FOSTER CARE REALITIES
(the problem and solutions)
This article is based on the issues as investigated by Minnesota’s FOSTER ADVOCATES
Most critical data about foster care is never tracked or reported. There is almost no transparency of critical metrics in CPS (Child Protective Services). Until this changes, we will continue to make decisions based on too little information and those decisions will continue to be suboptimal.
FOSTER CARE REALITIES
Children are fostered only if they have been removed from homes where egregious harm has been done to them and a judge thinks their lives are in danger*. In many cases, their abuse has occurred repeatedly over long periods creating a very damaged child that needs healing and skill building if they are to live a normal life. This is not hyperbole. For decades almost 80% of fosters aging out of care have gone on to lead dysfunctional lives. The cost of this in dollars and public health, public safety, and education is astronomical.
Foster care is not a dream for children leaving toxic homes it is a scary experience. It was the only home you knew, the only school you ever went to, friends you had made. All of it disappears overnight. Young children waking up in a strange place with no belongings and no familiar faces are traumatized again.
It’s really frightening for a traumatized and anxiety-ridden child with few social skills and plenty of trauma-driven behaviors to start a new life, a new school, and a new family. Most of my CASA Guardian ad Litem case kids felt fearful all the time. Those feelings don’t go away quickly. For too many of them, feelings of loss, fear, and trauma stay forever.
We try as a society to help, but we have our rules.
We love our rules and our punishment. This CASA believes we want rules and punishment more than we want results. Break our rules and the child becomes an outcast alone in a very scary world. 80% of youth aging out of foster care lead dysfunctional lives.
You may say, that a 16,17-, or 18-year-old is not a child – That’s a juvenile. While you are right about the language and years, your assumption that this aged-out foster “youth” has healed or has the skills to manage money, or their trauma-driven behaviors is misguided.
Children growing up in healthy homes can do those things. Traumatized children bouncing around the foster system (because of trauma driven bad behavior) over time rarely have those skills. One of my CASA case boys had 27 foster homes and one of the girls 14. Their life was too painful, dangerous and unpredictable for them to sit quietly amidst their classroom peers or trust the authority figure in the home. They had a terrible time folllowing rules. Their mental development and energy were focused on self-preservation. Most of the fifty children I worked with in CPS did poorly in school and got in a lot of trouble.
Children growing up in toxic homes develop trauma-related behaviors that break our rules and put them in harm’s way of a rigid rules-based society (rather than a results-based society).
MN’s Supreme Court Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz has stated that “The difference between that poor child and a felon, is about 8 years”. KARA board member Damon Kocina remarks that “The difference between that poor child and a teen/preteen mom with no parenting skills, a violent boyfriend, and a drug habit, is about 8 years”.
What follows is an overview of a recent study of one part of MN’s foster care system.
This study is representative of most of the foster system in MN and every state.
Foster Advocates completed an analysis of the Extended Foster Care program because they were aware of bad experiences youth have had in the program, and there is little meaningful information available on the topic.
*Young adults aging out of foster care have worse outcomes than their peers. Youth participating in EFC have better outcomes than those that chose to leave foster care.
Expansion of efforts to help youth access EFC will lead to better outcomes in both the youth, and the state more generally.
If a Foster wishes to continue in foster care after turning 18 they must meet at least one of these criteria:
1. Completing secondary education or a program leading to an equivalent credential;
2. Enrolling in an institution that provides post secondary or vocational education;
3. Participating in a program or activity designed to promote or remove barriers to employment;
4. Maintaining employment for at least 80 hours per month; or
5. Demonstrating that they are incapable of doing any of the activities described above due to a medical condition.8
If a Foster chooses to stay in foster care and meets the eligibility requirements, they can receive payments of a basic rate in addition to a supplemental rate based on their specific circumstances. The basic rate in Minnesota is just under $1,000, but many Fosters receive $1,200-$1,300 each month.
Young adults who turn 18 while in foster care and leave the program face significant challenges to independently meeting their needs. Coming out of the system, many of these young adults have weak or nonexistent ties to their families, or otherwise lack relationships with adults that might provide additional support during their transition to adulthood.
