Too many children experience abuse and neglect with negative lifelong consequences. Too few children get the services and supports they need to heal. Yet, proven and promising practices can reduce maltreatment and ameliorate harm. Taking these practices to scale will require federal investment and leadership in five strategic areas. We must: (1) increase prevention and early intervention services that help keep children and families out of crisis; (2) increase specialized treatment services for those children and families that do experience crisis; (3) increase services to support families after a crisis has stabilized (including birth families, as well as kinship and adoptive families created when parents are unable to care for their children); (4) enhance the quality of the workforce providing services to children and families; and (5) improve accountability both for dollars spent and outcomes achieved. Together these efforts will improve the lives of millions of children across the nation

On any given day, scores of young people with limited individual and social capital are simultaneously struggling to exit some systems and enter others: foster care, residential treatment centers, higher education, mental health programs, gainful employment.

This report provides a comprehensive review of state efforts to support youth transitioning out of foster care. As part of the review, Chapin Hall administered a web-based survey of state independent living services coordinators that covered a number of domains including conditions under which foster youth can remain in care after turning 18, independent living and transition services provided, opportunities for youth to reenter care, and how state dollars are used to supplement federal funds.

The Job Corps serves youth aging out of foster care with a residential program that provides access to earn a high school diploma or GED, training and preparation for a career, housing, meals, basic health care, and a living allowance twice a month – all at no cost to the student.

The Society for Research in Child Development says we can improve the transition to independent living for foster teens. Measures include revising eligibility requirements so they no longer exclude high-risk populations, strengthening transition services, and allowing states to extend adoption assistance or guardianship payments through age 21 if the adoption or guardianship was arranged before the child’s 16th birthday.

Only about 10 percent of students from foster care enroll in higher education -- with less than 2 percent earning bachelor's degrees. This Casey Family Programs resource can assist colleges in improving their support for students coming from foster care.

By examining foster youth in Illinois -- one of the few states that extends care up to
age 21 -- this new Chapin Hall study finds that a higher degree of advocacy by juvenile
courts is linked with more services for older foster youth, greater involvement by
caseworkers and adults, more positive attitudes about remaining in care beyond 18 and
a greater awareness that by law youth may remain in care beyond 18.

This Finance Project brief presents five financing strategies that can support education success programs and services for youth currently in or transitioning out of the foster care system. For each, the brief highlights relevant funding sources to consider, the range of partners to engage, considerations for implementation and examples of the strategy in practice.

This annual cohort study examines the impact of foster care services from Casey Family Programs on youth ages 19, 22 and 25. This study also compares these youth to other former foster youth and to their peers who have never experienced foster care.

The latest findings are consistent with other foster care studies: the Casey young adults reported high rates of homelessness, symptoms of mental health disorders, GED completion, dependence on public assistance and involvement with the criminal justice system. However, their educational and employment outcomes as well as health insurance coverage and rates of drug use were better than most studies.