This article first appeared in March 1999.

Eleven years ago a wild youth of 18—yanked from poverty and gangs roaming New York City's streets—got taken in by Covenant House, given a bed and meals in a structured residential program, taught basic maintenance skills that would get him his first job, and then set out on his own again after less than two years. "I just crossed my fingers and hoped he wouldn't wind up dead," recalls David Gregoria, director of the Rights of Passage Program for Covenant House-New York.

When Gregoria re-met this former student, now 30, at a reunion dinner for Rights of Passage graduates, he discovered him married to a wonderful woman and working as a clerk at New York University. "During the dinner he came over to me and said 'it's time to start giving back. I want to be a mentor'" Gregoria comments: "That's as mature as you can get. And there's no substitute for maturity."

Patience and time are often what it takes to grow an insecure youth with an abused and neglected past into a mature young adult who can walk with confidence into a job interview, get the job—and keep it. Covenant House's Rights of Passage program is a transitional residential program that offers kids a chance to improve their education and enter the workforce with an eye toward a stable future. Ninety percent of the funding for the 20 Covenant House sites located throughout North and Central America comes from private sources; the balance is paid by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Transitional Housing Program—cited for an increase in the president's FY 2000 budget.

Many elements of Rights of Passage are ideal for youth "aging out" of the foster care system. So it's no surprise that about 30 percent of the kids served by Covenant House-New York have foster care experience; in California, that figure is closer to 50 percent.

Unfortunately, says Fred Ali, director of Covenant House-California, "most of the kids we work with here in Los Angeles who come out of the foster care system are not ready to go right into a residential living program. The kids who age out of foster care are very dependent and it takes them a bit of time to get used to the independence that is really required in the true transition—getting up and going to work in the morning, maintaining the job, following up on counseling and other support services."

Many foster care kids find themselves first in the Covenant House's Crisis Center or Shelter Program. Then it takes time—sometimes long periods of time—for the kids to build back trust and enter the longer-term Rights of Passage program with a willingness to give the more structured environment a chance. "We attempt to be as patient with these kids as we possibly can," says Ali.

Covenant House staff know well that a too-quick success can sour just as fast: kids often lose their first jobs or discover that minimum wage isn't a livable wage. Ali explains that the youth will often times sabotage their own success. "They're not used to the responsibility so they do something stupid to get rid of the responsibility. We don't like it when it happens, but we expect it and look for the warning signals."

The reality is that youth "aging out" of foster care at 18 are many years away from entering the job force with the requisite skills and maturity to survive, much less prosper.

Alan Zuckerman, executive director of the National Youth Employment Coalition, confirms that current research on transition to work indicates that most youth don't achieve economic maturity until age 30. "Too often there is a track that they follow until they figure out that 'this isn't what I want' and they back track, or they find out it isn't leading where they want," he explains.

Manufacturing jobs allowed youth to drop out of high school and be in the factory for the rest of their lives because the pay was sufficient to buy a house and raise a family. Yet there are fewer of those jobs today, sending kids scurrying to acquire new skills for higher wages. Consequently, the average age of most kids in community colleges is now 29.

The problem, Zuckerman adds, is that "foster kids don't have the luxury of waiting."

"Yet," says Gregoria, "these kids are not ready to focus on how to build a life because most of their psychic energy is focused on, 'how do I survive tomorrow.'"

Education and Job Skill Spiral
Too many youth exit foster care with disadvantages in both education and employment opportunities, stepping into a precarious downward spiral before ever gaining real maturity. Alfred Perez, who graduated from high school and the foster care system in 1995, recalls that scary moment: "I could either do really well, or I could mess up and stay in the system—go into juvenile detention." Perez beat the odds and applied to college.

A 1997 study of educational outcomes for youth in care, based on data from the Department of Education, found that foster care youth were more likely to drop out of high school than non foster youth (37 percent v. 16 percent). Researchers generally attribute the educational deficiency to school stability: many of these kids changed schools three or four times since fifth grade, sacrificing valuable credits, school records and a social network. Foster parents are considered less likely to monitor the children's homework or attend teacher conferences. By their senior year of high school, 20 percent of foster care youth are living independently as compared to 3 percent of their peers.

