With Pandemic Relief Set to Expire, Casey Foundation Urges Permanent Foster Care Reforms

With a nation­al mora­to­ri­um on youth aging out of fos­ter care set to expire on Sept. 30 — lead­ing to thou­sands of young peo­ple fac­ing evic­tion from the fos­ter care sys­tem and fur­ther uncer­tain­ty — the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion is call­ing on state and fed­er­al pol­i­cy­mak­ers to urgent­ly reform and expand the resources, tools and guid­ance young peo­ple need as they move into adulthood.

Toward this end, the Foun­da­tion has released ​“From COVID-19 Response to Com­pre­hen­sive Change: Pol­i­cy Reforms to Equip Youth and Young Adults in Fos­ter Care to Thrive.” The brief urges pol­i­cy­mak­ers to build a reform agen­da that draws on the tem­po­rary pan­dem­ic-relief mea­sures enact­ed in the Sup­port­ing Fos­ter Youth and Fam­i­lies Through the Pan­dem­ic Act and specif­i­cal­ly calls on Con­gress to pass leg­is­la­tion intro­duced in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to extend this emer­gency aid that was appro­pri­at­ed dur­ing the pandemic.

Down­load the brief

Near­ly 900,000 youth and young adults are eli­gi­ble for this crit­i­cal emer­gency relief. When it expires, hun­dreds of thou­sands of young peo­ple will no longer be able to receive extend­ed fos­ter care, hous­ing assis­tance or oth­er well-being resources under this tem­po­rary programming.

Rather than being allowed to expire in the com­ing months — some as soon as next week — these emer­gency mea­sures should serve as build­ing blocks to a com­pre­hen­sive approach to heal­ing, fam­i­ly sta­bil­i­ty and eco­nom­ic secu­ri­ty for young people.

Casey rec­om­mends com­pre­hen­sive reforms that would enable child wel­fare agen­cies to build last­ing con­nec­tions for youth and young adults with fam­i­ly and sup­port­ive adults before they reach the age of 18; allow young adults to con­tin­ue receiv­ing ser­vices through age 26; and expand access to age-appro­pri­ate sup­port to bridge their jour­ney from fos­ter care into adult­hood. The Foun­da­tion also calls for greater invest­ment in approach­es aimed at reduc­ing the harm­ful dis­par­i­ties that exist for many Black and Lati­no youth, who com­pared to white peers are over­rep­re­sent­ed in the child wel­fare sys­tem and have a high­er chance of expe­ri­enc­ing home­less­ness, liv­ing in pover­ty, being unem­ployed and fac­ing oth­er chal­lenges after they age out of fos­ter care.

“From COVID-19 Response to Com­pre­hen­sive Change” was devel­oped in con­sul­ta­tion with young peo­ple who have expe­ri­enced fos­ter care. One of its chief rec­om­men­da­tions is that poli­cies gov­ern­ing the sys­tem be devel­oped in part­ner­ship with youth and families.

“Tem­po­rary fed­er­al relief pro­vid­ed dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has been crit­i­cal, but the lack of ade­quate ser­vice and sup­port infra­struc­ture across states has been a chal­lenge in real­iz­ing its poten­tial,” says Todd Lloyd, senior pol­i­cy asso­ciate with the Casey Foun­da­tion. ​“Con­gress must ensure states are posi­tioned and account­able for a com­pre­hen­sive and ongo­ing approach to serv­ing these youth and young adults if they are to thrive. The poten­tial of such an approach is with­in reach and swift action could serve as a down payment.”

Each year more than 23,000 youth age out of fos­ter care with­out being reunit­ed with their fam­i­lies or devel­op­ing oth­er per­ma­nent rela­tion­ships. These young adults face a much steep­er climb to adult­hood than their peers who have sup­port­ive net­works. The con­se­quences of being with­out fam­i­ly or eco­nom­ic resources makes them more like­ly to strug­gle with unmet health needs, school and work, and they are more like­ly to expe­ri­ence home­less­ness and poverty.

Set­ting a Reform Agen­da Focused on Equi­ty and Well-Being

Pol­i­cy rec­om­men­da­tions in the brief include:

• Pre­serve and nur­ture fam­i­lies by focus­ing on pre­vent­ing fam­i­ly sep­a­ra­tion, includ­ing for expec­tant and par­ent­ing youth in fos­ter care; nur­tur­ing healthy fam­i­ly con­nec­tions; and increas­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for youth in fos­ter care to be placed with rel­a­tives or cho­sen family.
• Ensure child wel­fare agen­cies pri­or­i­tize the unique needs of ado­les­cents by cre­at­ing ado­les­cent youth divi­sions. From ages 14 through 26, young peo­ple are expe­ri­enc­ing a peri­od of rapid growth and devel­op­ment. They need sup­port­ive rela­tion­ships that meet their indi­vid­ual needs and enable them to lead healthy and ful­fill­ing lives.
• Improve access to sta­ble hous­ing and sup­port by mak­ing fos­ter care avail­able to youth until age 21 in all states.
• Cre­ate path­ways to suc­cess by expand­ing access to and improv­ing the qual­i­ty of the Chafee program’s sup­port­ive ser­vices to young peo­ple to age 27. The John H. Chafee Fos­ter Care Pro­gram for Suc­cess­ful Tran­si­tion to Adult­hood pro­vides flex­i­ble fed­er­al fund­ing to states, ter­ri­to­ries and Native Amer­i­can tribes to sup­port cur­rent and for­mer fos­ter youth in their tran­si­tion to adult­hood. States can use Chafee fund­ing to pro­vide edu­ca­tion­al assis­tance, career explo­ration, men­tor­ing and pre­ven­tive health activ­i­ties, among oth­er services.

“From COVID-19 Response to Com­pre­hen­sive Change” urges greater invest­ment in approach­es to reduce the per­sis­tent and harm­ful dis­par­i­ties that exist for all young peo­ple in fos­ter care:

• Low-income fam­i­lies of col­or are dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly the focus of child pro­tec­tive ser­vices inves­ti­ga­tions for rea­sons includ­ing his­toric sys­temic racism and dis­ad­van­tage, high­er pover­ty rates and greater expo­sure to pro­fes­sion­als who are required by law to report sus­pect­ed child maltreatment.
• Black youth are over­rep­re­sent­ed in fos­ter care rel­a­tive to the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion. They are twice as like­ly to enter fos­ter care as white youth, despite stud­ies that show the occur­rence of abuse or neglect is low­er for Black fam­i­lies than it is for white families.
• Youth of col­or who enter fos­ter care have dis­parate care­giv­ing expe­ri­ences. They receive few­er famil­ial vis­its, few­er con­tacts with case­work­ers, few­er writ­ten case plans and few­er devel­op­men­tal or psy­cho­log­i­cal assess­ments com­pared with white youth.

Down­load this pol­i­cy brief on fos­ter care reforms for old­er youth