Young adults aging out of the foster care system

Young Adults Aging Out of Foster Care
Introduction
Every year a quarter million children are placed into foster care in the U.S. While they are all led to believe that they will have the possibility of having a permanent place or home with a family, the reality is that approximately 10% of them, or 23,000 foster children, age out of the system and have nowhere to go and no opportunity to heal from the abuse that they likely suffered from under their biological parents or step-parents (National Foster Youth Institute, 2017). When these children turn 18, they are legally adults and no longer foster youths: they are turned out of foster care and as a result become homeless. Moreover, only 50% of young adults who age out of foster care have any gainful employment—by the age of 24, a full six years after aging out of care. Fewer than 3 out of every 100 young adults who age out of foster care will earn a college diploma (National Foster Youth Institute, 2017). In short, the opportunities are few and the future bleak for young adults who age out of foster care. This paper provides an overview of the issue and discusses how elements of human rights and social justice intersect with the problem. It describes the population, evaluates the implications of the problem on the developmental phase of life using Erikson’s model, assesses how an intervention (or lack thereof) might affect the young adult’s life, and shows how these studies will assist me personally in advocating for clients who face this particular issue.
Overview
The transition to adulthood that youths in foster care face can be daunting, especially as they age out of foster care and are essentially on their own from that point forward (Nesmith & Christophersen, 2014). Many of the young adults who age out of care have never really had a permanent home of their own after being placed within the foster care system. They have never really had their trauma treated; they are likely to have fallen behind in terms of accomplishing academic goals. They face a high risk of substance abuse, joblessness, and homelessness.
In this type of environment, the social worker has to provide some degree of stability, support and consistency for the young adult. Unfortunately, the young adults who age out of foster care are not really provided by the state with the support they need to stand on their own two legs. Though a significant percentage of them may want to obtain a college degree, very few of them actually do because they are faced with more immediate pressures and concerns—such as adapting to adulthood without a support network to care their own (Jones, 2011). They have to make ends meet, provide for themselves, and essentially be their own mother and father at a time when most other young adults rely heavily on their parents for support during their transition from adolescence into adulthood.
How Elements of Human Rights and Social Justice Intersect with the Problem
Elements of human rights and social justice intersect with the problem young adults aging out of foster care in terms of the population lacking the moral and material support needed to have a fighting chance of maintaining a positive footing. Every young adult transitioning into adulthood should have the opportunity to succeed, but children who are placed into the foster care system lack that basic human right: they are like the unwanted children of society who never find a home, are never taken in, and never given what other children have naturally—a foundation of love and support that is so essential to the proper development of skills, virtues, and abilities.
Social justice plays a part in this issue in the sense that there is a social need to address the problem. As young adults aging out of foster care are a vulnerable population who is being underserved by the state and is essentially marginalized by the community, there is a need for a stronger, united effort from community stakeholders and leaders to address their plight. Many of them want to go to school so that they can have a career and a future. Too many of them end up abusing substances, getting into legal trouble, and never finishing college (and in some cases never even finishing high school). Being turned out on one’s own at 18 is difficult for anyone—but it is especially difficult for young adults who have no family to call their own. They have no support system, no friends to rely on, no one in their community to know them, no neighbors—they have nothing. They are the forgotten, the outcast, the neglected and the downtrodden. If anyone in the community needs support and is deserving of swift social justice it is the population of young adults forced out of foster care at age 18.
The Population
70% of young adult females who age out of foster care are pregnant by the time they turn 21 (National Foster Youth Institute, 2017). More than 50% young adult males who age of foster care will be convicted of a crime (National Foster Youth Institute, 2017). A quarter of all foster children who age out of care will suffer from some form of PTSD (National Foster Youth Institute, 2017). Half of them will develop a substance abuse problem, while three-fourths of young adult females and one-third of young adult males will rely on government benefits just to have their basic needs met once they age out of foster care (National Foster Youth Institute, 2017). The annual rate at which children who are discharged from the foster care system without having achieved a successful placement is 13%. Youths who enter the foster care system at the age of 12 are 40% more likely to be released from the system at age 18 with nowhere to go (National Foster Youth Institute, 2017).
