information for practice

“Aging out” without a permanent family and/or adequate preparation for adulthood is a crisis. It is a personal injury to each and every youth in care and a public emergency for our national child welfare system. “Each year, as many as 25,000 teenagers ‘age out’ of foster care, usually when they turn eighteen. For most of their lives, a government agency has made every important decision for them. Suddenly they are entirely alone, with no one to count on.”Exiting the system as an older adolescent by “aging out” without a permanent family is correlated with a range of deleterious outcomes as a young adult such as early pregnancy or parenthood, criminal involvement, homelessness, lack of employment or dropping out of high school.