Aging out - or being dropped off?

A recent editorial on the US news network CNN spoke about the degree to which youth in child protection care are becoming abandoned as they reach the age of majority. There are certainly significant differences across jurisdictions, but far too often youth are told that, upon reaching that magic age of adulthood, that they must now find their pathway as an adult. Many do so with only scant resources to support the transition, although there are again differences between jurisdictions.

YouTube is full of stories about youth experiences, with many of them negative and disheartening. The CNN editorial offered some data that adds to the dismal picture.

This data mirrors longitudinal studies which have been done in the USA and the UK.

I find myself contemplating the aging out process at the same time as often seeing research and media stories that talk about how the generation presently growing up is living at home longer. They are taking more years to become independent facing tough challenges with employment and the cost of education. Yet we seem to expect that foster youth, who have typically faced significant emotional, mental health and physical challenges, are expected to do so much sooner. Greater disadvantage is heightened by this approach.

To change this requires taxpayers to understand that these youth need longer supports. Yet, they should be keen to offer this support given how much it costs to address the mental health, unemployment, jailing and early pregnancies that occur when supports are pulled before youth are ready to be independent adults. As a society, we are going to pay one way or the other. I suggest that longer supports to help foster youth make into the adult world is the cheaper option - and the more socially responsible one.

We need to get the attention of policy makers on this one.

Aging out

The question of children who grow up in the foster or group care system has been a haunting one. The answers are too often discouraging. Long term research continues to tell us that these youth are more likely to end up homeless, poor, mentally ill, involved in the criminal justice system and be parents of children far too early. There are of course, exceptions. Many of us who have worked in or around the child protection system know the exceptions.

I have had former foster and group care youth in my classes at university. I have met some who have managed to create careers in the trades. This is partially because of good planning and caring adults who saw these youths into adulthood.

Increasingly we are seeing that young people from all sorts of family situations are taking longer to transition into adulthood. They stay at home longer, they take longer to establish themselves in careers and they will have a harder time affording their own house. Even those who come from relatively advantaged environments face these challenges. Those who have grown up in care face much greater obstacles as their support systems are often weaker.

Making the point is a video which is making the rounds.  Aging out

You Tube has many other such videos.

In an environment where the income gaps between the rich and the rest (the famous 1%), the pressures on the most vulnerable will grow. Those in foster and group care are amongst the most vulnerable. We must challenge the policy makers to recognize this and create programs that do bridge the transition as strongly as possible. Many jurisdictions are trying to tackle the problem with a variety of creative programs. More options are needed. Perhaps one discussion worth having is, that if society as a whole sees more kids staying at home longer into adulthood, why would we not expect that this vulnerable population will not also require such supports which significant extension of foster care would create? It's a tough question in environments where governments are into austerity. But what does it cost us to have these youth unsuccessful and placing demands on our health care and justice systems?

Fortunately, we are seeing fewer children in group or institutional care in Canada as seen in the following charts from the Canadian Incidence Study:

These help us to realize that policy changes can shift what happens, although the data also tells us that the rate of involvement with child protection in Canada is growing. The growth of kinship care may mean that there are more family members who will be there for the child over the long term. 

American data is also quite informative about what happens to kids as they come into care:

Some UK data adds to the debate:

The point, of course, is that we need to have the debate. What we have now is not working that well whether we are talking Canada, the USA or the UK.

Aging out of foster care

One of the most perplexing challenges for child protection systems, is what happens to children who age out of the system. This is the point when the child becomes legally an adult and then moves beyond the mandate of the child protection authority. There are many jurisdictions that make some level of support available for some children as they make their way through this transition. Not all children will receive this support.

As I have noted in other posts, the outlook for these individuals is often poor. Research has noted that they tend to not finish high school, have poor employment prospects and records, have higher rates of mental health and substance abuse concerns, greater involvement in the criminal justice systems, early parenthood and more relational problems. Not a rosy picture!