Many within this population suffer from trauma or disabilities, and end up without jobs, shelter, and on the wrong end of the law (Osgood, Foster & Courtney, 2010). And even though the state stops providing support—in some cases abruptly and in other cases in phases—the reality is that this vulnerable population still requires support and does not all of a sudden arrive at a point in life where the young adults can be perfectly independent just because they have reached legal age of 18. One of the main challenges of this population once the young adults have aged out of foster care is to remain resilient and continue with some form of schooling (Jones, 2011).
Ethnicity
The ethnicities of those who age out of foster care include white, African American, Hispanic, Asian American and other. However, African American children “make up 20% of the foster care population, which is about double the amount of maltreatment reports that are generated for their racial demographic annually” (National Foster Youth Institute, 2017). Considering that African Americans only make up 12.3% of the U.S. population, the fact that twice their population percentage is represented in foster care shows that African American children have the hardest time finding care in the world.
Health Concerns
Health concerns for this population include mental health issues, such as trauma, PTSD, physical abuse, sexual abuse, drug abuse, substance abuse, chemical dependency, and other behavioral health issues. Many foster children who age out of care are likely to suffer from emotional health issues as well. The main health concern for healthy young adults who age out of foster care, however, is that they find adequate food and shelter upon becoming independent so that their health does not deteriorate through neglect and an inability to support oneself (Rosenberg & Kim, 2018).
Socioeconomic Class
The socioeconomic class of most foster children is considerably low and those who age out of foster care have few prospects in the way of upward mobility. As Rosenberg and Kim (2018) point out, most of them face obstacles such as unemployment (for lack of education, training, development, and issues stemming from trauma, etc.). Unemployment often leads to homelessness, which then leads to drug and substance abuse. This is followed by legal troubles, jail time, and so on—all of which is perpetuated in a vicious cycle. For young adults aging out of foster care, the decision-making skills processes are also typically lacking (Olson, Scherer & Cohen, 2017), which further exacerbates the issue and results in this population being stuck in a lower-bound socioeconomic class.
Implications of the Problem on the Developmental Phase of Life
According to Erikson’s model of psychosocial development, there are 8 stages through which every individual passes during life (Knight, 2017). Each stage is characterized by a specific conflict that the individual faces and must resolve before continuing on in his or her development. The stages of development start early, with the first one being the Trust vs. Mistrust stage that lasts between the ages of 0 and 2. In this stage, the child needs to be supported by love and affection from parents so that the child learns to trust. The issue that many foster children face is that they suffer from a traumatic experience in many cases, which is why they are placed in foster care: typically it happens that the children are exposed to abuse, or are neglected, or something of that nature occurs, which prevents the stages of psychosocial development from proceeding. The conflicts that should be resolved are often never resolved and the result is that the children become adults with deep psychological problems that prevent them from fulfilling their potential. This is why many of them turn to drugs or alcohol for self-medication: they are attempting to cope for the unresolved issues and conflicts of earlier stages of conflict that have never been addressed.
Singer and Berzin (2015) refer to the conflict that young adults face as emerging adulthood, and they note that this challenge is particularly problematic for young adults aging out of foster care because of the conflict of identity formation and independence that goes along with it. These issues are discussed in Erikson’s model, but the idea of emerging adulthood by Singer and Berzin is slightly different in that foster youths who are liberated have a need for continued support because they do not have the normal framework for family that other youths have during this same age development. In other words, the needs of young adults aging out of foster care are not being met and the child welfare system could do more to help meet those needs (Berzin, Singer & Hokanson, 2014).
In Erikson’s model, the fifth and sixth stages are the crucial ones for the young adult coming out of foster care. The fifth stage is characterized by the Identity vs. Role Confusion conflict (ages 12-18) and the sixth stage is characterized by the Intimacy vs. Isolation conflict, which can last from age 18 to 40. The young adult aging out of foster care will be concerned primarily with establishing an identity or role for himself and having some type of emotional or social support to prevent him from slipping into isolation and desolation (Knight, 2017).
