Arkansas Tries To Counter National Trend In Foster Care Outcomes

NORTHWEST ARKANSAS — Megan Anthony wanted the experience of a first job, but as a foster kid, she knew that wasn't likely to happen.

"One thing I remember facing is that I couldn't get a job because I didn't have a car," Anthony said. "And I couldn't get a car, because I was in foster care. I couldn't get a license because I needed insurance -- well, what foster parent is going to put you on their insurance?"

Academics and officials know that young adults who grow up in foster care face higher unemployment, lower educational attainment and more homelessness. State-funded and charitable programs exist to help bridge the move into adulthood, but their effectiveness is unknown.

And no one has a solution for the main culprit that keeps teens in foster care from learning many of life's lessons in the first place: the lack of a long-term, trusting relationship with an adult.

"We got kicked out of our share of foster homes," Anthony, now 20, said about the experience she and her brother had. "It's not tragic -- we haven't been to as many as some kids. We weren't little angels.

"Obviously, we were upset about the whole thing," she said. "I think people didn't really know how to handle that, or how to help. So it would just get too difficult, and we would just get moved."

Independence A Challenge

More than 7,400 Arkansas children were in foster care at some point in 2009. According to the Arkansas Department of Human Services annual statistical report, of the total number of people who left the foster care system in 2009, 248 men and women simply "aged out," meaning they reached legal adulthood without receiving a permanent placement. While youths in foster care can be required to stay in the system until the age of 18, they may voluntarily remain in the system until 21.

In April, researchers with the Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago and the University of Washington completed an eight-year study examining social and economic outcomes for men and women who had aged out of foster care in Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin.

The study, "Midwest Evaluation of Adult Functioning of Former Foster Youth," draws from interviews with about 600 men and women who aged out of foster care systems. Researchers interviewed the same individuals about every two years beginning in 2002.

Interviewing subjects who were 23 or 24, research showed about 6 percent had a degree from a two- or four-year institution, and about 25 percent did not have a high school diploma or equivalent. Nearly one-fourth had experienced homelessness at least once since leaving foster care.

More than 60 percent of respondents said they felt lucky to have been placed in foster care, and 69 percent felt "somewhat" or "very" prepared for independent living upon leaving foster care.

However, researchers found they were less likely to be employed than the general population. In the poll, 76 percent of the general population reported they were employed compared with 52 percent of former foster youths. Also, former foster youths earned a median income less than half that of their mainstream counterparts.

"Generally speaking, individuals who transition to adulthood out of foster care are looking a lot worse than the general population," said Amy Dworsky, one of the study's co-authors.

"For example, they have lower education attainment, are less likely to be employed, and young men are more likely to be involved with the criminal justice system. We see high rates of homelessness. Many of the young women are raising children on their own, unable to support themselves so they end up on public assistance."

Placement A Priority

Toma Whitlock, coordinator for the Arkansas Independent Living program, a statewide transitional program based in Little Rock, said the Department of Human Services tries to minimize multiple moves for foster children.

"The placement is a priority for us," Whitlock said. "A child's first home should be their last."

Mary Goodearle, who provides training for potential foster and adoptive parents, said multiple placements for long-term foster children is often a self-feeding problem, especially during a foster youth's teenage years.

"Foster parenting teenagers is really hard," said Goodearle, who has fostered between 50 and 60 children -- mostly teenage boys -- with her husband, Allen.

"People get into foster care because they want to help kids and help them improve their lives," Goodearle said. "But they find the kids are already so set in their habits -- they're tough, they've built these walls, and they're in this self-protective mode. Their good intentions fail."

Anthony and her brother found a supportive family after about a year of multiple placements. She said she remembered living in Rogers, Decatur, West Fork and Huntsville before finally finding a foster family that truly felt like home.

"They were the only ones who didn't give up on us," Anthony said of her foster parents Don and Debbie, with whom Anthony and her brother lived throughout high school. She is now a student at the University of Arkansas, attending classes on a ROTC scholarship.

Transitional Housing

Becky Shaffer, executive director of Saving Grace, a transitional housing shelter for women ages 18-24 in Rogers, has carved out a career providing living assistance after she aged out of foster care at 18. She said that while there has been improvements in the system since she left her last foster residence -- a group home -- many of the problems remain.

"It's staggering," Shaffer said. "No one wants to talk about it, and they're not going to share the information. You have to go and dig for it."

Shaffer said she was disturbed by what she heard privately from Arkansas social workers. Many individuals exiting the program suffered symptoms similar to post-traumatic stress disorder, and many found themselves in poverty for much of their lives, Shaffer said.

