CCS Partnership issues report on status of ‘emancipated’ foster youths 

The Cities, Counties and Schools Partnership has issued a report calling for California to extend services to foster youths past the age of 18 and saying that the more than 4,000 youths per year who “emancipate” or “age out” of foster care experience critical needs in housing, education, employment, behavioral health and sustaining personal relationships.

Luan B. Rivera, CSBA’s immediate past president and the current chair of the CCS Partnership, which also includes representatives of the League of California Cities and California State Association of Counties, heads the partnership’s 2007 Conditions of Children Task Force and led the group in production of the report.

“Tackling the issue of emancipating foster youth has been an eye-opening experience,” Rivera said. “The statistics are staggering. Only 40 percent of these students complete high school and, within 18 months of emancipation, 40-50 percent of these young adults become homeless. This is a tragedy, and we need to do something about it,” Rivera emphasized.

“These are our children. They are wards of the state of California, and we are failing them. Imagine having all of your resources—your home, your school and financial support—suddenly disappear on your 18th birthday. How many of us would have become successful contributing citizens without a support system? We owe it to these young people to support them into adulthood.”

The CCS report, “Our Children: Emancipating Foster Youth, a Community Action Guide,” says that California has more children and adolescents in foster care than any other state. Once youths leave the system, they are very often unprepared to manage on their own. Many have grown up in multiple foster or group home settings and have no permanent family ties or other means of emotional, physical or financial support when current federal law makes them ineligible for foster care at age 18.

Among the statistics the guide presents:

• 75 percent of students in foster care are behind grade level
• 70 percent of teens who emancipate from foster care report wanting to attend college; however, only 10 percent actually attend and less than 1 percent graduate
• Nearly 50 percent of foster children suffer from chronic health conditions and malnutrition, and nearly 60 percent have mental health problems
• Former foster youths experience post-traumatic stress disorder at twice the rate of U.S. war veterans
• 25 percent of former foster youths are incarcerated within the first two years of emancipation
• "This is a problem we can fix,” Rivera said. “Only 4,000 foster youth emancipate each year; surely, the state of California has the resources to support these youth as they transition into adulthood. This guide is intended to be a resource to provide communities with the tools to tackle this problem.”

In May, California Senator Barbara Boxer introduced Senate Bill 1512, which would provide individual states the option to allow youths to remain in foster care up to the age of 21. The bill has been stalled in the Senate Finance Committee.

Related link:

Download “Our Children: Emancipating Foster Youth, a Community Action Guide” from the CCS Partnership’s Web site @ www.ccspartnership.org/default.cfm