Adoption Uncovered

When Foster Youth Aren’t Supported After They Turn 18 We All Lose.

Photo by Wolrider YURTSEVEN

Young adults tend to face a lot of pressure to know themselves and their life goals well by the time they leave high school. People have probably been asking them for years what they want to do with their lives, and by graduation, they expect an answer. Often, foster youth have even more on their plate, and sometimes it doesn’t even wait for graduation. (1) Maybe they have dreams and they want to access the scholarships that they often qualify for to go to college, but they don’t know how, (2)or they don’t have the confidence or skills to fully focus on going to school. (3) Maybe they already have children to care for or are in prison, like many foster youth who don’t have consistent support in their lives to guide them. (4)

For a lot of us, the reality of having the floor drop out from underneath you at 18 seems far away. We all expect a certain amount of maturity from our graduating seniors. It can be hard to imagine all the little ways this complete independence affects young adults. Foster youth are already far more likely to exhibit difficult behaviors from their time in and out of their first family. (5) Sometimes these survival skills make them more resilient and drive them to overcome hardship. (6) Other times, these instincts might seem beneficial if you are not having your basic needs met, but push people, teachers, and employers away just when you need those relationships to be the strongest. 

We know that young adult brains still have a lot of growing up to do. (7) This age group is known for learning things the hard way, even when they have benefits like a family that is willing to put them through college. (8) When foster youth get stuck, often there is no family nearby to give them a small loan or help them understand health or car insurance. (9) This is not a new problem, but the solutions have been hit or miss. 

Extending Foster Care

One of the ideas that is often suggested as a way to continue support is to allow young adults to stay in foster care past high school graduation as long as they are doing their part to keep a job or continue their education. (10) This can work, but there are a number of counts against this. Many states reduce the amount paid to continuing foster parents to a base level rather than similar pay to what they were getting when the care they were giving was to a teen. The money being offered to foster parents to continue this work can disappear entirely if the state doesn’t have a dedicated program to pay foster parents after 18, or the youth doesn’t choose to extend care. Foster parents might not continue care if it is not funded, or might not be able to get permission from the state to continue care. Even if there is the possibility of continuing care foster youth are often tired of being told by the system what they can and can’t do and are ready for independence of a sort. (11) There are a variety of ways this solution can fall apart, and often several factors are involved when it does. 

Filling in the Gaps with Nonprofit Support

Nonprofits sometimes try to fill in the gaps, but the programs and support they offer can vary. There is the issue of matching the young adult with the support that is out there for them. Even if there are programs that would help with college or housing, the process of finding the organizations and completing the applications properly can be daunting for anyone, especially a young adult who lacks life experience and doesn’t have support. (12)

Help varies from state to state. (13) Some states have a better success rate of seeing their foster youth access programs that help them flourish. Other places don’t show the same results. Funding can vary, as well as the kind of non-profits that exist to fill in the gaps. Every non-profit can be run differently. Each of their organizational styles can differ drastically. Maybe they just raise funds to offer foster youth a basket of supplies once a year. Maybe their specialty is tutoring or mentoring. Few organizations offer the whole package of support a family can. 

New Program Ideas

Creative ideas are out there, but gaining traction and funding can be hard. One such program was developed by Maurita McCorkle and her non-profit, In Our Shoes. (14) She envisions an organization that consists of teams of people that surround foster youth for years after they turn 18. Initially, each youth will get financial support for a majority of their expenses and have access to individuals who can meet with them to strategize around housing, education, life skills, and other areas where young adults often need guidance. Over time, the financial support will decrease as the young adult grows in their job and responsibilities. The team support will stay with them as they grow toward being successfully independent. Over the course of several years, the young adult will graduate from the program and hopefully have stability at the center of their lives. (15) Programs like these have many moving parts and require lots of volunteers and funding. All of that is hard to get and then maintain. Even if a program like this becomes a smoothly running machine, it will likely serve a select number of foster youth in a specific area of the country. Expanding a unique program like this in other states with different laws can be too much. 

Imagine the Potential of Properly Supported Foster Youth

The effect of successfully launching these young adults into life could be measurable in many ways. Often these new adults have kids of their own far too young, (16) who then end up in the same cycle of being raised in a system that isn’t prepared to fully support kids. (17) If babies of foster children didn’t end up in the system, it might free up money for other programs. Then there is the money spent to house foster youth who end up in jail, not only for poor choices, but for being in the wrong place with the wrong people at the wrong time. (18) Our money is currently focused on mopping up the mess left when we don’t use our imagination and compassion to treat foster youth with value. It is hard to tell what it might take for youth all over the country to be connected with a group of cheerleaders who can be in contact with them on a regular basis. (19) It is hard to measure the assets society is being stripped of when children falling out of foster care stumble from a lack of support rather than pursuing degrees or using their skills to grow their communities positively. It would be wonderful to find out what all that potential actually looks like. 

