Argumentative Essay On Foster Youth

When speaking with a previous AB 12 recipient who asked not to be identified due to confidentiality, she explained though she was grateful for AB 12, there are a lot of pitfalls. She discussed how she received a month stipend of around $860.00. Often, it was hard for her to live on this amount of money. She was able to hold a job some of the time to help offset some of her costs of living, but when she was unemployed would struggle to pay her electric bill and have enough food to eat. Along with talking about how the money was not sustainable, she also talked about how she learned to depend the funding. When she recently turned 21, she lost her AB 12 funding and could no longer afford to pay her bills. Because of this she could not afford rent and almost became homeless, but luckily was able to get into low income housing in which she pays 30% of her …show more content…
A permanent adult can be someone who has provided adoption, guardianship, a mentor, or someone that agrees to be a stable, nurturing connection for the foster youth. Studies show that foster youth who have a permanent connection are more likely to be productive members of society. Those who don’t have a family connection, according to the Child Welfare Gateway “Youth who exit care without a permanent family [or a connection] are at risk for a number of negative outcomes.” Because of this, maybe we should be re-allocating AB 12 money and putting it into programs that focus on making sure that foster teenagers have permanent connections before aging out of the system “Foster youth will be able to maintain a safety net of support while experiencing independence in a secure and supervised living environment” ("Extending Foster Care”). There are some programs that currently do this, but there are not nearly enough of these types of