More problems develop when these kids strive for financial independence. Most employment and economic status outcomes of the former foster care sample resemble that of people living at or below the poverty line, according to a 1997 background paper on "Improving Economic Opportunities for Young People Served by the Foster Care System" prepared by the Edmund S. Muskie School of Public Service in Maine for the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

The paper points out that a high school degree is important for the foster care youths' long-term employment. But, even with the degree, low wages continue to raise concerns about their long-term economic self-sufficiency. Further, researchers at the Muskie School state that "while the exact percentage of former youth participating in the labor market is not clear, what is clear is that a substantial percentage of youth exiting foster care are unable to get and maintain a job."

"What sets foster kids apart from other youth is that they don't have a family and they don't have a neighborhood," says Zuckerman at the National Youth Employment Coalition. "Most people get jobs because of who they know. Foster kids are largely not in any network. Most likely, if they're not doing well in school, they're doubly doomed. Then all they can get is short-term jobs with no benefits, which produces the churning effect—quit one job and get another."

Job Corps: A Federal Symbol
Job Corps has taken unskilled kids out of troubled neighborhoods and put them into residential centers hundreds of miles away from home for the past 35 years. These are youth, ages 16 to 22, deemed to benefit from an unusually intensive program with a campus-like setting, a comprehensive basic education program and vocational skills training. Job Corps works minor miracles, according to Congress, which funds the 114 centers every year to the tune of over $1,000 million.

"What Job Corps represents is a national and federal symbol of a significant investment in young people," says Mary Silva, director of Job Corps. "And an investment over a long period of time."

The success of Job Corps, she says, "is having young people leave an environment where they could not find structure and being put in a goal-oriented environment with other like young people. What I hear from students who have had good experiences in Job Corps is that the program provides them with a sense of belonging. I know that for a foster care young person, belonging is very important."

Job Corps has never tracked the number of participants who have had experience with the foster care system, though the intensive residential environment would appear to be a natural funnel for older kids in foster care. "I would like to know how Job Corps could better connect to the foster care system," Silva throws out to anyone with ideas. "I would like to work with these kids before they turn 18."

Meanwhile, the 35-year old federal jobs program is about to get a face lift stemming from legislative changes mandated in the 1998 Workforce Investment Act. The new legislation establishes youth councils in each locality to coordinate youth activities and develop a local plan for insuring that more kids enter the workforce.

Job Corps representatives will be on the youth councils in every locality where there is a Job Corps center. With considerable enthusiasm, Silva reports that "we'll be at the table, so when a local community is talking about youth issues, Job Corps will be there. We'll be able to connect better to the foster care network."

"We're going to use the new law and our experiences to involve employers up front more than we have in the past. We will much more aggressively ask employers 'will you hire these people? And if not, why not?'" says Silva. Kids will no longer be transported to centers across the country, she says, because the further from home, the further from prospective employers.

Private Sector Role: The Red Lobster Experience
Jim Gann of Red Lobster restaurant in Oklahoma City often hires foster care youth through his involvement with a local agency, Citizens Caring for Children, which sponsors job fairs and seminars. Gann would conduct workshops on how to do an interview, fill out applications, and how to discover hobbies that would translate into work skills. Through that, many 16-year-old kids in foster homes and shelters began coming in and applying at Red Lobster. Now Gann wears two hats: restaurant manager and occasional father figure.

Sure they need some extra stroking, Gann says, "but that just builds their respect and they become excellent employees. I find myself—not getting attached—but making sure that I do everything to insure that they will succeed. Their self-esteem really grows while they're working and it's fun and rewarding to watch."

