The Multi-Dimensional Factors that Impact the Youth Transiting from Foster Care

The period during which the youth transit into adulthood are oftentimes characterized by both anxiety and happiness as the youth move towards the assumption of adult responsibilities and roles. Nevertheless, the experiences are never the same for all the youth since a subset of American youth who transit out of foster care have greater levels of vulnerability compared to their peers who reside in the rest of the population, especially when the analysis considers the ease of their transition. Resultantly, this paper reviews the extant literature on the challenges that the youth emerging out of foster care face during their transition, including their well-being, education, criminal justice involvement, substance abuse, finances, and relationships. The review notes the implications of psychological issues on the wellbeing of the study population. Alongside the review, the paper includes a reflection on the topic, which highlights the path through which the author has taken to understand the scope of social work. 

Key Words: Foster Care, Youth, Transition, Challenges, Wellbeing, social work

Introduction

Transiting into adulthood is always a difficult time for any emerging youth because the period is laden with important decisions and changes that continue shaping their growth. Most of the youth, according to academia, experience anxiety related to the need for them to start developing and assuming new roles in life (Steffe & Barry, 2012). Compared to most of the emerging youth who live in the general population, those who have been discharged from foster care are mostly compelled to face these moments on their own, or if they receive assistance, it is always too limited to help them in transiting smoothly (Courtney & Dworsky, 2006). The transition period into adulthood mostly presents challenges to the youth in terms of delinquent behavior, irresponsible sexual behavior, and economic insecurity, issues with employment and earnings, and education among other issues. The reported challenges have the ability to shape not only their opportunities and adjustments during the period, but also in their later development as well (Courtney et al., 2001). A wide range of literature associates such challenges to the inadequacy of social guidance and support, which suggest that family preservation and permanency planning are critical. The latter cited literature suggests that individuals placed under foster care are always in jeopardy because of the services that they could not be getting while under such care and issues in their biological familial backgrounds as well a poor adjustment to such disruptions that come with their often forced movement out of home care. 

Programs, which have received research backing in the recent years, such as Chafee Foster Care Independence Programs, Independent Living Programs, and others are among the possible solutions for the limited guidance that is provided to the foster youth before their emancipation (Steffe & Barry, 2012). To a large extent, the outcomes of the youth released from foster care suggest that they are not always adequately prepared to meet the challenges of independent living, which is why the identified programs could potentially be applied in mitigating the challenges (Reilly, 2013). The objectives of such programs are to ensure the extension of care beyond the ages of 18 and 19 years during which the youth are usually released from foster care after being offered skills of independent living as well as the monetary support that would help them in their transition to stable adulthood (Steffe & Barry, 2012). Through addressing a number of the primary challenges which are specific to the transiting youthful population, the identified programs could be more successful in helping the youth’s smooth transition. 

Much as it is critical to have programs that target the youth who remain until foster care until their emancipation, staying in such facilities is not usually the best choice for all children. According to Courtney et al. (2007), two of the most important options for such youth are to ensure the reunion of children who had been initially separated from their families with their biological familial ties or to consider legal adoption, especially where it is not possible to reunite the children with their families. Notable, the latter cited literature suggests that the two options offer continued support to the affect population through their 18th birthday as well as when they emerge into adulthood. Because the options may not always be practical and attainable, a significant proportion of the youth remain in foster care. Instead of just being the third option for the foster care population, the focus of policymakers should now shift towards making foster care permanent (Daining & DePanfilis, 2007). One of the most practical ways of doing this is to ensure better guidance and preparation for the emerging youths alongside modelling systems of foster care after real family support systems. 

The proposal in the preceding paragraph is especially important since a significant proportion of the youth transiting from foster care are more likely than the rest who live in the general population to be targeted for abuse, be victims of mistreatment, neglect, or parent death or family dysfunction. The issues have been reported to be associated with a great deal of effects with implications on the wellbeing of the affected population. Therefore, modeling foster care systems on family support structures could possibly aid in their transition and adjustment through the introduction of permanency into their lives, which was absent before they joined foster care. A sizable amount of literature suggests the need for emerging adults aging out of institutions offering foster care are in a dire need for interventions and guidance before their emancipation for them to deal with the pitfalls of growing into adulthood (Courtney & Heuring, 2015). 

