AB 12: Help for Emmancipated and Discharged Youth

The Foster Care System with the kids who are in it is a massive social issue that America is facing today. There are more than 640,000 foster children in the United States every year. There are 23,000 foster children living in group homes at one time. There are 32,000 who live in institutions, and twenty-seven states do not meet federal abuse and neglect standards. (Attention) Personally, I am a foster sister, because my family currently fosters. Therefore, we see the issues and needs of fostering, daily. (Rapport and Credibility) This speech will discuss the importance of the nature of foster care, the catastrophic problems of foster care, and the proposed solution for the foster care system in America. (Preview)

In the article Richards discusses and focuses children that age out of foster care are at a greater risk of being homeless. It also centered on the stories that were told by former foster care adolescences Emily and Michael acquired different situations. Michael did not actually age out of foster care therefore he was not able to reap benefits. Emily was able to utilize the benefits like the extended deadline of fosters care until she was 19 years old. She was able to obtain a scholarship and prosper in college.

The purpose of this policy was to provide funding for children aging out of foster care to provide independent living such as housing and job skills. According to Fernandes{ nilausa.org} (2006) “Around 30% of children who left foster care in 2003 were 12 years or younger when they entered care. This suggests that children who are leaving care without being formally reunified with a parent, adopted, or placed in guardianship are a growing concern of child welfare agencies and policymakers. Recently emancipated foster care youth are particularly vulnerable during the transition to adulthood. While many young people have access to financial and emotional support systems throughout their early adult years, former foster youth often lack assistance in developing independent living skills to ease the transition. Studies indicate that youth who have “aged out” of foster care fare poorly relative to their counterparts in the general population on several outcome measures: employment, education, homelessness, mental health, medical insurance coverage,

By providing a secure and stable home for teens , it teaches them responsibility and further equips them with stability in overall life decreasing homelessness rates. Extending foster care services supplies former foster children with stable homes if they are in need. According to Foster Focus Magazine, “65% of youth leaving foster care need immediate housing upon discharge”() Housing after foster care is an immediate issue that comes with aging out. Over 50% of desperate former foster youth are searching for a home to begin their life independently. Statistics show that, “many foster youth are placed in homes with complete strangers that sometimes are just as dysfunctional, if not more, than the homes they were removed from.”() Unfortunately there are children in foster care that often get bounced from home to home never really knowing when they are safely sheltered. Some children find it better to live on the menacing streets of state's, where they are homeless, than to be in a home

The foster care system in America negatively affects the lives of adolescents in the system mentally and physically. On any given day there are over 428,000 children in foster care and more than 20,000 kids age out of foster care with no permanent family; therefore, they are being left behind socially, educationally, mentally, and under developed for the real world. Foster care first started in the nineteen hundreds when Charles Loring Brace created the “Children’s Aid Society” in New York. Then later on the 1900’s, social agencies started to supervise and pay the foster children’s sponsors. However, back in foster care’s history and still today, the kids in the system experince abuse and become mentally unstable. One out of five kids

Each year, an estimated 20,000 young people "age out" of the U.S. foster care system. Many are only 18 years old and still need support and services (. Several studies show that without a lifelong connection to a caring adult, this older youth are often left vulnerable to a host of adverse situations. Compared to other youth in the United States, kids who age out of foster care are more likely to not have completed high school or received a GED, they often suffer from mental health problems, many are unemployed and live in poverty, and nearly 40% become homeless.

AB 12 lets foster teenagers stay in foster care until they are 21 years old. Often, when foster youth turn 18, their foster parents kick them of the home out due to no longer receiving payment, and the youth have no place to go. With the implementation of AB 12, they can choose to stay in a foster home and the foster parent continues to get a stipend to help pay for the foster teens expenses. The foster teenager also has the option to move out of the foster home and get a monthly stipend that goes directly to them. This stipend is used to help pay for expenses such as rent, utilities, food, etc. This all sounds great, but I don’t feel that it is working for foster teenagers. The concept is good, but definitely needs to be reformed and restructured. To receive AB 12 funding, a foster teenager still has to meet with a county social worker monthly and meet certain criteria which include going to school, working, or looking for work. They can lose AB 12 funding if they do not meet these qualifications. Often, it is hard for the youth to meet these qualifications because they have not learned the necessary skills to effective apply and hold a job or learn how to navigate the college university system to enroll in school. What is happening is that the youth are not qualifying for AB 12 and if they do they are so used to the money that when they turn 21 and lose the AB 12 funding, they end up not

Foster Care Independence Act of 1999 Before this bill was signed into law the Federal Government provided about $70 million per year to conduct programs for adolescents leaving foster care that are designed to help them establish independent living. Research and numerous reports from States conducting these programs indicate that adolescents leaving foster care do not fare well. As compared with other adolescents and young adults their age, they are more likely to quit school, to be unemployed, to be on welfare, to have mental health problems, to be parents outside marriage, to be arrested, to be homeless, and to be the victims of violence and other crimes (Cook, 1991). The need for special help for youths ages 18 to 21