Gann hires the foster kids as bussers, cooks, and hostesses. "We would match them the same way we would match any applicant. For instance, we have kids who run up and shake your hand after a seminar. We want that person out front. These kids are an untapped source. Just because they're in foster care or they're in shelters, doesn't mean that they can't work." Frankly, Gann admits, "they're no more needy than any other 16-year old. If you put all the young help together in this restaurant, it won't stand out which are the foster kids."

The obstacles to hiring foster kids are purely logistical, according to Gann. He suggests that there should be some other agency, or support network, outside of the foster home that could fill in the after-school gap. Foster parents make certain that the child attends school. "But how do we get these kids to work? How do we get them to buy uniforms? There needs to be that kind of providing for them. Because that is where we lose them."

Nonetheless, after two years of giving numerous foster kids their first jobs, Gann remains optimistic. "I think we have to be. Not to be is just to give up, and that's already happened too much in their lives. The last thing that they need is another adult to give up on them."

What it Takes to Go to College
Studies show that the educational self-expectations of foster care youth are similar to youth in general. Mark Courtney and other researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that, at age 17, a full 79 percent of foster youth interviewed in 1995 expected to enter college.

Yet many of these kids are not directed toward post-secondary education. Professor Robert McNamara recalls that "no one ever helped me apply to college. I never even took SATs. No one sat me down and said, 'this is how it works.' That would be an immeasurable help to kids, just to know how higher education works." Despite 19 foster care placements in five years, McNamara managed to go to a community college followed by a four-year program; eventually receiving his doctorate from Yale University.

It's true, says Fred Ali at Covenant House-California, "that foster kids with academic potential do get shoved into vocational training programs." He admits that a lot of programs geared toward out-of-work youth aim to simply get the kids a job. "Yet, once the economy cools off, these are going to be the first people let go. Meanwhile, what have we done to prepare them for the job that they're going to need to support themselves?" At Covenant House, an educational specialist tries to determine which of the youth could benefit from more education. Those chosen would generally start with community college and then move into the state university system.

"Getting these kids into schools isn't the problem," says Eileen McCaffrey, director of the Orphan Foundation of America, a nonprofit children's advocacy group in Vienna, Virginia which helps foster kids receive college scholarships. "Staying there is. These kids don't have relationships, so they're just out there like any 18-year old in college, floundering."

Colleges across the country are noting that students today demand greater supervision, revisiting the concept that an 18-year-old may not be ready for emancipation. David Ward, chancellor of the University of Wisconsin, recently told the New York Times that campuses allowed students considerable freedom in the 1960s because, "the view then was, if you could go to war, you were an adult. But that view was wrong. There needs to be an assimilative process in the crucial years of 18 to 21."

Once the Covenant House identifies a youth with the academic ability for college, Ali says, they immediately seek a mentor for that person. McCaffrey agrees: "We need more mentors. Most of our college applicants are seniors in high school and still have social workers. They can't suddenly go off to school with nobody."

What We Can Do
"The kids need a connection to someone with no interest except to see them move along. Often the mentor becomes a life relationship for them, someone to have dinner with once a month," says Gregoria. The mentoring component of Rights of Passage provides a positive influence from an individual, at least age 30, who is outside the program.

Mentoring is increasingly being used as a support service to assist older foster care youths to make the transition to adult living, according to researchers at the Muskie School of Public Service. Studies increasingly reveal that these relationships are positively related to an increased life optimism as well as making better choices on education and career-related activities.

The Muskie background paper also says that it is imperative that workers and teachers "have equal expectations for foster youth and encourage them to go as far in their education as possible." The authors advocate training foster parents to monitor school performance and better track the youth's progress in school. Further, the state child welfare systems should consider ways to reduce the number of times that foster children switch schools.

Fred Ali suggests that we learn how to be more patient because troubled kids of 18 don't easily slide into life-long careers. He advocates more experimentation and acceptance of failure. "If you look at Silicon Valley, their culture tolerates failure. We don't have that same luxury, but we're dealing with issues that are just as complex—and more important because we're dealing with young lives."