Former foster youth report struggling with mental health issues at higher rates.
These conditions add additional barriers to Fosters as they seek to meet their basic needs as adults and have been linked to worse outcomes compared to those who receive extended services.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation reports that only 25 percent of Fosters who age out of foster care, remained in foster care at age 19. The 75 percent of Fosters who are reported as not in foster care at age 19 is inclusive of individuals in states that do not provide EFC programs, indicating that this is likely an underestimate of the participation rate if only considering states offering EFC. Further data on state-specific utilization rates ranged from being very limited to wholly unavailable. Minnesota was one of the states that provided no data for the percentage of Fosters still in care as of their 19th birthday nor any utilization rate for EFC. Additional reports coming out of other states show great variation in participation rate of EFC. (author’s note: An example of the lack of transparency in CPS (Child Protective Services).
For example, in 2021 participation in Texas’s EFC program was recently reported at just 27 percent of eligible adult Fosters enrolled, while California has reported greater participation rates at upwards of 85 percent of eligible participants enrolling.20 While not a direct measure of utilization rate, available data on the number of participants in Minnesota’s foster care programs at the start of 2020 indicates that adult fosters in EFC made up a disproportionately small percentage of participants across all ages in foster care programs. The number of enrolled participants aged 18 was just 700 individuals, compared to 2218 individuals aged 15 to 17 who were enrolled at that time.21 This drop off in participants further suggests that there may be a significant portion of eligible fosters who are not taking advantage of the program.
Additional reports highlight how the realities faced by Fosters conflict with program requirements. Foremost, the impact of housing and homelessness is having a high impact on the ability of Fosters to participate in the program. Data drawn from the 2021 National Youth in Transition Database indicates that over 30 percent of Fosters aged 19 and older have experienced homelessness. Federal EFC laws exclude a significant portion of Fosters from participation due to its requirement that participants live in approved housing situations. (author’s note: Think about this, foster youth can’t have our help because they don’t have a home that meets our requirements).
- Research has found that time in EFC is associated with decreased instances of homelessness and involvement in the criminal justice system. Fosters with any duration of participation in EFC programs have been shown to have more positive outcomes, which also improve with time spent in the program. Results from data analyses of Fosters in the California EFC program found statistically significant relationships between each additional year in the extended foster care program and an increased likelihood of completing high school, enrolling in college, increased earnings, and decreased food and housing insecurity. Despite this, participation in EFC programs remains low.
The Foster Advocate team conducted 18 semi-structured interviews with stakeholders related to the EFC program in Minnesota. They used purposeful sampling to identify knowledgeable stakeholders from a variety of positions to share their experiences and opinions on EFC. These individuals held a variety of positions relating to the EFC program, working both within the program and at outside agencies that interact with the program. Data collected from interviews was used most heavily to inform findings and recommendations.
This was attributed to the complexity and data limitations involved with tracking eligibility when Fosters decline or leave EFC, as Fosters may enter into situations that make them ineligible such as participating in alternative programs like Adult Foster Care. Still, without any metric to track what portion of the target population is using the program or measure shifts in the utilization rate, this leaves a notable gap in the agency’s ability to assess program performance.
On the five requirements:
GED or graduation.
Employed 80 hours/month
Enrolled post-secondary
Participating in activities to remove employment barriers
Documented medical conditions (MH)
Fosters who participated over the last five years most often reported either completing high school or a GED (66 percent) or being employed at least 80 hours per month (42 percent) in order to meet participation requirements necessary to remain in the program. At lower rates, participants also enrolled in a post-secondary or vocational education program (24 percent), participated in activities to remove employment barriers (19 percent), or had a documented medical condition which prevented them from completing the other participation requirements (5 percent).
Approximately 1 in 4 those who participated in EFC remained enrolled in the program for the maximum duration spanning from their 18th birthday up until they turned 21.
Over half (54 percent) of Fosters exiting the program spent less than one year participating in EFC, with 39 percent of participants who exited the program doing so within the first 6 months of participation. The reasons for exiting the program are unclear from the data alone, but this may indicate that participants are facing barriers to maintaining participation in EFC.