For many teenagers, their 18th birthday is an exciting time in their lives. They are finally becoming a legal adult, and are free from the rules and restrictions created under their parents. But not all teens feel the same joy about this coming of age. For the hundreds of thousands of children living in foster care in the United States, this new found freedom brings anxiety and fear. Where will they live after turning 18? How will they get the medications they may need? How will they find a job with little to no experience? How will they put themselves through school? Aging out of foster care is a serious issue among America’s youth. Every year, 20,000 children will age out with nowhere to go, being expected to be able to survive on their

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, every year close to 25,000 youth age out of the foster care system and are faced with cold hard realities of adulthood. This does not include the youth who leave the system, which is estimated to be another 30,000. Most adolescents anticipate their eighteenth birthday, as it brings on a new found sense of independence and most importantly a time of celebration. However when foster children reach eighteen, they begin facing the challenges of transitioning to adulthood. These children disproportionately join the ranks of the homeless, incarcerated, and unemployed. These youth are unprepared for the independent life they are forced to take on. The average age that young adults who have never experienced foster care leave their family home for good is 24, and 40% return home again at least once afterwards (Margolin, 2008). With these facts being stated, we yet expect youth who has dealt with rejection after rejection to leave “home” of the state custody permanently and fin for themselves. These youth sometimes have fewer than $250 in cash, only one-third have drivers licenses, and fewer than one-quarter have the basic tools to set up a household, let alone the skills to know what to do with the tools (Krinsky, 2010). Youth exit care with no more than a garbage bag of their belongings, finding themselves alone at the age of eighteen, with little reason to celebrate what is supposed to be an exciting milestone

Over 600,000 children in the United States are in the foster care system. Reasons include, abuse, neglect and abandonment. These children lack nurturing environments and stable homes. Children within the foster care system have more mental, physical and developmental problems. It is imperative to understand the challenges children entering the foster care system are exposed to. The system works best when children are provided nurturing, and short-term care until they can be placed back home safely or a permanent adoptive family. For many children, however, the stay is longer, with 30% remaining in temporary care for over two years. Staying in the system is detrimental to the child’s well-being. The foster care system is an unsuccessful intervention for children that cultivates development, health and mental issues.

Nationwide, nearly 397,122 children live in foster care. In California, which has the largest foster care population than any other state, the number of foster youth has tripled in the last 20 years (Source: AFCARS Report 2013) due to certain circumstance such as; physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse or caretaker inability. Welfare workers turn over at continuing high rates, and many are underpaid, poorly trained, overworked and demoralized. Foster Care system welfare lacks providing services to prepare older youths in foster care in independent living are lacking. Many youths that exited the system discuss their experience such as, being let down, lack of role models, poor training programs, and lack of basic living skills. Foster

The teenagers need to be set on a path where they can live on their own. The children were taken out of their homes in the first place because they lived in a harsh environment of abuse or neglect, only to potentially be thrown into another uncaring foster family then be introduced to the cold hearted reality of life once they turn 18. Not only do they need to have the stability to live on their own and job, they also should receive help to receive health insurance and other government fundings that will help them. CAPTA should have requirements that will help the children that were placed in foster care with long-term goals and plans. It should not stop at when the children turn 18 years old. If the policy insists that the children will receive help until they are the age of 18, then the foster care system should be funded enough to have workers who will help the older children start a savings that will be from a job that they start years before they have to leave. Also the foster care system should not force the 18 year olds to leave if they do not have a proper place to

Every year, teenagers in foster care are “aging out” of the social system ill prepared for what lies ahead of them. Currently, there are about 400,000 foster youth in the U.S. and 13,461 (3.4 %) of these youth live in Arizona (The AFCARS report, 2012, p. 1 ). In 2012, it was estimated that 23,000 youth emancipated out of the foster system in the United States (The AFCARS report, 2012, p. 3). These foster youth are become legal adults with little or no family support. Overwhelmed by this life transition, they feel defeated and frightened by

Unfortunately, this is the cold, sad reality of many children and teens who have been thrown into the system like a piece of meat for the wolves to devour. I have decided to write about the issues of foster care and the abuse children and teens face while moving through this broken system. Over the past years, I have developed a passion to intercede on behalf of our youth. I want to help them navigate through a life filled with turmoil and discord. I chose this topic because I want to make a difference in the lives of these mistreated, misunderstood, and misguided children and teens. One might ask, “How can we fix such a system with these particular problems?” Although I may not have the “right” answer to that question, I do believe there is a way to repair the massive leak that has caused a system meant to serve and protect our youth to