e-mail
What happens to kids after they turn eighteen and are still in foster care? It’s not a pretty picture.
It’s really up to the family they are living with if the now adult will remain living with them, but there will no longer be a foster care subsidy to help the family pay the bills. In many cases, these young adults become homeless.
What were you like at the age of eighteen? Were you capable of paying all your bills, renting an apartment, filling out health insurance applications, having a job that was willing to pay for all these things? I know I wasn’t. Had you finished high school yet when you were eighteen? I didn’t. What if you had turned eighteen during the middle of a school year and you lost your place to live? Will you have been able to stay in school?
How can we expect our foster children to be ready when kids in a ‘normal” family aren’t? These kids have been bounced from home to home. What are the chances that anyone sat down with them and explained to them how to be an adult, make a budget and do all the other things that adults are expected to do?
What options do they have? Where can they go? Most “normal” kids have the option of living with their parents while they get their feet on the ground, or going on to college where they can be eased into the real world gradually.
Only two states will pay for a child to remain in care after the age of eighteen. Those two states are Vermont and Illinois.
What if the child has a mental illness that needs to be medicated? Many of the parents that I know have children that take the medication, Risperdal. A thirty day supply can run about $250. Sammy’s dosage of this medication is about $500 per month. What fresh out of high school adult on a minimum wage job can afford to continue paying that? The other option is for the child with the mental illness to stop taking the medication, which presents another issue.
Why should these kids become homeless at the age of eighteen because their parents made bad decisions?
With an average of 20,000 kids each year aging out of the system we are looking at an epidemic. Many politicians and administrators will say it is a money issue, but let’s think about this for a minute. What is more expensive? Helping to ease a child into adulthood and allowing them to be successful, or yanking the rug out from under them and leaving them homeless, off medication and with a minimum wage job?
What happens to the kids once they are out on their own? Some wind up in homeless shelters, some will find friends to live with or possibly a family member, some may end up hospitalized or in jail because of lack of health care or the proper medications. The chances of them going on to build successful careers drops dramatically. So is it less expensive to fund a gradual transition or to fund hospital stays, jail stays or homeless shelters?
According to an article in Psychology Today:
• Most children don’t move out until the age of twenty-one.
• 4 million people between the ages of 25 and 34 lived with their parents.
• 61% of college seniors expected to move back home after graduation.
These are the “regular” kids, but the kids who don’t have the same resources are put out at age eighteen. Seems backwards to me.
Contact your legislators, social services agencies or anyone else in power to listen and tell them our kids deserve better.
Minnesota Public Radio broadcast
Children’s Bureau Express Report
Casey Family Services
There is one organization in California that helps with this.
http://www.alexsmithfoundation.org/program.php
Also the book Between Sundays by Karen Kingsley talks about the problem.
We have an unoffical 18 year old foster son living with us. Emotionally he’s much younger than that. And I cannot imagine him being out on his own right now. He’s half way through his senior year.
Its a very sad situation.
At eighteen, I wasn’t able to do any of those things. Thought provoking and necessary post, Kelly. Good job.
The Orphan Foundation of America works with foster kids, with particular care to those aging out of the system. They can only do so much though.
I know here in Mo, subsidy on a child can be extended past 18 if the child has not yet finished high school.
I know when my son turned 18 an was lifing in an RTC, I was told to pick him up and drop him on the homeless shelter door. He wasn’t safe to be home and his time was up. I didn’t do that but he ended up homeless a few weeks later anyway.
http://www.mfcaa.org here in MO is working to help these kids that need it. I just recently recieved notice of a meeting they are having to teach foster and adoptive teens how to get a job and keep one. Good program if the kids are receptive to it.
Also, I know when at a hearing for my kids, the oldest brother had just turned 18. The judge and social workers offered him services to assist him into adult hood. He refused them wanting to be free of the 18 year hold dhs had had over him. Sad.
Lucy
In Michigan a foster child can stay in the system until the age of 19 if still attending hs. Subsidies can also be extended to 19. My foster daughter who turned 18 in June, went back to live with her mom, that lasted about 2 weeks. She calls me periodically, always from a different house. Used drugs all summer, says she is now clean. Hasn’t maintained employment for over 2 weeks. She would not have stayed in foster care past 18. She had her mind made up that she was going back to live with her mom and was mad that she had to wait that long.
Kelly~
Completely off topic, but I have gone back and read all your blogs right back to the “Who the Heck Am I?” blog and have a question. I have read about your false abuse allegations and investigation and I know Sammy was removed when Kory and Mackenzie were while the investigation was carried out….but once you were cleared, why could ALL the kids not come back home? I realize their adoption wasn’t finalized but couldn’t it have been after all that was over? It has me nervous as to what can happen in our home should false charges be filed. I want my own children to get to stay with me, but I would want all foster/adopt children to get to come home as well. I understand if this is something personal and you do not want to share. Just let me know.
Kim
Foster parents have no rights when it comes to abuse allegations. This is why I push so hard for the Foster Parent Bill of Rights. As the laws stand right now, the kids can be moved “at will”. What I am proposing is that parents have the right to get the kids back once they have been cleared.
My kids were placed in a pre-adoptive home and nothing was “wrong” there so they got to keep the placement. They ended up moving Kory after about 2 years and we tried to get him back at that point, but he was scared and didn’t want come back. We weren’t even given a chance.
The laws are bad, and need to be changed. I also wasn’t prepared for an investigation and didn’t have the knowledge then that I do now. An investigation at this point in my life would be very different.
Re-read the posts about documentation and keeping files. It goes a long way toward protecting yourself in the event of an investigation.
Yes, as a new foster parent, we just finished classes recently and have our first placement. They really STRESSED documentation and keeping a daily journal for each child for just that reason. They also recommended keeping jumpdrive to keep pics of injuries etc. that you take with your digital camera with dates etc.
But they also made it sound as if the investigation would end, kids would come back, and life would resume as normal again. I see now, from what your experience was, that isn’t true.
Once cleared, your children should have been placed back into your home. You did nothing wrong and their other placement should have been considered a temporary foster home until the results of the investigation were revealed.
Thanks for being willing to share your very personal aspects of life. I have learned more reading your blogs than I ever did in the 30+hours we took in training.
Kim
Thanks Kim. That’s quite a compliment.
There is no law that says that the kids HAVE to be returned or that you even the rights for that. It is up to the social worker.