon, 2009; Kelin, 2012; Pecora, 2012). Positive, recurring and encouraging social and community connections provide a positive model for foster youth aging out of the system. While some foster youth aging out have managed to build positive bonds with adults, many remain disengaged from any type of social support and find themselves very isolated in terms of connections with others (Abrams & Curry, 2014).…

    • 1747 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    With research on aging out of foster care, dating back to the early 2000s, it has become very helpful in understanding the current state of youth aging out in the United States. This research allows for us to identify and understand the best practices and strategies to put into place in order to help properly prepare these youth for the independence that they may or may not have been ready for. The most recent 2016 research, better known as the “California Youth Transitions to Adulthood Study”, was a study that focus on three main research questions. One of the questions being, “Does extending foster care past age 18 influence youths’ outcomes during the transition to adulthood (e.g., education, employment, health, housing, parenting, and general well-being)?” (Aging Out Institute).…

    • 2596 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Foster Care System Essay

    • 1503 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Foster care system exist to protect children and guarantee their well-being, both physically and mentally. It is a service that assists children who have experienced neglect or abuse by their biological parents or families. These children might be placed in the care of other family members, people they are not related to, in orphanages and with foster parents that have arranged to adopt them. numbers of factors affecting the number of children who got to foster care, but according to (Csaky, pg.30, 2009), it showed a sharp increase from the 1960s to the early 2000s. An increase in poverty levels has increased the likelihood of families not being able to pay their dues such as rent resulting to their homelessness.…

    • 1503 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Foster Care Failure

    • 1305 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Foster care has been a process of successes and failures. Originally Foster Care was established for poor and poverty stricken families who were unable to adequately provide for their children. Prior to welfare involvement, children were simply placed with family members or community members who were able to care for the child. In 1636, Benjamin Eaton became the first official “foster” child. Since that time, numerous laws and policies have been set up in an effort to care for children who have experienced abuse or neglect and provide temporary services to families in crisis (Barbell & Freundlich, 2001).…

    • 1305 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Foster Care Effects

    • 1810 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Like orphanages, foster care services are not perfect. They come with several long-term effects that can be detrimental to the child for the rest of their life. Children often suffer from abandonment issues, and lack the self-confidence and drive to succeed in the outside world. The foster care system, while still caring for children and providing their basic needs works differently than an orphanage. Most children entering into the foster care system do have living relatives, but it has deemed unsafe for the child to remain in the home due to abuse or neglect.…

    • 1810 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    Chronic problems include, for example, growth failure, asthma, obesity, vision impairment, hearing loss, neurological problems, gastro-esophageal reflux, sexually transmitted diseases, and complex chronic illnesses. An even greater estimated share of these children and youth entering foster care—between one-half and three-fourths—have behavioral or social competency problems that may warrant mental health services. (Baumrucker et al.…

    • 1851 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    AbstractYoung adults in foster care have a distinct teenage life. Every foster kid has a unique story of their journey in foster care. The story of them being placed in a foster care home, the life inside the foster care home, and the life after foster care. Young adults in foster care live a difficult and sad life. Some studies show how their education and life in the system are more complexed then for most young adults.…

    • 875 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Foster children need to have better educational opportunities; in order to understand the need to improve educational opportunities for children in foster care one has to understand the foster care system. One of the influential changes that Dan Lips explains is to improve education stability. By keeping school the center of stability, this gives them peers and adults to help them when things change at home. This information will be used in my research proposal by using the information presented to give a detailed description of the foster care system so then the readers can have a better idea of the system and how it works before I explain why it needs to be improved. This author and website is credible because Dan Lips is an Educational Analyst in the Domestic Policy Studies Department at The Heritage Foundation.…

    • 1884 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    I know for myself I want to do things the easy and smoother way for them and for myself too. I feel that this statement is a very important for the young people whether they are in the foster program or not. “Social networks serve a number of important functions as youth make the transition into adulthood and independent living. Social ties provide young adults with emotional support; guidance on employment, education, and relationship issues; and assistance in times of emergency. For youth aging out of foster care, strong, stable relationships promote a sense of normalcy and security.…

    • 1861 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Foster Care Abuse

    • 1572 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The idea of foster care is superb; not letting children live in limbo without any parental supervision, but unfortunately the power is abused and therefore broken. Children bounce back and forth between families and caregivers. This illustrates the foster child never has a concrete home; consequently, they never truly settle in with the family or with themselves for that matter. The main goal of foster care is to filter foster children quickly into a more permanent…

    • 1572 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    For many teenagers without a support system, “aging out” also means lack of services. Once a teenager leaves foster care, 60 percent of services dropped. These services includes housing and food assistance, medical health, and mental health services. Most teenagers will stop any medications they were given while in foster care because they do not want it or cannot afford it (McMillen & Raghavan, 2009). For various reasons teenagers do not continue mental health services.…

    • 303 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays