IN THEIR OWN WORDS

Approximately 800,000 children and teens move through the foster care system annually.  At any given time, there are approximately 496,000 children and teens in foster care in this country while an estimated 4 times as many more children and teens live informally in kinship care. Children and teens in foster care have a unique set of issues that should be understood before treatment of care begins.

Aging Out 

In most states, children “age out” of the foster care system at age 18, and while estimates vary, as many as 20,000 teens may “age out” each year. That number has grown by 41% since 1998, even though the number of children and teens in foster care has decreased, according to a 2007 report, “Time for Reform: Aging Out and On Their Own,” by The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Kids Are Waiting campaign and the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative. The report says that more than 165,000 young people aged out of foster care between 1998 and 2005 — nearly 25,000 in 2005 alone.

A major study, “The Midwest Evaluation of the Adult Functioning of Former Foster Youth,” conducted by the Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago found that of people in the study who aged out of foster care:

• 28% reported being arrested, and nearly one-fifth reported being incarcerated.
• 1 in 7 had been homeless at least once since leaving care. (In other studies, this number exceeds 1 in 5.)
• Nearly half of the females had been pregnant by age 19, more than twice the rate of their peers.
• More than one-third had neither a high school diploma nor a general equivalency degree compared to one-tenth of 19-year-olds nationally.
• Less than one-quarter were enrolled in a 2- or 4-year college, compared to about 57% of 19-year-olds nationally.
• Only about two-fifths of study participants were employed at age 19, compared to nearly three-fifths of their peers. And, 90% of those who had worked in the previous year reported that they earned less than $10,000.