Some soon to be published research by Cunningham and Diversi takes a qualitative look at the aging out experience. It is a valuable addition to the literature. It includes the voices of young people in the transition. Their conclusions also help to inform the debate around what should happen - because clearly we are, as yet, not successful frequently enough with youth who are aging out.

Yes, there are exceptions. Recently, at the very excellent Canadian Society for the Investigation of Child Abuse Conference, I listened to twins, now adults and in university, speak about their journey with the incredible support of a dedicated foster parent. Even so, they spoke of a sibling whose life trajectory has not been so successful. I fear that their story of success is more the exception than the norm.

As an aside, if you have the chance to attend their future conferences, it is an excellent conference - has been for several years.

Returning to the Cunningham and Diversi research, they note in their conclusions:

The youth we spoke with described a transition to adulthood that was immediate and complete, lacking the series of small steps toward autonomy that is common among emerging adults in contemporary societies (Arnett, 2004). Furthermore, the independence experienced by foster youth clashes with research highlighting the brain development which continues into adulthood, and the impact of trauma on emotional regulation and decision-making (Avery and Freundlich, 2009). Youth struggled to meet their basic needs, describing unemployment, hunger, and home- lessness. For the youth interviewed, securing employment held a special signifi- cance as the difference between housing and homelessness. Youths’ experiences of aging out often centered on their preparedness for, or lack of preparation, to secure living wage jobs. The emphasis on employment among the youth we spoke with runs counter to the trend of delayed workforce entry among young adults (Furstenberg et al., 2005).

In other words, our system to move youth to adulthood does not recognize that they may not have achieved the maturational level to handle this without support - something that we see in many families throughout western culture. The age of leaving home appears to be going up as the challenges of moving to adulthood is increasingly complex. Yet, if you are aging out of the foster care system, you are most often expected to handle that transition sooner, with fewer supports and often with significant emotional challenges. Why we would expect these youth to do it differently than most youth is a mystery.

This might be explained by the artificial legal definition of when you become an adult. This can vary from 18 - 21 years of age. But this definition has little to do with real world challenges - it is only a legal definition.

One of the things that we might consider in helping these youth is supporting familial relationships over time. I was struck by this conclusion:

Youth spoke of relationships with siblings, foster family members, and the affirmation that came in some cases from reunification from birth parents. However, most youth experienced high levels of social network disruption, citing frequent moves and the loss of family and home. The loss that youths spoke about most frequently was separation from siblings. Older siblings expressed fear and a sense of responsibility for their younger siblings, even in the face of having to meet basic needs on their own. The lack of contact with siblings is particularly painful considering that most foster youth report closer relationships with their siblings than with parents (Courtney et al., 2007; Reilly, 2003) and sibling relationships are typically the most enduring across the lifespan

How important sustaining these relationships are! This may well make the transitions healthier.

I was also struck by the resistance to help that had been seen in the research sample. It made me wonder how we their personal stories made seeking and accepting support such a challenge:

The self-reliance youth expressed was extreme, with their anxiety about dependence on others evident in statements such as the fear of being ‘shot down’ when asking others for help, or the need to avoid permanent connections to others through adoption or legal guardianship, in order to protect themselves from further loss. The possible reality of being homeless and living on the streets illustrates the extreme anxiety that youth may feel over the transition to independence, and the need for developing autonomy beyond that expected of most youth and young adults in our society. The level of self-reliance expressed by youth interviewed mirrors the ‘survivalist self-reliance’ described by Samuels and Pryce (2008) which illustrates the resilience of youth but also presents a risk, as youth resist relationships with others who might provide support. In particular, the authors noted that youth were especially resistant to seeking emotional support from others.

This work is worth a read as it certainly adds to our understanding of both how challenging this transition is but also how poorly we prepare and support that transition with a population who find the support difficult to get and accept.

Reference:

Cunningham, M.J. & Diversi, M. (2012). Aging out: Youths' perspectives on foster care and the transition to independence. Qualitative Social Work, on line first. downloaded 2012/05/15 from http://qsw.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/05/03/1473325012445833.   doi: 10.1177/1473325012445833