This paper appraises literature on the challenges that the youth aging from foster care face in their development into adulthood. Especially, concentration is placed on the factors that affect the wellbeing of the study population, including the psychological, economic, and social aspects that affect the smooth transition into foster care as well as their interactions with the criminal justice system. The author also reviews literature in what foster care systems in the country are doing to assist the youth who age from such facilities and what remains to be done. 

The Challenges that the Youth Aging from Foster Care Experience in their Transition 

Literature points out a range of challenges that emerging youth aging out of systems of foster care experience. As Pecora et al. (2013) point out, the youth who move to independent living are more vulnerable to and experience numerous negative outcomes. Considering, also, the idea that most of such persons have dysfunctional familial backgrounds to start with, and that they are not always prepared adequately, there appears to be predispositions towards some challenges of independent living even while they could be potentially mitigated. 

Wellbeing and Relationships 

The wellbeing of a person could be determined by several factors, including social relationships and genetic predisposition. The social relationships developed by foster care youth are very different in comparison to their counterparts who are raised in their original families in the US since foster youth are forced to undergo several different placements during their time under the foster care system. As literature, such as Steffe and Barry (2012) suggests, children who are placed in foster care are in positions where separations have already happened from their biological parents and separation from foster parents is likely because of the need for reunions with their parents, the movement to other families while under care or any changes in the levels of care that would be deemed necessary. Such constant changes and movements in the lives of foster youth cause significant disruptions in their attachments to others and the formation of relationships, which compromises their wellbeing eventually. 

The comparison of groups of adults who aged out of foster care with those who were never placed under such facilities is one of the ways of assessing the variations that could be existing between the two groups. One study applied the comparison between the two groups with the objective of determining their implications for the psychological wellbeing and adjustments among individuals who were formerly under foster care and the rest of the population using seven factors, which were self-esteem, social isolation, maternal relationship, paternal relationship, marital happiness, depression, and life happiness (Geenen & Powers, 2017). The scope of the cited research is important for consideration in this review since the psychological wellbeing of populations that aged out of foster care is one of the most probable pitfalls for effective adjustment. Precisely, the inclusion of the point of view of the researchers in the latter cited literature is the first one to inform one of the concerns of effective transition, which should be at the center of focus for social worker strategists, which is the contributions of psychological wellbeing to the adjustment of former foster care populations, especially the youth. 

Consistent with other findings in academia, the latter cited study revealed that compared to the rest of the populations, adult respondents who had spells in foster care reported significantly lower scores in five of the seven categories that were studied in comparison to the control population. Precisely, the study suggests that former foster youth populations experience higher social isolation and depression as well a low marital satisfaction and less intimate paternal and maternal relationships compared to the control group. However, as the cited literature suggests, the rest of the aspects in the study did not reveal statistically significant findings. Likely not by coincidence, the individuals who have a history of foster care fare worse than those who have never been placed in the institutions in every category that represents social relationships. It is imperative noting that relationships are the most fragile in the lives of people who transit from foster care into independent living. 

The implications of psychological wellbeing for people who age from foster care focuses the concern of this research on the mental health of the study population. The findings reviewed in the preceding paragraph point at some of the indicators of mental health, including depression, isolation, and self-esteem. However, according to Salazar et al. (2013), a majority of people aging from foster care experience trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder. The cited literature reports that foster youth represent one of the most traumatized populations even though the trauma that they experience relates to the fact that a significant number of them are often maltreated while under such facilities as opposed to the full spectrum of the disorder as described in one of the richest mental health disorders handbooks in the history of psychology, the DSM-IV manual. The fact that most of the youth aging out of foster care do not receive the appropriate support services that would help their adjustment to the normal life, the same study finds and reports higher chances of the development of post-traumatic stress disorder among people who move out of foster care than those who have never been admitted to such facilities. The quality of the study analyzed in this paragraph, therefore, informs another aspect of the challenges that people who transit from foster care face. Precisely, its inclusion into this literature review expounds on the reasons why such people have issues establishing healthy relationships following their movement out of the system. In line with the reported findings, a social worker’s role in helping the youth transiting from foster home includes offering the appropriate psychological support that would be useful in the development of proper social relationships. 

