...As previously mentioned, for foster youth, having access to programs and supportive adults who impart and teach the skills necessary for adulthood is crucial in a successful transition from childhood to adulthood. Studies show that one of the prevailing factors associated with a successful transition from foster care to adulthood are the youth's acquisition of independent living skills while the youth is still in foster care (Lemon, Hines & Merdinger, 2005; Casey Family Programs, 2001; Pecora, Williams, Kessler, Downs, O'Brien, Hiripi, & Morello, 2003; Georgiades, 2005). Youth who participate in programs that assist with learning skills such as how to find housing, how to balance a checkbook or open a bank account, and how to obtain and keep employment, have higher success...
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...Youth in the foster care system repeatedly undergo multiple transitions before they reach adulthood. These transitions often create substantial amounts of stress and can intensify emotional and behavioral problems. With more than 29,000 young people exiting the foster care system each year, research has shown that these young people are frequently unprepared for their lives after foster care through findings of high rate homelessness, incarceration, unemployment and school failure (Greenen & Powers, 2007; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2010). Furthermore, research also shows that less than 55% of youth who had exited foster care obtained jobs in the future that paid above the poverty line. Unfortunately, the young people aging...
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...Running head: WHY YOUTH AGING OUT OF FOSTER CARE NEEDS SUPPORT? 1 Why youth aging out of foster care needs support? Antoinette Knowlton Strayer University Critical Thinking PHI 210 Dr. Ed Yancy March 16, 2013 WHY YOUTH AGING OUT OF FOSTER CARE NEEDS SUPPORT? 2 Why youth aging out of foster care needs support? Can you imagine today is your 18th birthday and you have no biological family to give you heartfelt happy birthday wishes and hugs? No one there to give you the “you’re eighteen years old today now what are you going to do with your life speech”. Can you imagine coming to the realization that you’re on your own now. Not even the government is responsible for you anymore. You’re now a member of a group that most don’t think about. You’re aging out of foster care. In 2005, 24,407 youth did what’s known as “aged out” of foster care. Aging out of foster care means youth between the age of 18 and 23 is no longer receiving state care without being reunited with their families nor adopted before leaving care (Collins, Clay & Ward, 2008). This represents an increase of 41% since 1998. Now it’s over 25,000 a year of youth aging out of foster care (US Department of Health and Human Services, 2006). It’s all on you to decide what road you will travel. But, how do you determine your route towards your destiny. This can be a very scary and intimidating time for these youth as they transition from the life they...
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...The published document, Aging out of foster care: The experiences of former foster youth who successfully navigated this transition by Margot Hedenstrom explains the experiences of former youth who was successful when transitioning out of foster care. She was able to study this by using participants ages 20-25 that transitioned out of foster care. Hedenstrom studied the risk and outcomes of youth who have transitioned. Some of the risks include drug abuse, early parenthood, and, as well as violence toward other individuals (Hedenstrom, 2014). Those who were unable to become self-sufficient often lack family or social support. Which supports the use of extended foster care because if some of those youth were able to stay in foster care longer...
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...Child abuse and Neglect to Juvenile Crime TESST College of Technology Juvenile Delinquency September 5, 2012 I believe that maltreatment does influence a juvenile in becoming a delinquent. The juvenile learns that this is acceptable behavior from the people that have the most influence in their lives. Once they realize that this is not a tolerated behavior they tend to act out in all sorts of forms, upon themselves and others. They now hold no fear in defying society. Maltreatment does have an influence upon delinquent behaviors. "Maltreatment is referred to as the parental behaviors that are considered acts intended to inflict physical or psychological harm and that reflect a lack of concern for the adolescent's well-being, sense of self and social competence." (Kilpatrick, Saunders, Benjamin & Smith, 2003). Maltreatment causes neurological damage, deficits in cognitive socio-emotional functioning, and learning of antisocial problem solving and failure in school. Today's society seems out to punish the delinquents for their behavior. Life at home, their morals and values learned through their parents should also be examined as well. Children are like clay, what is molded and pounded into them hardens and is that way until it is melted and restructured. People need to take into consideration how they were raised and what was taught to them their whole life. Yet, there are exceptions to this. Some children just have problems brought about on their own. Prominent...
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...Illness and Aging out DePaul University I currently provide direct service to young adult’s between the ages of 18 and 20 years old who suffer from severe mental illness. These young adults are currently Wards of the State of Illinois and are close to “aging out” of the Child Welfare System. They currently reside in an Independent Living Program where they receive specialized support to help them transition from a residential treatment center into the community. The program emphasizes on building self-sufficiency, problem-solving skills, educational and employment development skills to prepare them for emancipation. Most lack education, housing, medical insurance, and are deficient in adaptive and social skills. They have a history of chemical dependency and an extensive involvement in the criminal justice system. Many of these young adults were stripped of family support upon entering the Child Welfare System and continue to carry past traumas of maltreatment and being removed from their homes. They are also aging out without being without being linked with adequate resources and the continuity of support services. The rescores and support system will end abruptly and they will have to quickly adapt to adulthood alone. I selected Young Adults with Severe Mental Illness as my community focus because I discovered that they face significant adversity after they age out of the Child Welfare System. As a result of being abused or neglected as a child, these young adults have...