She said many of the young women who come to Saving Grace lack basic life skills. Shaffer cited the frequent relocation of children within the foster care system as a cause, but added that even over long stays within a single home, foster parents often don't have the time to communicate important life lessons.

"If you're a kid in foster care, you may go to this couple, and maybe she's not a great cook," Shaffer said. "Or maybe they're too busy to do anything, because they have six other foster children in their home. Then, about the time you get comfortable, and feel you can trust them enough to learn from them, you're gone. You're off to another foster parent."

Dworsky said the repeatedly moving from one home to another undermines the foster child's success as an adult.

"It makes it hard to develop relationships that often lead to jobs," she said. "Many people get jobs because they know somebody that knows somebody -- these young people don't have those connections. I think you can see why these people are at such high risk."

President George W. Bush signed the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act in 2008. The law extended federal support for foster children, allowing foster parents to receive funding until the person in their care turns 21, provided they are working to obtain a high school diploma, GED, college degree or other vocational training. In 2009, the Arkansas Legislature passed a law to implement the federal changes.

The added money provides some breathing room after high school. Arkansas provides foster parents a monthly $500 stipend.

Network Shows Promise

Dworsky said her research team investigated several states' approaches to transitioning programs, but had not seen anything especially promising.

"We're just not finding any effect of these services," Dworsky said. "We just really don't know what works. There's a sense of what doesn't work -- like classroom settings. We know that just sitting kids down in a classroom and sort of teaching them how to budget doesn't work. The question is, what does work?"

Julie Munsell, spokeswoman for the Arkansas Department of Human Services, said classroom activities are part of a successful recipe.

"It has to be paired with some greater supports," Munsell said. "One of the things we've tried to implement is mentoring of the youth through several mechanisms, one being the foster care alumni network. There's a growing foster care network of youth that does show a lot of promise in being a support network for individuals who are aging out of care."

Shaffer said the women living at Saving Grace are required to attend life skills classes each week, which are based on a curriculum covering everything from balancing a checkbook to interviewing skills. The women receive heavily discounted rent as long as they are enrolled in high school, college or other vocational classes, and are each assigned three mentors, who stay in contact with the women indefinitely.

"We tell them mentoring at Saving Grace is not for the faint of heart," Shaffer said. "We've got two girls who moved out who were pretty well in self-sabotage mode. Part of that is they've been through so much in their lives and been abused and neglected by so many people that were meant to protect them, that they absolutely trust no one. They really think they can deal with it all themselves, because, thank you very much, nobody else has done a very good job."

Historically, Arkansas has not collected data from individuals who age out of foster care to measure the long-term effectiveness of the state's transitional efforts. But on Oct. 1, the National Youth in Transition Database will be active. According to the National Child Welfare Resource Center for Youth Development, states will be expected to provide a statistical snapshot of 17-year-olds in foster care over a six-month period, based on survey interviews. The states will then survey those individuals again at ages 19 and 21.

The surveys will measure outcomes in many of the areas examined by the Midwest study, including financial self-sufficiency, experience with homelessness and educational attainment.

Tools To Succeed

Shaden Jedlicka, 19, who lives with his foster parents in Fort Smith, said that while many of the transition programs did seem helpful to him, he felt that there were unnecessary pitfalls built into the system.

"A hard thing in the transition is that the state wants you to be better than your biological family," Jedlicka said. "They want you to succeed. They put all these thoughts into your head about how to succeed, but they don't really give you the tools to do it."

Jedlicka noted the isolation felt by many adults exiting foster care at or after 18 and worried that some of them return to unhealthy relationships.

"It defeats what the system was designed to do," he said. "They're forced to reconnect with their biological families, because they don't have anyone else."

"What we need is a networking system," Anthony said. She said classes taught through the Independent Living Program were useful in terms of teaching basic life skills, but didn't really contribute to making day-to-day life navigable.

Dworsky said that one thing states could do in order to improve the lives of former foster children is to extend education benefits well into recipients' mid-20s.

"One of the reasons we see very low rates of college degree attainment is that young people only receive support until they're 21," Dworsky said. "After that, they're on their own."

Dworsky said that expectation was unrealistic.

"We don't expect the typical middle-class kid to make it on their own at 21," she said. "They're still dependent on their parents to various degrees until their mid-to-late 20s."

Anthony said she felt stronger for her experience and hopes that others will work to provide meaningful opportunities for those exiting the system.

"What we need is fewer people who feel sorry for foster kids, and more people who want to actually find a way to help them," she said. "A lot of them, if you give them a way to help themselves, they'll take it."