These numbers improved in 2022, as 64 percent of participants exiting the program did so after 12 or more months of continuous participation. However, considering the preliminary nature of data from 2022, it is too soon to say if this represents a meaningful shift in length of participation. Despite the high rates of exits from the EFC, program data does not meaningfully track the reasons provided for exiting the program. While program data requires that case workers provide a reason for discharge from the program, the categories for responding are the same for Fosters over 18 years old as they are for those under 18 years old, despite the large difference in reasons why those two groups leave foster care and extended foster care. Namely, the existing metric does not include options to indicate when participants of EFC were terminated from the program for not maintaining participation requirements, for transferring into adult foster care, or for declining services. Instead, the discharge reason listed on most EFC cases is that the individual “reached age of majority or emancipation.” Considering that all EFC participants have reached the age of majority, this fails to adequately capture the reasons why individuals exit the program.
Frontline workers saw a drop-off in Fosters immediately following their 18th birthday,
as many declined EFC services from the start of their eligibility.
This is often attributed to a desire to be “done with the system”.
From 2018 to 2022, DHS data indicates that the number of Fosters who aged out but did not participate in EFC ranged from 76 to 93, affirming accounts of caseworkers as to the initial loss of potential participants in the program. The second reason noted for non-participation was departure or termination from the program, referring to Fosters who participated for some time before leaving or losing benefits. Frontline workers cited lack of compliance with program requirements as the main reason for participants leaving the program once started. This loss of participants is clearly demonstrated by program data related to the length of participation number of program exits each year.
Finally, another reported reason a Foster may not participate in EFC is because they may be enrolled in another social support program that makes them ineligible for EFC such as housing programs or adult foster care. Most notably, during interviews the research team learned that a high rate of Fosters exit EFC to go into adult services, with an estimated 30 percent of Fosters who age out of the system ultimately going into adult foster care. While the exact process for conversations and determination of services was not clearly established during interviews, frontline workers reported that it often involved assessments of Fosters’ cognitive abilities and ability to live independently, after which they will recommend adult services instead of EFC if they determine the individual requires a higher level of support.
Across all stakeholder interviews, it is evident that there are many strengths of the Extended Foster Care program. The most prominent strength of the program is the support it provides to Fosters beyond 18, both financially and through case management. Support also includes education, housing, emotional support, and creating safe spaces for Fosters. Like most youth entering adulthood, Fosters are ill-equipped in terms of income and life skills that are critical for success. Many stakeholders agreed that these needs are even more acute amongst Fosters who typically lack the social support from one’s biological family and have often been denied learning opportunities afforded to youth outside of the system, including learning to drive, opening a bank account, or doing laundry.
EFC addresses these gaps through its key components of monthly payments and case management, which can provide youth with increased support and capacity to focus on developing life skills and pursuing developmental, educational, and professional goals.
-Interview #3: “I think the program’s biggest strength is that it provides a significant financial benefit for youth. It helps them to save money. It helps them to be able to focus on school and not have to work 2 jobs full time to try to support themselves and pay their rent, and so it you know it’s enough to cover rent and utilities, they do still have to supplement it… housing is so high that it’s not enough to cover all of their needs if they’re not working or don’t have some financial aid from school or something like that. But the financial benefit, I think, is one of the biggest strengths.”
– Interview #5 “The benefit, in general, is just continued support.”
– Interview #9 “Being able to go to school and having, you know, like the vouchers to help support their housing while they’re working towards their education. I think that’s a really big thing. –
Interview #1 “I also think continuity of knowing that they still have somebody following them, that they’ve known often for a while before that so that the relationship can stay longer. That helps guide them. And I know many of our social workers their youth would call them, even when they weren’t on extended foster care after, because they don’t have anyone else to ask, they don’t have other healthy, safe adults in their life that can guide some of those major life decisions.”
– Interview #5 “It starts to give our young people control of their own lives.”
– Interview #16 “I try to express, like, this is different than when you were a kid…You make your own decisions. You don’t want to do something I’m asking you to do? You have the right to decline that.”
