Youth Aging Out of The Foster Care System Essay Example

sentences (Mille, n.d).

In Florida, 1,365 children aged out of Foster Care in 2008 (Williams, 2012). 1 in 4 of these children are incarcerated inside the initial two years after they leave the system. Williams (2012) further reveals that more than 20% of children aging out of foster care are homeless sooner or later after they reach 18 years with his study revealing that approximately 58% of these young people have a high school degree at age 19, contrasted with 87% of a national comparison group of non-foster youth with less than 3% acquiring their advanced education by the time of 25 contrasted with the overall population of 28%.

Florida's Foster Care System states that child abuse and neglect occurs every 10 minutes with 50, 239 children being casualties of misuse while 18,753 youngsters being in state care and 3,385 adopted from child care annually (Williams, 2012). Policymakers in numerous states have addressed the necessities of youth in child care in response to these challenges. The state is attempting to help the youth leaving foster care to be healthy and beneficial adults. Government should also come up with policies and programs to reduce these challenges.

Policies

Various policies have been put into action to meet the needs of aging out of the foster care including improving access to safe and stable housing, provision of life skills training in navigating into adulthood, assisting the young people in managing their mental as well as physical healthy needs and supporting them economically by offering employment and education programs. Extending Medicaid qualification past age 18 by ensuring life skills training shows the youth how to monitor and take obligation regarding their health and

at the same time create mechanisms to help then track their medical history (Baugh, 2008)

. Under Foster care independent act, states have the choice to extend the Medicaid qualification to youth who were in foster care on their eighteenth birthday, are age d below 21, and do not surpass pay and resource levels as controlled by the state. If states exploit this choice, their expenditures are coordinated at the standard federal Medicaid coordinating rate (Oldmixon, 2007). Presently, 13 states have extended Medicaid qualification (Baugh, 2008). Additionally, the Adoption and Safe Families Act ensures that children are moved towards permanency in the shortest time possible. Regardless of the fact that these programs do not often target current and former foster youths directly, the funding streams they offer can be used to prioritize the services to the young people owing to the fact that they meet various eligibility requirements such as homelessness, low income and unemployment.

States can bolster the education yearnings of foster youth by advancing educational attainment through structuring approaches and programs that encourage objective setting, minimize interruptions, and advise youth about educational opportunities (Oldmixon, 2007). Foster youth face numerous difficulties in meeting their educational objectives. For instance, they frequently encounter school disruption as they change foster homes and schools, making them battle scholastically and, much of the time, fall behind. Sixty-five percent of foster youth experienced seven or more school changes from basic through high school. Research recommends children in foster care have a higher rate of a special education (Oldmixon, 2007).

Youth transitioning out of child care frequently face challenges in getting to and navigating the health care system and often have more escalated health

care needs than peers. They not only lack the resources to pay for treatment but also do not know how and where to look for the services (Oldmixon, 2007). On account of the cost of social insurance and health, previous foster youth battle to keep up the physical and psychological health, especially in the event that they have an inability, mental disorder, or substance abuse problem.

Helping the youth build life skills and acquire assets is one of states key commitments to youth in foster care that guarantees that they are prepared to navigate the adult world. Foster youth do not generally have the same chances of finding out about family management and other crucial adult life skills as youth who live with their birth families (Oldmixon, 2007). Life skills learning is also critical for foster youth who have been set in group homes or other aggregate settings, where family obligations contrast from what they are likely to encounter all alone.

Literature Review

Family Unification Program Subsidized by the U.S. Bureau of Housing and Urban Development, offers housing help and transitional help for youth who age out of consideration (Gardner, 2008). This program provides time limited housing vouchers to qualified youth between the ages of 18 and 21 who left foster care after age 16. As of the fall of 2013, roughly 20,500 Family Unification Program vouchers were available for use (Baugh, 2008). Youth aged 18 to 21who cleared out child care at age 16 and lack adequate housing are als qualified. For such youth, Family Unification Program vouchers offer a year and a half of rental support services as they learn to live independently. Family Unification Program

functions as an interagency coordinated collaboration between neighborhood and public child welfare agencies.

Children in foster care are a helpless population, at any given minute, there are more than a large portion of kids in child care who battle through developmental stages without vital backing. They are hence obstructed from turning into a well-rounded person. All together, for a youthful to end up effective and well-rounded grown-ups, they require additional backing amid development (Trout et al., 2008). It is amid these development stages in a child's life that they are the most vulnerable, and they encounter some type of abuse or neglect.