Substance Use and Substance-Use-Related Disorders 

Notably, people aging from foster care face significant challenges late in their adult lives, yet some of the issues, including substance use, manifest themselves as soon as they are released from foster care. Much as literature indicates that substance abuse also grows across the rest of the population during emerging adulthood, the youth who have been exposed to foster care could be more susceptible to the pressures of substance use, which means that they are at a higher risk of developing substance-use-related disorders (Samuels & Pryce, 2008). 

Substance Use

Substance abuse is a national phenomenon among emerging adults in the US and elsewhere, and the trend can be associated with the rest of the subgroups of the populace. Instabilities in the living conditions of persons could lead them into substance abuse, especially when the issue is perceived in respect to those aging from foster care. Individuals may get themselves in a number of living conditions following their emancipation, which may include independent living, at their biological home, or with their relatives. The youth who live independently after their transition from foster care systems are more likely to engage in alcohol and marijuana usage compared to their counterparts who have never been admitted to such institutions or those who remain under foster care (Samuels & Pryce, 2008). In interesting finding from the latter cited study is the fact that much as most of the people who age from the foster care system show significant increases in their substance use within the first year after their emancipation, their rate of substance use is slightly lower than that of the general population. The same study attributes the relatively lower levels of substance use for the two groups to the inability of the foster population to pay for the substances that they wish to use as opposed to their desire and commitment to avoid such behavior. The inclusion of the cited study in this review of literature, therefore, underscores the potential benefits of maintaining foster parents longer after transition into adulthood with the objective of supporting the emancipated groups in seamless transition even though it is likely that they may engage in the behavior later in life. Overall, the research suggests the need for continued support, especially by social workers, in ensuring that those aging from the foster system deal with the many challenges that they face, such as substance use. 

Substance-Use-Related Disorders 

The previously cited literature reports that unlike the trend in substance abuse among those aging from foster homes in comparison to the general population, the foster home population depicts a higher prevalence of disorders related to substance abuse compared to the control population (Samuels & Pryce, 2008). The same research reports that the incidence of the disorders is higher among 21-year-olds compared to the rest of the age groups for those who transit from foster care institutions, and the disorders included abuse, violent behavior, mental health issues, and others. Therefore, apart from informing the need for continued care, which could probably be offered by social workers, the study reveals the need for such practitioners to concentrate their efforts on specific age groups because of their perceived higher risk compared to others. 

Education 

Legislators and lawmakers of today take the education of the youth seriously. With the pursuit of higher levels of education now becoming a common practice for most people, a high school diploma carries less significance in the workplace of today compared to what it did many decades ago. Literature on this aspect of the research paper suggest that much as two in five youth emancipated from the foster care system went on to attain some form of higher education in 2006, only 20.6 percent of them received a certificate or a degree (Pecora et al., 2013). Furthermore, a disproportionately small percentage of the former foster care population received a GED instead of high school diploma, which could be attributed to a number of factors, which may include the lack of motivation and encouragement to complete high school as opposed to GED, mental health issues that affect their success in the classroom that were not identified for treatment, higher levels of instabilities in placement, little resources, and the absence of support to enable them transit to higher education. 

As much as a number of the emerging adults from foster care manage to deal with their challenges, most of them do not. These issues, in addition with greater mobility during their period under foster care, combine against the affected groups and make it cumbersome to attain a solid and uninterrupted education, which is associated with life-long implications. Because the youth and emerging adults from foster care experience comparatively higher rates of school dropouts as well lower college enrolment, they experience disproportionately low employment levels that is accompanied by lower compensation compared to the rest of the control group. While the statistics given in the latter cited literature are informative and somewhat compelling concerning the status of the educational status of the foster care population, they could be telling the whole story concerning this aspect of the analysis, with racial aspects impacting on the rate of placement of the youth in foster care, the same study indicates. As do the rest of the literature appraised in this study, Pecora et al. (2013) is useful in informing the need for social support for the youth aging from foster care around the country, especially by redefining the role of social work in the facilitation of the wellbeing. 

