As a former foster youth, a Babson College MBA graduate and assistant director at the Rhode Island Foster Parents Association, I am deeply concerned by a proposal in Gov. Donald L. Carcieri’s budget to discontinue services to Rhode Island youth in state care at age 18, instead of the current age 21.
National data presented this February at the Urban Institute showed that 60 percent of homeless youth ages 18 to 19 are former foster youth, and they make up 25 percent of the adult homeless population, despite being only 3 percent of the total population.
All the latest data from leading researchers shows that keeping youth in care beyond age 18 when no permanent family connection has been found for them helps them avoid poor outcomes. In California, where youth age out of the system at 18, 65 percent have no place to live, less than 3 percent go to college, and 51 percent are unemployed.
This January, The New York Times highlighted the detrimental effects in states where the cut-off age is 18 and pointed out that many states are moving toward providing care until age 21. If the current proposal were to go through, Rhode Island would be the only state moving in the opposite direction of sound national research.
These cuts are not only poor child-welfare practice, but they involve shifting costs, not really cutting them. We know from research that former foster youth who do not receive adequate supports are far more likely to end up homeless, incarcerated, in need of emergency medical services, or with difficulties obtaining an education and steady employment.
Moreover, if the cut-off age changes from 21 to 18, the R.I. Department of Children, Youth and Families might stop taking child abuse cases for 16-year-olds; high school students who turn 18 before they graduate could find themselves trying to finish school without a place to sleep at night; and juvenile offenders, who make up 4 percent of youth in state care, would either be put back on the streets at 18 or sent to the adult system.
My personal foster care success was possible, in part, because I had housing and health care supports until age 21, enabling me to finish college. I know former foster youth from other states who had to sleep in their cars during Christmas and spring breaks and could not stay in school. This is particularly heartbreaking when we understand that the vast majority of these youth are victims of abuse and neglect.
Of course, the ultimate goal will always be to reunify youth in care with their families or to ensure that they are adopted as quickly as possible when reunification is not an option.
Local community organizations, in collaboration with DCYF, have begun to use national best practices to decrease the number of youth for whom we fail to find permanent families.
These efforts are in their infancy, but they include searching through a youth’s family background and exploring existing networks to find possible opportunities for adoption and lifelong supports, as well as engaging community mentors, particularly those with an interest in adoption or foster care, who can help these youth.
We all hope one day soon there will not be a need to keep youth in care beyond age 18 because they will all have permanent families and positive situations. However, as it is, we have 857 youths in our system who would be cut off from supports as of July 1 if these proposed cuts are enacted. The least we can do for youth whom we have failed to provide a permanent family is to give them stable housing and health care through age 21, if not longer. It is not just in their best interest, but in the community’s best interest as well.
Julie DiBari is the assistant director of the Rhode Island Foster Parents Association.