Child abuse incorporates physical, sexual, or psychological mistreatment. Neglect refers to the failure of a guardian to accommodate a kid's advancement when they are monetarily ready to do as such. Abuse affects a child's wellbeing as grow instilled with the feeling of insecurity where they for instance become vigilant to human contact and cannot tolerate socializing with others. Children are not generally prepared for adult role just because their age dictates so. As these youngsters approach lawful adulthood, they confront tremendous obstacles, including the expectation that they will have the capacity to succeed all alone on the grounds that they hit a specific age.

The Youth build program authorized in 1992, under the Housing and Community Development Act of 1992 14 gives grants on a competitive basis to help high-risk youth between the ages of 16-24 to learn housing construction work skills and complete high school training (Baugh, 2008). Program members improve skills as they build and rehabilitate affordable housing for low income. Amid the previous 7 years, the program has discharged more than $300 million

in grants to Youth build programs around the country (Gardner, 2008). The program recompenses competitive grants to state and nearby governments or any association qualified to give instruction and livelihood training under elected work training programs. Candidates must submit particular data around a proposed project in their application.

The Chafee Education and Training Vouchers Program makes financial resources accessible to meet the post-secondary education and training needs of youth aging out of child care and selected in a qualified higher training program. The program approves $60 million in optional installments to states for post-secondary training vouchers for youth who age out of child care (Gardner, 2008). The program also gives vouchers up to $5,000 every year, per youth for post-secondary education.

The number of youth who are aging out of the child care system every year is on an enduring ascent. These youngsters face numerous difficulties which could possibly derail their successful move to adulthood. In addition, youth are at danger for some negative outcomes that could influence their prosperity and could additionally charge their wellbeing (Oldmixon, 2007). For instance, imprisonment and substance misuse produce numerous unanticipated expenses. Given the generally little number of youth aging out of the child care system, the overall expense of providing services to help them effectively move to adulthood is cost effective(Oldmixon, 2007). Helping the youths get steady and gainful subjects will create considerable social advantages and significantly lessen the potentially significant expenses to state if these youths do not succeed.

Program proposal

Research shows that the children who are out of foster care face life time challenges (Baugh, 2008). Academy program can be of great help to curb these challenges. The program

will include two youth care service providers and a few foster care agencies. The academy will provide education, employment, social and training opportunities. Intake policies depending on the needs of the youths will be formulated in order to maintain the program. To fortify the program, I recommend design to extend possible financing sources. In particular, the Academy ought to consider promoting and contracting in care and post care administrations separately (Atkinson, 2008).

This will permit it to access financing sources that particularly target foster care youth or youth living independently. Additionally, the Academy ought to further build up its methodology to efficiently measuring and examining results with respect to individual clients. Capturing customers' underlying service plans in a structure that can be promptly analyzed, could build the project's capacity to report client results while keeping up its emphasis on individualized, incremental result measures. The Academy may likewise consider giving youth monetary incentives for cooperation.

References

• Arizona State University, (2009). The Well-being and Risk Behaviors of Young Adults from Foster Care. ProQuest
• Atkinson, M. (2008). Aging out of foster care: Towards a universal safety net for former foster care youth. Harv. CR-CLL Rev., 43, 183.
• Baugh, E. J. (2008, August). A Population at Risk: Youth "Aging Out" of the Foster Care System and Implications for Extension. The Journal of Extension,46. content/uploads/2015/02/revisedFosterCareandtheAgingOutDilemma.pdf
• Gardner, D. (2008, February). Youth Aging Out of Foster Care Identifying Strategies and Best Practices. Youth Aging Out of Foster Care. Retrieved June 30, 2016, from http://www.naco.org/sites/default/files/documents/Youth Aging Out of Foster Care.pdf
• Hussey, S., & Fletcher, A. (1999). Childhood in question: Children, parents and the state. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Mille (n.d) Adoption
• Oldmixon, S. (n.d.). State
  

Policies to Help Youth Transition Out of Foster Care.Issue Brief,202, 627. Retrieved June 30, 2016, from http://www.nga.org/files/live/sites/NGA/files/pdf/0701YOUTH.PDF