Yesterday, I posted a link to the Midwest Outcome Study by Chapin Hall. When those of us who work with young people discuss this study, we find nothing surprising. The 23 and 24 year olds have about a 50% unemployment rate, 6% college graduation rate, and about half have been homeless. This in spite of the fact that the majority of them have reconnected with their families, have permanent connections and most feel they have an adequate support system.
The majority of them also reported they could have used additional life skills training, especially in money management, housing, etc.. This is consistent with what I have seen nationally for the last eight years reviewing thousands of Ansell Casey Life Skills Assessments. These outcomes are very consistent with the recently published outcome study funded by Casey Family Programs and others. The Chapin Hall study targets the kind of results we get since the Chafee Program was put in place in 1999. So we have been funding programs to address these issues for eleven years, and these are the Midwest results so far.
I believe if we had done this study prior to Chafee, the outcomes would have been worse. One recommendation made by the study is to extend time in care, (it is called foster care, but for many young people it is institutional care) until age 21. The most consistent factor in improved outcomes is the length of time a young person received support. States can now do this with federal support, but most haven't because it requires matching funds, and I doubt that many in leadership perceive a need.
Most of our leadership grew up in a time when it was possible to transition to life on our own at age 18. We could get a job and work our way through college. Grants and loans were available that would supplement our costs and help us succeed. That is no longer true. The average age of becoming self sufficient for young people who aren't in the child welfare system is about 26 or 27 in our country now. So the idea that these young people should be able to age out of care at 18 and succeed is simplistic, and unintentionally sadistic. The economy has become much more complicated, requiring more refined and specialized skills, and, given a 6% college completion rate, these young people are being left out of that economy.
Extending foster care until age 21, while allowing increased flexibility past 18, would be a start at reversing these painful outcomes. We also have a long way to go in working with these young people to develop capability. If extension of foster care is the only approach, it will only make a marginal difference. The data is also clear that Permanency, in the guise of reconnecting with families is also an inadequate strategy.
Most of the young people had reconnected with their biological families, but still had the same poor outcomes. In my experience, families which neglected and/or abused these young people as children are often too chaotic to be major positive supports to them as young adults. In addition, the issues within those relationships are very complicated and painful. There has been a very naive faction within the Child Welfare professional community which has advocated that this reconnection would be a major solution, and it isn't. In fact, with extremely violent families there can be tragic outcomes.
So, states need to consider extending foster care until age 21 as soon as it is possible from a budgetary standpoint. However, we need to realize that young people need a number of other quality services in addition to this change in policy.
For future discussions, the life skills assessments I have reviewed over the last eight years indicates that youth in juvenile justice systems have far more life skills issues than those in foster care, and there seems to be no study on the horizon which will help us look at those outcomes. I believe that youth who end up leaving juvenile justice systems each year at 18 have greater issues than youth in Child Welfare.