Finances and Employment 

The extant literature compared the rate at which people are qualified for specific jobs between the foster and general population between the ages of 20 and 34 indicates disadvantaging statistics for the study population. The reason given in academia is the fact that the individuals who age from foster care in the country lack the necessary skills and training for specialized jobs, which places them at a higher risk of unemployment or underemployment compared to their peers who do not enter the foster system (Pecora et al., 2013). The cited study suggests, “…underemployment in the former foster care population is manifested both in job types that they hold and their lower earnings,” (Geenen & Powers, 2017, p. 1090). The findings of the study further indicate that much as half of the former foster care youth employees were employed in 2010, their average findings were not sufficient enough to place them above the poverty line by that time. The fact that a significant proportion of the former foster care youth do not always receive the right levels of education means that they are always disadvantaged in in terms of job opportunities and stabilities in employment. Many other aspects could be compromised in the absence of financial stability, and this could be expressed when the affected persons do not enjoy familial and outside support, such as social welfare. Consequently, financial stability has critical implications for the youth transiting from foster care, especially in ensuring that they live independently. 

The Involvement of Former Foster Youth with the Criminal Justice System 

The existing literature suggests that close to half of the youth who have been maltreated and who transit from the foster care system have been arrested as adults, and that the same population is at a higher risk of being arrested, tried, and imprisoned later during their adulthood compared to the rest of the population (Pfluger, 2016). The cited authors suggest that persons who have experienced abuse and neglect while young, which forced their admission to the foster care system at one time in their lives are approximately twice or thrice more likely to be involved in the crime as adults compared to the group which did not go foster care after the incidences of abuse. The same study suggests that people aging from foster homes are also more likely to be arrested as adults if they are placed in non-individualized foster homes than if they are placed in individualized ones. 

As literatures reviewed concerning the involvement of the youth aging from foster homes suggest, individuals who experience family separation close to their incidences of neglect and abuse are more likely to be arrested as adults compared to those who remained in their homes after the incidences (Pfluger, 2016). The latter literature also associates unstable placements with the likelihood that individuals would be arrested later in life after they shall have been emancipated, especially because such instabilities influence the quality of services that they receive while under the system, which has been reported previously. The reviewed literatures, as do the rest that have already been included, inform the need for a multi-strategy approach to helping the youth who age from foster care, especially with the objective of improving their quality of life. While most studies underscore the involvement of stakeholders from the criminal justice and government agencies, the literature points at the possible inclusion of social workers in the implementation of the strategy. 

What the Foster Care is doing to assist the Youth after Care and the Challenges Experienced 

Much as most of the people placed under foster care eagerly await their eighteenth birthdays during which they shall be legible for emancipation, some unfortunate ones do not have the same experience. The youth in foster care understand that eighteen is a year that each one of them should dread because it is the time when they will potentially suddenly become homeless after they shall be removed from the foster care system because of age limits. Foster homes have played a critical role since their establishment in finding families and homes for the youth who age out of the system. As discussed previously, the system has also strived to provide the appropriate support that would promote independent living for the unlucky individuals who may miss the opportunities of being united to a family once they move out of care. However, as indicate, the foster system is challenged in its commitment to ensuring that its alumni fined extended support when they leave the system. For example, in 2016, close to 430,000 children were placed under the foster care system out of which only a quarter were awaiting adoption, yet only four percent of the quarter, approximately 15,000, were placed under pre-adoptive care (Ahmann, 2017). According to the cited literature, pre-adoptive foster care is a term applied in describing the type of care that prepares individuals for life with a foster family. Consequently, information from the cited literature points out one of the greatest challenges that foster homes experience in their attempt to support the youth who age out of the system; a potential explanation as to why most of them meet with the numerous challenges as described previously. 

The biggest contribution of foster homes to the lives of its alumni after emancipation comes with the partnership of such institutions with social workers. Apart from looking for adoptive families on behalf of the youth placed in foster care, social workers also engage multiple organizations that provide support for those emancipated from the system, which apart from continuing the search for adoptive families, provide the necessary resources to the youth to foster independent living (Ahmann, 2017). However, the problem still lies in the fact that resources to help such youth are limited, and the social workers struggle in finding enough resources to accommodate all the graduates from the foster system. As the youth age, the amount of time that hey wait before they are placed in the care of an adoptive family increases remarkably, which has an adverse effect on the number of successful adoptions. Literature suggest that after spending between twelve and eighteen months in foster care, the chances that the involved persons will leave the system into transit into a foster family decline rapidly and such chances become incredibly low when the youth spend between thirty-six and forty-two months. 