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...souls as well. The statistics for aging out of foster care for teenagers are ridiculous. In 2014 more than 22,000 young people failed to reunite with their families or be placed in a permanent home by the age of 18. They will age out the system without a family and a place to stay to make it out on their own. It has been said that youth that aged out of the system are more likely than youth in general populations to graduate from high school and are less likely to attend and graduate college. This is only because they do not have the guidance and the right support to do so. I honestly feel like even when the kids are placed in foster care there is no love given or inspiration towards the kids. This makes the kids not look forward to the future and start thinking less of themselves. There should be something done that can help these kids be better by support. I have been doing some research and there is others out there that do feel the same way as I do. Many children's rights advocates would argue the government isn't doing enough to address the concerns of aging out in the foster care system. For instance Misty Stenslie, Deputy Director of Foster Care Alumni of America, a community of former children in foster care that works to transform foster care practice and policy, spent about 12 years in foster care. She lived in about 30 different places which included kinship care (relatives), group homes, foster homes, therapeutic foster homes, psychiatric facilities, and correctional...
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...organization and its objectives Youth Villages is a residential mental health treatment facility for children founded in 1986. The owner Patrick Lawler, combined two residential campuses at that time to create one Youth Villages. The company's main goal then and now is to build strong families. Over the past 30 years the company has grown tremendously and is nationally known for its great work. While it is known for its residential treatment, Youth Villages encompasses many areas. Youth Villages is made up of five residential campuses in Memphis, TN and one residential campus in Linden, TN. There are two residential campuses in Georgia and one residential campus in Massachusetts. Youth Villages also has two wonderful intense in home treatment programs using multi systemic therapy. The company has an adoption and foster care program that began in 1999. The company also has implemented a Specialized Crisis Services in 2003 with trained counselors that are available 24 hours a day. They implemented a mentoring program and MYPAC (Mississippi Youth Programs Around the Clock). Finally, there is YVLifeSet, a transition to adulthood program. Patrick Lawler and Youth Villages has served more than 23,000 families across thirteen states. U.S. News & World Report recognized Lawler as one of "America's Best Leaders" by U.S. News & World Report in conjunction with the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Youth Villages only objective is...
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...Jessica Carpenter Marvin Caston SCWK 3233 22 April 2013 Delinquent Behavior by Maltreated Juveniles Maltreatment of youths directly influences whether or not a child will participate in acts of delinquency. In Child Maltreatment and Juvenile Delinquency: Investigating the Role of Placement and Placement Instability, Joseph P. Ryan and Mark F. Testa evaluate the results of maltreatment in youth and try to determine if placement in substitute care helps prevent or cause acts of delinquency. Child maltreatment, by definition, is an event occurring within the family or substitute care setting (such as a foster home, group home or daycare center). Physical abuse and neglect of children is best understood as “the manifestation of an unfolding sequence of underlying problems that are often initiated prior to the family’s formation and could be located as well in community and cultural conditions.” (Pecora, Whittaker, Maluccio & Barth, 2000) Maltreatment in children happens all the time, but it does not always happen by members of the family. Maltreatment comes in many forms and occurs by people in the community, peers and of course, members of an individual’s family. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimated that there were approximately 2.9 million children in the United States in 1999 that were the focus of a child protective investigation. 826,162 of the children in the child protective investigations were associated with a substantiated report of maltreatment...
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...HSM230] Tami Gannon [Patricia Reid] HSM230] Tami Gannon A Brighter Tomorrow A Brighter Tomorrow Once a child in foster care turns 18, they age out of foster care. Many of these teens have neither any one nor nowhere to go. About 20,000 teens will age of foster care every year. When most of these teen are forced out of the system, they don’t have the skills needed to live independently. They lack education, life skills, job skills, and coping skills. Pera,E. (2009) A Brighter Tomorrow (ABT) is a nonprofit residential program, which will provide these emancipated teens the skills needed to live independently. ABT offers educational classes that will assist the teens with getting their high school diplomas, or their GEDs. The facts show that 50% of foster children drop out of high school and on average, only 7-13% of foster youth enroll in higher education. ABT will also provide life skills courses, job readiness skills, and skills needed to run a household like how to pay house hold bills, budgeting and how to balance a check book. A Brighter Tomorrow will also provide counseling to help identify and help with any issues the teens may have. A Brighter Tomorrow will also offer Planned Parenthood and parenting classes, because the statistics show that by the age of 19, girls who had been in foster care were two and a half times more likely than were girls nationwide to have become pregnant and nearly three times more likely to have had a child. These classes will...
