What Happens to Youth Aging Out of Foster Care?

All chil­dren, espe­cial­ly old­er chil­dren in fos­ter care, need and deserve a lov­ing fam­i­ly to sup­port their life­long growth. This desired out­come — called per­ma­nence — occurs for old­er youth in fos­ter care via one of three path­ways: adop­tion, guardian­ship or reuni­fi­ca­tion with their birth fam­i­lies. A less favor­able out­come is aging out (also known as eman­ci­pa­tion). In this option, youth grow too old to remain in fos­ter care and exit the sys­tem with­out a per­ma­nent family.

About 19,000 young peo­ple age out of the U.S. fos­ter care sys­tem each year. It’s a chal­leng­ing start­ing point and one that, accord­ing to researchers, can car­ry life­long consequences.

What Are the Effects of Youth Who Age Out of Fos­ter Care?

The tran­si­tion to adult­hood is a sig­nif­i­cant and chal­leng­ing devel­op­men­tal phase of life for all young peo­ple, but eman­ci­pat­ed youth must endure this phase with­out the sup­port of a lov­ing fam­i­ly and absent the famil­iar sup­ports of the fos­ter care sys­tem. For too many, the road ahead is far from easy. Com­pared to their gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion peers, young peo­ple who have aged out of fos­ter care are more like­ly to expe­ri­ence behav­ioral, men­tal and phys­i­cal health issues. They are also more like­ly to endure chal­lenges, such as:

• hous­ing instability; 
• job­less­ness; 
• aca­d­e­m­ic difficulties; 
• ear­ly par­ent­hood; and
• sub­stance use.

Click here to read the full blog.

Source: The Annie E. Casey Foundation