Cross-Cutting Issues

This publication discusses how the Initiative has categorized, measured and analyzed leverage in its work. It discusses the distinguishing characteristics that helps define leverage: purpose, form, duration and source.

A study initiated by the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative to explore public knowledge of and perceptions about the challenges facing young people leaving foster care.

This report describes how the current foster care system fails to provide a permanent family for every child and the difficulty children have staying connected to family and friends while in foster care. The report also presents the state-by-state data on the number of youth who have aged out of foster care and describes the problems young adults have when they have to face the future without a permanent family to support them.

In this article from the Harvard Women's Law Journal (volume 27), the co-founders of the Youth Advocacy Center in New York City assess the state of the foster care system, describe experiences providing social and legal services to teenagers leaving foster care, and propose approaches for increasing the likelihood of success among teens once they leave foster care and are on their own.

The John F. Chafee Foster Care Independence Program required the Administration for Children and Families to created a National Youth in Transition Database (NYTD) that can be used to track the Chafee-funded independent living services that states provide to youth who transition from foster care. This guidebook addresses what NYTD regulations requires states to do, planning and preparing to implement NYTD, regional/coordinated approach, outsourcing of tracking and data collection, and tools for locating and tracking youth.

This study by the Child Welfare Research Center tracked nearly 12,000 youths emancipated from the California foster care system between 1992 and 1997.

The Midwest Evaluation of the Adult Functioning of Former Foster Youth is a prospective study that was designed, in part, to provide a comprehensive picture of how youth in foster care making the transition to adulthood are faring post-Chafee.

This document is intended to provide information about, and assist in the implementation of, Fostering Connections in states across the nation. Specifically, the document focuses on answering questions about Fostering Connections' improvements that will impact youth and young adults in foster care and assist in the implementation process.