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...What affect does foster care have on children? Is it a stable and supportive environment? Foster care allows kids to have a chance to live a somewhat normal life. There are advantages and disadvantages for kids living in foster homes, but questions arise when there are foster parents that do not provide a stable environment. When we are not aware of these situations of unstable foster homes the kids placed in those foster homes will not have a good survival rate for success. Although there are parents out there that provide security for their foster children, we still need to be aware of the circumstances of kids placed in foster homes that are not safe and secure. Foster care is a great system to provide kids with families who do not...
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...Azalea Youth Outreach and Referral Program Latonya Nichols/Dr. Adadevoh Business & Society 5/1/2013 About our outreach program The Azalea Youth Outreach and Referral Program’s goal is to empower our youth and focus on pro-active coaching and early intervention to address the youth and family issues through skill building, education, and advocacy. We reach out through the community, schools, churches, civic groups, social groups, and nonprofit organizations. The program promote efforts by its grantees to build relationships between our youth and outreach workers, their local communities, local schools, and social setting with homeless, troubled, low income youth. Grantees also provide support services that aim to coach youth into stable housing, daily living skills to prepare them for independence. It requires grantees to incorporate elements of the Positive Youth Development approach into their programs. PYD suggests that the best way to prevent risky behavior is to help young people achieve their full potential. Youth development strategies focus on giving young people the chance to exercise leadership, build skills and become actively involved in their communities. The Azalea Youth Outreach Referral Program (A.Y.O.P.) enables organizations around the Birmingham City and Jefferson county area to help young people get off the streets. The A.Y.O.P. is also designed to provide service to the community and change things in a positive way. We recruit volunteers...
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...Trauma-Informed Practices Within Foster Care Marya Feldt Washburn University Trauma-Informed Practices Within Foster Care Adolescents within the foster care system have experienced reportedly more traumatic events than the average person. These adverse experiences may be the result of poor family environments, sexual, physical, or psychological abuse which could lead to the placement of children in the foster care system. However, often traumatic experiences do not end with the placement of an adolescent into a new home. Adolescents face numerous stressors when placed in foster care, including fear of separation from siblings, friends, communities and confusion about the future (Conradi et al., 2011). Trauma experienced...
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...Kids, there are over 14,000 children in the foster care system in Ohio alone. (Adopt Us Kids, 2013) If we factor in the entire United States, that number goes up exponentially. However, for the purpose of this paper, all references will be related to the needs of the foster children in Ohio. Unfortunately, what is discussed in this paper relates to the needs of the other 386,000 or so kids in the foster care system throughout the United States. That need, the one that is so important, is the fact that there aren’t enough foster parents. There are more children in the foster care system than there are parents to take care of them. Foster care can be considered a necessary evil. The end results are not always what we hope them to be, but without it, so many more children would be lost. An article, written in 1986, says it best: “Foster care is a necessary evil”, explained Robert Hayes, a lawyer with the Coalition for the Homeless. In a recent interview with Children’s Express, “There are times and places when parents cannot take care of their kids. But sometimes, children can live for 18 years in ‘temporary foster care’.” Hayes goes on to say: “this accounts for why these children never learn many of the appropriate tools of life”. (Lin, Zelermyer, Young & Young, 1986) This paper, written in 1986, tells of the same exact issues that are faced today. Children are often forgotten about or misplaced because of the demands placed upon foster parents and social workers. Having more qualified...
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...cause the women to be doubly abused and exploited (Foster, 2006). Women would get punished just as the men, with the exception of the women prisoners that were pregnant. If a woman was pregnant they would not be subjected to any type of punishment until after they gave birth. Women’s prisons were changed by Elizabeth Gurney Fry that was an English Quaker and would visit prisons to read the bible to the inmates. She was the organizer of the Association for the Improvement of the Female Prisoners in Newgate in 1817 (Foster, 2006). Fry argued that women prisoners needed separate facilities than men and that women should run women’s prisons as well. The three basic arguments established in the 1800’s that supported the separation of juvenile prisoners from adult prisoners is that “the penitentiary regimen was too hard on tender youth; juveniles would learn bad habits from older criminals and be embittered by the experience of confinement; and adolescents could be reformed if they were diverted early enough into institutions designed specifically for people their age” (Foster, 2006, pg. 34). If there were no distinction between prisons for juveniles and adults the juveniles would be subject to the same punishments as the adult prisoners. The purpose of prison labor was to lower the costs to house prisoners. Prison labor was also used to transition slaves to freedom after the Civil War during the South’s Reconstruction (Foster, 2006). As convicts were being worked hard with little...
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