– Interview #2 “I think another strength is that if they choose not to enter the program after they turn 18 or finish their high school diploma they can come back to it, and all it is is a phone call.” – Interview #5 “I’ve had a few that have gone and lived independently, and have come back into the program. So that was, you know, like the year away. Wasn’t quite what they expected, or they ran into some trouble and needed the support, so they came back into the program.
The biggest weakness of the program is the lack of resources, both financial and opportunities for skill building classes, available to Fosters transitioning to independence as young adults. Fosters miss crucial learning opportunities to build life skills without adequate support from case workers, service providers, and other adult mentors in the community. Considering that most stakeholders identified the goal of EFC as supporting the transition of Fosters into adulthood, the absence of these supports poses a significant gap in the program’s ability to meet that goal and can reduce program benefits down to a temporary, instead of transformational, source of support for Fosters. Without sufficient program-supported opportunities to develop life skills, Fosters may be more likely to struggle meeting program requirements necessary to maintain participation and benefits
“I think the idea of extended foster care is great because [participants] get some autonomy, but I also think we don’t do our due diligence in providing them the skill set and the support when they get these checks…. there isn’t anything put in place for them to have like a financial literacy course, like when you get your check, now that it’s yours and not your foster parents.” – Interview #14
Furthermore, frontline workers noted that the highly technical language used in program notification documents inhibits Fosters’ understanding of the program, “author’s note”, this is a common easily solvable problem – remember those who didn’t graduate and those with GED’s struggling with common written language).
Interview #13 we don’t do transitions well. Whether it’s between foster homes, moving back in with family or adoption.
A lack of training materials provided to frontline workers to learn how to support Fosters in the program. There is no formal training or state requirements that case workers should meet to understand the nuances of a Foster transitioning to adulthood, which varies drastically in comparison to Fosters under the age 18. The lack of coordination between stakeholders in supporting a Foster’s case was mentioned as an ongoing problem limiting service. Furthermore, the lack of a specialized EFC worker can negatively impact the experience of a Foster’s participation due to caseworker capacity and demands of other clients which can harm the relationship between EFC Fosters and their caseworker.
“I wish the statute was a little bit more black and white. I feel like the statute is super gray. Which I understand the rationale behind that, but that leaves a lot of room, which is good or bad. It’s like a double-edged sword for trying to figure out how best to meet the use needs” – Interview #10 “From the county level, it feels like there’s very little collaboration.” – Interview #13
“There’s been like Federal efforts to just remove the participation requirements and say, like we’re talking about young adults. Young adults shouldn’t have to pick, like, whether they’re gonna just totally focus on education or solely focus on employment. Like young adults are experimenting with different things, and, like the participation requirements are really just serving as a screening tool or a punishment.” – Interview #11 “I think we want young people to be successful, and yet the expectations are not reasonable.” – Interview #15 “Some of our young people tend to either not want to do that (fulfill participation requirements) or it’s sporadic when they’re doing it. So they’re terminated from the program for not meeting criteria.” – Interview 16 “Often, you know, case planning and transition, planning and and case work with non minor dependence feels very compliance based rather than have a conversation with an adult about visioning around their future and understanding. That part of being a young adult is like making mistakes, and having some setbacks, and the whole point of this in extended foster care is that it’s meant to be a safety net and it’s not.” – Interview #11 “author’s note” WHO WINS WITH TERMINATION?
Several stakeholders reflected that program requirements are incongruent with the realities faced by Fosters entering adulthood, with some adding that they believe the requirements to be unreasonable. In these accounts, Fosters, like many young adults, may be lacking the life and developmental skills necessary to be successful in initial work or school pursuits. However, for Fosters in EFC, missteps as adults can be much more consequential due to participation requirements. In this regard, losing one’s job can lead to a downward spiral which leads to losing financial and social support provided through the program. Furthermore, in multiple interviews, individuals noted how developmental skills, including communication skills common in young 31 adults, can contribute to precarious housing or employment situations due to avoidant or lack of communication with employers or landlords.