Literature reports that the average age of the children and youth in foster care who were awaiting adoption was 7.6 years in 2015 and close to forty-three percent of the population that was adopted was aged eight years or more (Ahmann, 2017). As the same study suggests, close to fifty-percent of those who had been waiting for adoption had been in the foster system for over two years while a third of them had been under the same system for more than three years. Notably, there is evidence that a child is more likely to turn eighteen when they are in foster care when they are aged between 8 and 9 years and those aged 12 years and have been in the system for the same period are likely to age out of foster care before they find permanent foster placement (Ahmann, 2017). Therefore, the fact that social workers experience challenges in finding permanent placement for the youth who age out of the system is a significant challenge that points at the need for an increase in the resources required for supporting the population. 

Strategies Proposed to Improve Support for the Youth

The many pitfalls described in this literature review could be addressed for the emancipated foster youth since the trends seen for this group is more adverse compared to the general population. Because the problems identified do not affect a cross-section of the youth in the general population, something could be done to facilitate the smooth transition of the youth who age from foster care into the rest of the population. In addition to the issue that the youth must move out of foster care and deal with uncertainty, they are also likely to face neglect, abuse, and the lack of constructive permanent relationships with adults, which further affects their transition into independent living. In realizing the need to support the populations who leave foster care, literature proposes further research into the efficacy of three programs; Transition Guardian Plans, (TGP), Independent Living Programs, (ILP), and Chafee Foster Care Independence Programs, (CFCIP). While these programs may not be new, it is imperative to address their primary weaknesses as discussed subsequently. 

Transition Guardian Plans

The proposed TGP program would simulate the performance of parents during the transition of the youth into independent adulthood. According to Steffe and Barry (2012), the proposed program is researched using evidence from other successful programs. The program builds on the types of support that parents would normally give to their children as they prepare and during the transition into adulthood, including the monetary aid required to meet expenses, such as housing assistance, tuition, utilities, and transportation, which are not always available for most transiting youth. It is anticipated that the services that this program would provide would facilitate independent living without the feeling of abandonment by the rest of the society since all the foster youth shall have been assigned a guardian with whom they had been previously connected to fulfil the need for constancy. Much as the program is ambitious in its likely outcomes, it is yet to be tested, and it remains to be seen if it will yield the anticipated results. A critical analysis of this program indicates that it would most likely fail because it does not solve the issue limited resources in the foster youth-guardian relationship. Therefore, it would be plausible for the federal administration to expand funding for this project to ensure that it complements with the others that have been proposed in ensuring that the youth aging from foster care do not struggle during their transition to the general population. 

Independent Living Programs

The second proposed program, the ILP, is an adoption of a 1985 version of the Congressional proposal to aid in the smooth transition of foster youth into normal living. In this program, the involved person gets services, including help in getting their educational goals, obtaining and maintaining active employment, financial management, hygiene, house-keeping, as well as finding a place to live. While this program may not be novel (most of the programs available at the moment focus on the provision of the reported services), they are worth emphasizing, especially with the objective of expanding their membership through reviewing its eligibility criterion from between 16 and 17 years to over eighteen, when the youth age out of the system and the points of service that would deal with the current insufficiency in the availability of programs and services of this nature (Steffe & Barry, 2012). The core objective of the programs is to empower the youth aging from foster care to live independently, which has been one of the primary issues of concern for policymakers. 

Chafee Foster Care Independence Programs

As it is the case with the rest of the programs, the CFCIP was proposed to Congress in 1999 and adopted the same year. The program also promoted the provision of services to the youth who moved out of foster care through giving vocational training, counselling, mentoring, educational assistance, and preventive health activities (Collins, 2011). The only different with the ILP is the fact that it was only available for individuals who were anticipated to be in foster care until the age of eighteen, which set the eligibility criterion at eighteen years. Furthermore, instead of targeting the foster care population as do the rest of the programs, the CFCIP incorporate the youth who transit from the system. While the program appears properly informed, especially because it seeks to follow the emancipated youth into their life out of the foster care system, it has been hampered by the fact that it does not have adequate assessment tools that would help in reporting its effectiveness (Barth, 2010). Furthermore, the growing numbers of the youth transiting from foster care makes it challenging for the program to meet the needs of the whole population, which is why it would be important to expand funding for its execution. 