Young adulthood, ages 18-26, are the most critical years for the child emerging into adulthood as these conflicts have to be addressed or the individual will succumb to a number of crisis and challenges, both internal and external. As Lee and Berrick (2014) note, the identity capital framework can be used to help make sense of how young adults aging out of foster care achieve stability in their lives in spite of the challenges they may face. The identity capital framework refers to tangible and intangible resources: “Tangible resources are those that are ‘socially visible’ and deemed valuable by society, providing entrance and membership into social groups and institutions,” such as human, social and financial capital, education, and employable skills (Lee & Berrick, 2014, p. 79).
Intangible skills refer to refer to “personal or internal assets, and more specifically, personal agency and adult identity”—i.e., a level of self-actualization that conforms to the pyramid used by Maslow representing the needs hierarchy of individuals (Lee & Berrick, 2014, p. 79). The ability of the young adult to make decisions for himself, to take responsibility and to be accountable are all intangible skills that the young adult has to possess in order to succeed on his own. The problem is that too few young adults who age out of foster care have either the tangible resources or the intangible resources to make it work.
How an Intervention (or Lack Thereof) Might Affect the Individual’s Life
Intervention, therefore, should focus on facilitating the transition of young adults out of the foster care system by prepping them in advance and training them to develop the tangible and intangible skills and resources that will be required of them when they are liberated. Such an intervention would be behavioral, educative, and social, and it would require a substantial amount of time and input—but this is essentially the only way this population will be able to address the issues it currently faces. Without such an intervention the population can expect more of the same—more substance abuse issues, more unresolved trauma and inner conflict issues, more unemployment and more homelessness.
With the help of a system that understands the specific needs of the young adult, the population could improve its chances of a successful transition to adulthood. The system has to provide ways, however, for the population to develop the tangible and intangible resources required. Otherwise, it is serving no purpose, is failing the children as they mature, and is only delaying an inevitable collapse—a collapse that could be prevented with a little attention to tangible resource and intangible skill formation and accumulation.
How My Studies and Experience Will Assist Me in Advocacy
My research into this topic will help me to advocate for this population by allowing me to understand the full scope of the issue, as Lee and Berrick (2014) have so explicitly outlined it using their identity capital framework. That framework allows the any who are interested in the issue to perceive the needs areas that the population has and to take action by raising awareness about those needs areas or by addressing them directly through action oriented to facilitating the development of the tangible and intangible resources in question. Without having understood the issue in these terms, it would be far more difficult to advocate for the population.
Now that it has been revealed what specifically the population requires, the problem becomes one of making sure the population’s needs are met. The young adults who will age out of foster care should be receiving education and training in developing their human and social capital and also in obtaining a level of self-actualization that will allow them to make effective decisions on their own behalf, be accountable and demonstrate responsibility when they leave the system. The question is: what can a social worker do to see that this happens?
The answer to that question is the work of advocacy. Advocacy is about raising awareness, promoting a cause, implementing a change and making a difference. The issue with this population is that the foster care system is not putting in place the necessary steps that will enable the child to achieve a level of self-actualization. But of course, as Maslow points out, the hierarchy of needs model consists of several foundational steps that must be taken before self-actualization can be achieved—and taking these steps is going to be dependent upon the community.
For these steps include obtaining food and shelter, love and affection, esteem and friendship. Unless a family of some kind is willing to take the youths in the foster care system, many of them will be left without ever having obtained these all-important levels. Their development towards self-actualization will thus be blunted and no advancement or progress will actually be achieved. To avoid that outcome, I can advocate on the behalf of the population in the community, as the community is where the families live and work and come together.
Connecting with families over this issue is one of the primary ways to improve advocacy. Families in the community need to be made to understand that just because a youth is in the foster care does not mean the youth is already a criminal or has no right to a family, a community, or a network of support. Every family in every community has to begin to take notice of this population, reach out, provide support of some kind so that the needs of the child can be met and self-actualization achieved. If this can be achieved, the community itself is more likely to benefit, become stronger, and accomplish more, as the marginalized and underserved population of young adults transitioning out of foster care will no longer suffer from an inadequate support system, a lack of human, social and financial capital and the intangible resources, such as self-discipline, responsibility and drive.
Advocacy can also be performed within the system itself.