“Well, everybody looks at extended foster care…Why do you have kids that are homeless? Well. because if they leave the Foster home that they were in and they don’t make enough money to pay market rate rent of like $1,200. It’s ridiculous what apartments are going for now. Where do they go? What am I? What am I? I don’t have a magic wand to wave. Like, what am I supposed to do? Well, the option is they probably have to enter shelter unless they have somebody that they could be a board with….they’re just limits to the program that I don’t think lawmakers and others necessarily thought of when it comes down to the reality of the needs of the youth that we’re working with.” – Interview #10
“We know there’s not enough housing.” – Interview #12 “So if they go back and live with their parents or the home they were removed from when they were first entered into care. Then they aren’t eligible for the program through [the] county. It’s one of our housing stipulations.” – Interview #2
Author’s note: High rents and housing shortages = homeless youth.
RURAL MN AND PARENTING: “There’s not a lot of diversity in our county either. So that sometimes may come into play. If a youth is Native American AND also transgender, they face an upward battle. So, we have to be cognizant many times because we don’t have a lot of transgender youth, at least in our program, that I’m aware of right now. But I know one chose to live in a larger town simply because THERE IS more tolerance, or in the larger peer group. – Interview #5 “I think about our parenting youth again. They must choose between getting a job and staying at home because of childcare. That’s another huge gap which a lot of people experience.” – Interview #13
FROM CONTROLLED ENVIRONMENT TO NO CONTROLS:
On this point, the impact of trauma was an especially pronounced theme in interviews. Specifically, Fosters have and continue to deal with serious trauma and mental health issues as a result of both the foster care system, and additional life experiences. Meanwhile, they also often lack the emotional support or appropriate adult modeling to learn how to cope with the childhood experiences they’ve had. Due to this, stakeholders noted that many Fosters struggle to fulfill the education or employment requirements for the EFC program while also being able to access appropriate mental health resources to support their growth. Stakeholders further acknowledged the unique circumstances of Fosters who enter into adulthood from the standard foster care system where they had high levels of structure and little control, into a situation of great independence and responsibility. Their abrupt transition to adulthood poses challenges for Fosters entering EFC, as they must immediately meet specific requirements to maintain their participation.
KNOW THIS ABOUT THAT:
“There’s been a higher dropout rate, or at risk rate for youth in care and in Extended Foster Care. I’m going to be honest, I think that’s a generational thing. I don’t know if I’d put it necessarily because of their experiencing care. However, I think it still stems in the realm of if a young person is unable to commit to this requirement, what is missing for them to be able to do that? I don’t think we ask that question enough. I think again, we are putting these expectations on them, and you know sometimes we can think to ourselves 80 hours a month, that’s not too bad, but it is for a young person who deals with mental health, has high anxiety, is in fight or flight mode. If there is an issue at work, instead of having the skill set of solutions being solutions oriented, it’s oh, my boss is mad at me. I gotta go or a co-worker just irritated me. I’m done.” – Interview #14 “I see that they are 18/19, leaving foster homes or group home settings. They feel like adults. They’re expected to be completely responsible and put together. And yet they’ve never gained the skills for those things that they really don’t have a lot of strong communication skills, conflict, resolution, critical thinking.” – Interview #2
Commonly, caseworkers also noted that Fosters who decline EFC services often do so immediately upon turning 18 out of a reported desire to be “done with the system” and assert control in their lives following the trauma and restrictions placed onto them in foster care. The instability of the system paired with events in Foster’s lives, which led them into foster care, creates a lot of trauma for Fosters. Many stakeholders interviewed described the traumas Fosters have experienced. They acknowledged that removing Fosters from their families has lasting effects and drives negative attitudes towards any county official, especially their case workers. Continuing to stay within the system that a Foster may perceive as being detrimental to their family unit is impossible for some. Participating in EFC may feel like a loss of freedom and autonomy to a Foster, and so they choose not to.