Reflections 

On My Development through the Masters in Social Work Program 

The journey undertaken so far through the attainment of my graduate degree has been eventful. While I had been introduced to some aspects of researching during my undergraduate years, I had never thought I would master more advanced research strategies that apply in the field of social sciences. Therefore, before I became a student at the university, I was curious about the challenges that I would meet during the latter part of my study. I have worked closely with course instructors and classmates over projects, which has been useful in the development of my empirical research techniques. Most importantly, the academic journey has allowed me to incorporate theory into practice as a social worker, especially because I now know the intersectionality of the two aspects. I understand that while theory informs policy, it is only scientifically tested for it to be plausible for use in such contexts. 

The program has also widened my understanding of the scope of social work both as a profession and a field of knowledge. For example, I understand the critical role that social workers play in the development and adoption of policies for social welfare. Precisely, through the program, I understand that social workers should be at the frontline in policy advocacy through informing the public of the need to change or adopt specific policies. The research findings in the completed literature review, for example, indicate the dire need for the nation to involve social work professionals more in the development of social policies that would improve the experiences and wellbeing of the youth both in and who age from foster care, as the existing partnership appears to be weak. 

I can also reflect on the tasks and assignments that we have covered during the program, especially those that required us to work in groups. Through such experiences, I have learned leadership skills through leading my group at times and through admiring others who have exemplary leadership skills. I feel that I would never have learned such skills if I had not enrolled for the course and consequently missed out on nurturing one of the most compelling universal traits for all professions, which is the art of effective leadership. I will apply the leadership knowledge and skills learned in practice now that I understand that the scope of social work requires persistent advocacy. Therefore, much as I enrolled to the program with limited information on the scope of theory and practice in social work, I am now more knowledgeable and adequately prepared to apply the learned skills into practice. 

On my Philosophy of Belonging 

My philosophy of belonging directs my perspective that as much as I am an individual, I am a part of the community. I feel that the only way through which I can feel that I belong to a people is to strive to attain togetherness, especially in the pursuit of a common goal. For a social worker, the goal is always social wellbeing, which is a dream for everyone. From this perspective, I feel that I do not only belong to my immediate community, but also to the global community since social welfare is a universal aspect. 

My philosophy of belonging has influenced my knowledge and skill development. Precisely, I am knowledgeable in the sense that social welfare, much as it is a universal idea, is rooted in legal and ethical grounds. By the statement, I mean that for any social policy to be effective, it must be backed by a specific legislation and it should strive to attain the maximum good for the maximum number of people. For this reason, I have learned both negotiation and persuasive skills, which are informed deeply by effective communication strategies. The two skills will always help me in driving change—from an advocacy perspective. I must belong to people from different cultures because I belong to the world. Therefore, I have mastered intercultural competence through my study, which is another critical aspect for social workers. 

Conclusion 

The choice of the topic for this paper is significantly informed by my love for social work. I have always wished to be at the center of policies that promote the wellbeing of others around me. I have read and watched news articles of many foster children who do not end up well after they age from the foster care system. At most, such youth encounter many challenges, which disadvantage in the pursuit of opportunities for self-advancement compared to the rest of the population who do not go to such systems. My desire has been to develop a policy that would follow up the emancipated populations through their lives after foster homes, which would ensure that less people suffer the consequences of separation and family dysfunction. Therefore, I felt that while the population still under foster care could be enjoying the privilege of care, the one that ages out of the system could be unprepared to deal with the challenges of independent living, which additionally informed the choice of the research topic. 

Following the extensive review of literature undertaken in this paper, I have discovered that many issues obstruct the seamless transition of the youth from foster care to the rest of the community. Most of the issues relate to the fact that such youth are never adequately prepared to meet the challenges of living on their own, which include the need for stable familial relationships, housing status, economic empowerment, and educational development among other issues. While policymakers may be aware of the fact that despite large numbers of the youth and children being admitted to foster care around the country, only a section of them transit well into life away from the system, they have done only so much to breach the gap been admission and transition. The reviewed studies have revealed that the primary challenge has been the inadequacy of resources that prepare the youth for life outside the foster care system. I have reviewed literature and recommended changes to three programs that would improve resource availability within communities and empower more youth to live independently. The scope of the paper suggests the critical role that social workers have to play in the development and adoption of the relevant policies for social welfare. 

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