To understand how Child Protection Works (and doesn’t work) tracking CPS/foster youth into adulthood by linking child welfare to education, work, housing, and justice data needs to happen across America. These examples show that it can be done:
California – CalYOUTH & extended care
- The California Youth Transitions to Adulthood Study (CalYOUTH) links the state’s child welfare system (CWS/CMS) with college, employment/earnings, and public benefit records for tens of thousands of foster youth, plus detailed interviews.
- Using this linked data, California reports adult outcomes such as high school completion, college enrollment, employment, earnings, homelessness, criminal justice involvement, parenting, and health up through age 21+.
- Findings show extended foster care past 18 is associated with better education, higher earnings, less homelessness, and somewhat less justice involvement, and state reports now explicitly present these adult outcome metrics for policy decisions.
Multi‑state – Midwest Evaluation (Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin)
- The Midwest Evaluation of the Adult Functioning of Former Foster Youth follows a cohort from Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin from age 17 into their mid‑20s, using both surveys and administrative data.
- It tracks living arrangements, housing stability, education, employment, public assistance, physical/mental health, substance use, and criminal justice outcomes, and compares them to a national sample of peers.
- Because Illinois extends care to 21 while Iowa and Wisconsin largely end at 18, the study shows how policy differences affect adult outcomes and have become a de facto model for what states should be tracking beyond age 18.
Washington State – Foster care to college and beyond
- Washington State, through WSIPP and a state Foster Care to College partnership, has linked K‑12, college, and child welfare data to track high school graduation and college enrollment for foster youth statewide, not just small samples.
- These analyses provide concrete rates of graduation and college-going for youth with a foster care history, and evaluate how state programs (mentoring, scholarships, support services) change those adult education outcomes.
National and cross‑state examples using administrative linkage
- The Annie E. Casey Foundation and partners have synthesized cross‑state findings showing that, across states, 22–30% of youth aging out experience homelessness, fewer than half are employed by age 24, and only about 8–12% earn a college degree—using linked administrative data and large longitudinal studies like CalYOUTH and the Midwest Evaluation.
- Research on extended foster care across multiple states uses integrated data (child welfare + housing + justice + employment) to show that remaining in care at 19 is associated with lower odds of homelessness and criminal justice involvement and better education and work outcomes.
Systems‑integration and dual‑status youth work
- Some states have gone further in integrating child welfare and juvenile justice data to identify “crossover” or dual‑status youth and track their case trajectories across systems, often as part of Models for Change or state crossover initiatives.
- These efforts generally include at least basic young‑adult outcomes such as reoffending, continued system involvement, or educational progress, and show that formal state‑level data‑sharing agreements are possible.
California (CalYOUTH), the Midwest states, and Washington are strong reference points: they demonstrate long‑term linked tracking of CPS youth into early adulthood across education, work, housing, and justice rather than stopping at discharge from care.
How to Implement These Findings in Your State
To move beyond “case closed” reporting, states can borrow directly from California, the Midwest, and Washington:
- Build an integrated data backbone
- Establish formal data‑sharing agreements between child welfare, K–12, higher education, workforce/unemployment insurance, housing/homelessness (HMIS), Medicaid/health, and juvenile/criminal justice agencies.
- Create a privacy‑protective unique ID that allows CPS‑involved youth to be followed (in de‑identified form) into education, work, housing, and justice systems through at least age 26.
- Define a minimum adult outcomes set
- At minimum, track for CPS/foster youth:
- High school completion and postsecondary enrollment/degree
- Employment and earnings
- Homelessness and housing instability
- Justice system involvement (juvenile and adult)
- Physical and mental health indicators, including substance use
- Parenting status and next‑generation CPS involvement
- Use California’s CalYOUTH and the Midwest Evaluation domains as templates so your state can compare outcomes over time, not just at exit.
- At minimum, track for CPS/foster youth:
- Make extended care decisions data‑driven
- Replicate CalYOUTH and Midwest approaches by explicitly comparing outcomes for youth who receive extended care past 18 with those who exit earlier.
- Use those findings to adjust state policy on extended foster care, transition supports, and aftercare services.
- Publish transparent, longitudinal reports
- Produce regular public reports that follow CPS/foster youth into early adulthood, not just in‑care indicators.
- Disaggregate by race, ethnicity, disability, placement type, and county to make inequities visible and actionable.
- Start with a pilot cohort and scale up
- Begin with one or two birth cohorts or a single region to work through legal, technical, and governance challenges.
- As Washington did with foster‑to‑college data and CalYOUTH did statewide, expand once linkage and reporting routines are stable.
- Center youth voice alongside the numbers
- Pair administrative data with structured interviews or surveys, as CalYOUTH and the Midwest Evaluation do, so adult outcomes are grounded in lived experience—not just codes on a screen.
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ESPECIALLY WITH YOUR STATE REPRESENTATIVE
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