IF IT DOESN’T LOOK LIKE AN ASSET…
“If they had a really bad experience being with the county before they turned 18, then I think a lot of youth would just say, ‘I want no parts of the county. No matter how pretty you wrap it up and sell it. I just want no parts to it.’” – Interview #3
“I’ve had a few that have declined from the beginning. They’re just like ‘I’m tired of the county being in my life. I want to do my own thing.’” – Interview #2
“What I think, it might be a mindset that, you know, the system hurt me and my family. Excuse me, this hurt me in my family and I felt like I don’t have a voice. I don’t get opportunities to just do things on my own. So why would I want to continue to stay in the system?” – Interview #14
Finally, stakeholders frequently noted the absence of learning opportunities for minors in the foster care system as a major barrier for Fosters’ success maintaining participation in EFC and beyond. Several individuals provided accounts of Fosters being denied access by their foster parents to common learning experiences for teenagers, such as learning to drive, having a job, opening a bank account, acquiring independent living skills such as how to do laundry. This creates lasting barriers as Fosters typically enter adulthood with no experience managing finances, without any credit history, and lacking adult relationships that typically provide initial support as cosigners, which makes it even more difficult for them to meet the housing requirements of EFC. As noted previously, the lack of a license and transportation also acts as a barrier to meeting participation requirements. Frontline workers reported feeling constrained by program rules that limited their ability to fill these gaps. For example, some noted that, while they are supposed to prioritize helping Fosters to get their driver’s license, they were not allowed to let Fosters drive county vehicles and foster parents often refused to allow Fosters to use their vehicles or to pay for car insurance coverage for Fosters. While some were able to utilize creative solutions (such as creating leases between Fosters and relatives they lived with to start establishing renters history) and community resources (such as a nonprofit which allowed youth to rent a car for drivers training and testing), these opportunities are not reliably available to all Fosters.
“A lot of times they don’t know how to do their own laundry, because foster parents sometimes will be like, “You’re not touching any of the things. That could ruin it.’ And so then they don’t have a lot of basic skills, either.” – Interview #2 We need to do so much better with making sure you and people have access to drivers licenses. – Interview #13 “
[Youth under 18 in foster care] couldn’t get a [bank] account open in their name only which didn’t seem right to me, and we couldn’t call sign for them to do it, either. It just made it difficult to help them learn about those financial pieces without having the tools to actually get them how you learn that. – Interview #5
Recommendation 1: Establish a data metric to easily track the number of Fosters who age out of foster care each year.
Recommendation 2: Create a metric to track reasons for leaving the program that is specific to Extended Foster Care.
Recommendation 3: Fund increased evaluation of Extended Foster Care to identify program strengths, opportunities for improvement, and outcomes that includes Fosters with lived experience and other community stakeholders.
Recommendation 4: Fund and expand statewide training for frontline workers.
Recommendation 5: Fund additional staffing for EFC, with a priority on creating specialized EFC workers.
Recommendation 6: Develop and fund oversight and accountability measures for counties administering EFC.
Recommendation 7: Establish a multi-agency taskforce to address gaps between service providers.
Recommendation 8: Fund an expansion of EFC services for Fosters beyond 21 that incorporates a gradual decrease in monthly payments.
Recommendation 9: Reform current EFC statutes to require earlier notification of EFC services.
Recommendation 10: Develop and fund measures to provide increased flexibility and accommodations for Fosters to continue participation in EFC during approved absence periods.
Recommendation 11: Reform existing EFC policies and practices that position housing as a condition of receiving benefits.
Recommendation 12: Increase funding for community organizations to ensure that Fosters have access to life skills training.
Recommendation 13: Conduct research into the practices and prevalence of Fosters being enrolled in Adult Foster Care instead of EFC.
Recommendation 14: Fund and conduct additional independent research into potential barriers to EFC which incorporates Fosters with lived experience and utilizes a participatory model.
What do we want to happen in the life of a foster?
What do we not want to happen in the life of a foster?
Change won’t come without more informed Legislators.
Share this article on social media. Call or email your State Representative.
It makes a difference.
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INVISIBLECHILDREN – KARA
This article submitted by former CASA guardian ad litem Mike Tikkanen
“What we do to our children, they will do to our society”
(Pliny the Elder, 2000 years ago)
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