Foster Care Extended to Age 21
Initiative Policy Goal
Allow young people to remain in care and custody up to age 21 with continued permanency planning
Issue Definition
Compared to their peers, young people who have experienced foster care are more likely to become homeless and unemployed when they age out of foster care. They also are less likely to complete high school or post-secondary education. And they are more likely to have physical, developmental and mental health challenges. Furthermore, unlike their peers, most lose their support system when they reach age 18 and are discharged from state custody.
There is evidence from the Midwest Study, a longitudinal evaluation following a sample of young people from Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin as they age out of foster care and transition to adulthood, that young people who remain in care until age 21 have better outcomes in several areas when they leave foster care than those who left at age 18.1 Two additional studies analyzing the data from the Midwest Evaluation have shown that homelessness is reduced2 and educational attainment is increased 3 which results in higher lifetime earnings 4. Another study analyzing data on young adults in Washington state demonstrated that in addition to attending college longer, young people in extended care received food stamps for fewer total months and were less likely to be arrested for a misdemeanor or felony crime. 5
This is not surprising, considering the research stating the brain is not fully developed until the early to mid-twenties. Rather than a young person going immediately from adolescence to adulthood, gradual development occurs during a longer phase called emerging adulthood. Transitioning youth need extra supports as they accomplish developmental milestones and progress toward full-fledged adulthood.
Extending independent living services, case and permanency planning, placement, and judicial oversight to age 21, in developmentally appropriate ways, benefits young people who urgently need continued support and services. Most directly, extended care can provide safe and stable housing for young people that have not achieved permanence by age 18 and are not ready to be on their own. As one young woman from Rhode Island stated, "Things were rough for me. If I had not had [services] to help me with schooling and housing after age 18, I may not have made it."
Moreover, extended care provides young people with access to additional child welfare resources that can be used to help a young person continue to build a network of support and permanent relationships. It is vitally important that permanency planning continue in earnest with the young adult leading the effort to ensure that they never leave care – at 18 or 21 – without a permanently committed, caring adult in their life. This ongoing permanency planning for non-minor dependents (young people in care over the age of 18) should also provide young people with access to competent legal advocates and meaningful court reviews.
For more information, see the issue brief titled Foster Care to 21: Doing It Right and the policy goals on permanency, legal representation and youth led planning.
Status
Effective October 2010, The Foster Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act extended eligibility for Title IV-E payments to age 21. This change allows states to now extend payments for young people in foster care and adoptive or guardianship placement when certain employment and education or training requirements are met. As of mid-April 2011, twelve states had submitted Title IV-E plan amendments indicating that they intend to exercise the option to provide foster care to some or all of the older youth in foster care who meet federal eligibility requirements. Three of these states have had their plan amendments approved by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (Alabama, Illinois, and Maryland) and the remaining nine have plan amendments under review or revision (Arkansas, District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia).6As states develop a system of care for young people in extended foster care, the design should target the unique needs of this young adult population rather than be a mere extension of the current foster care system.
Some areas in which learning and innovation are needed include:
- How to assist child welfare systems in adapting case management models to engage young adults in ways that are developmentally appropriate;
- How to support young people with “trial periods” of independence, while allowing them to return to custody if they need to (much as young people transitioning from intact homes experience);
- What criteria are to be considered at judicial hearings and foster care review hearings to measure whether progress is being achieved for non-minor dependents;
- How to redirect child welfare casework time lines and orientation that have traditionally established benchmarks and allocated services based on a presumed conclusion of casework at age 18; and
- How public child welfare systems can coordinate services and participate in collaborative planning with adult system service providers and systems.
Related Resources
American Bar Association Center on Children and the Law
The Bar-Youth Empowerment Project aims to improve outcomes for young people currently in foster care as well as young people who have aged out of care by promoting youth participation in court cases that affect them and offering access to legal counseling and representation to young people in need of specialized legal assistance. www.abanet.org/child/empowerment
Foster Care to 21: Doing It Right. Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative.
References
1 Courtney, M.E., Dworsky, A., Cusick, G.R., Havlicek, J. Perez, A., Keller, T., (2007). Midwest Evaluation of the Adult Functioning of Former Foster Youth: Outcomes at Age 21. Chicago, IL: Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago.
2 Dworsky, A., & Courtney, M.E. (2010). Assessing the Impact of Extending Care beyond Age 18 on Homelessness: Emerging Findings from the Midwest Study. Chicago: Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago.
3 Dworsky, A. & Courtney, M. E. (2010). Does Extending Foster Care beyond Age 18 Promote Postsecondary Educational Attainment? Emerging Findings from the Midwest Study. Chicago: Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago.
4 Peters, C.M., Dworsky, A., Courtney, M.E., & Pollack, H. (2009). Extending Foster Care to Age 21: Weighing the Costs to Government against the Benefits to Youth. Chicago: Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago.
5Burley, M., & Lee, S. (2010). Extending Foster Care to Age 21: Measuring Costs and Benefits in Washington State. Olympia, WA: Washington State Institute for Public Policy.
6 CRS Report RL34121 Child Welfare: Recent and Proposed Federal Funding. (2011)
