February 28, 2008
Youth with Disabilities in the Foster Care System: Barriers to Success and Proposed Policy Solutions
The goal for our country’s youth is to live healthy, happy lives and to become self-sufficient, contributing members of society as adults. However, there are subsets of youth who cannot reach these goals with ease. These youth need additional supports to assist them in their journey toward a healthy adulthood, as they are more vulnerable than the “average” youth and thus are more apt to fall through the cracks during their journey. Youth development researchers have determined that some specific youth populations are more vulnerable than others. This report examines one exceptionally challenged group in particular: older youth (specifically, preteen through young adult) with disabilities who are involved in the foster care system. The child welfare community generally accepts the fact that while the American foster care system has come a long way in recent years, there is still much to be done to ensure the health and well-being of the children and youth it serves. Likewise, the disability community has seen great improvements in recent years but still advocates for additional needed change. But what is often overlooked among experts in both of these realms is the idea that foster care is indeed both a child welfare issue and a disability issue. This is due to the alarmingly high numbers of foster youth with mental, developmental, emotional, learning, and physical disabilities. The purpose of this report, therefore, is to shift the lens through which youth advocates and service providers view the importance of ensuring the well-being of foster youth. This new lens asserts the importance of understanding the prevalence of disability among foster youth and better ascertaining who should be held accountable for this uniquely challenged and often underserved population.