Sources

  1. “What Happens to Youth Aging Out of Foster Care?” aecf.org, Annie E Casey Foundation, 25 Feb. 2025, http://www.aecf.org/blog/what-happens-to-youth-aging-out-of-foster-care.
  2. Tiano, Sara. “Texas Foster Youth Get Free College Tuition, but Nearly Half of the State’s Eligible Students Don’t Use It.” The Imprint, 28 Feb. 2022, imprintnews.org/foster-care/texas-college-tuition-waiver-underused/62905.
  3. Henry, Arianna. “A Foster Youth’s Struggle to Pursue Higher Education.” The Imprint, 7 May 2024, imprintnews.org/youth-voice/a-foster-youths-struggle-to-pursue-higher-education/249208.
  4. Anspach, Rachel. “The Foster Care to Prison Pipeline: What It Is and How It Works.” Teen Vogue, 25 May 2018, http://www.teenvogue.com/story/the-foster-care-to-prison-pipeline-what-it-is-and-how-it-works.
  5. Rubin, David M., et al. “The Impact of Placement Stability on Behavioral Well-Being for Children in Foster Care.” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/, 8 June 2009, pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2693406/.
  6. O’Donnell, Poppy. “Stigma Associated with Youth in the Foster Care System.” The Imprint, 5 Aug. 2016, imprintnews.org/child-welfare-2/stigma-associated-youth-foster-care-system/20086.
  7. “The Teen Brain: 7 Things to Know.” https://www.nimh.nih.gov/, http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/the-teen-brain-7-things-to-know.
  8. Pickhardt, Carl E. “Encouraging the Will to Learn in Teens.” Psychology Today, 28 Aug. 2023, http://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/surviving-your-childs-adolescence/202308/encouraging-the-will-to-learn-in-teens.
  9. Hartman, Mitchell. “Help for foster youth is available — if you can find it.” Marketplace.org, 18 Mar. 2025, http://www.marketplace.org/story/2025/03/18/foster-care-youth-resources-support-services-advocates-age-out-medicaid-child-welfare-florida.
  10. “Extended Foster Care Explained Updated May 20, 2023 | Posted May 24, 2021.” aecf.org, Annie E Casey foundation, 24 May 2021, http://www.aecf.org/blog/extended-foster-care-explained.
  11. Kelly, John. “Why Aren’t Older Foster Youth Extending Stay in Care? .” The Imprint, 14 Nov. 2018, imprintnews.org/youth-services-insider/report-teens-aging-out-foster-care-permanency-extended-care/32761.
  12. Rader, Thomisha. “Foster Youth Face Big Barriers to Access Resources.” The Imprint, 23 Dec. 2021, imprintnews.org/youth-voice/foster-youth-face-big-barriers-to-access-resources/61443.
  13. Rosenberg, Alyssa. “When foster care ends, 18-year-olds still need support.” The Washington Post, 28 Feb. 2024, http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/02/08/foster-care-graduates-ongoing-support/.
  14. McCorkle, Maurita. Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/InOurShoesM/.
  15. Spiering, Charlyn. “Helping Young Adults Succeed Beyond Foster Care with Maurita McCorkle.” Adoption Uncovered, 11 July 2025, adoptionuncovered.com/2025/07/11/helping-young-adults-succeed-beyond-foster-care-with-maurita-mccorkle/.
  16. Boonstra, Heather D. “Teen Pregnancy Among Young Women In Foster Care: A Primer.” Guttmacher Institute, 1 June 2011, http://www.guttmacher.org/gpr/2011/06/teen-pregnancy-among-young-women-foster-care-primer.
  17. Tiano, Sara. “Study: Half of Kids Born to Teen Moms in Foster Care Will Wind Up in Foster Care Themselves.” The Imprint, 25 June 2018, imprintnews.org/research-news/study-parenting-foster-youth/31352.
  18. Jones, Chloe, et al. “Judged by two systems: 60% of incarcerated kids have child welfare background.” News21, 21 Aug. 2020, kidsimprisoned.news21.com/foster-care-kids-juvenile-justice-system/.
  19. Armstrong-Heimsoth, Amy, and Molly Hahn-Floyd. “Former Foster System Youth: Perspectives on Transitional Supports and Programs.” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/, 25 Apr. 2021, pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7518090/.

One response to “When Foster Youth Aren’t Supported After They Turn 18 We All Lose.”

  1. Our family had much experience with foster care and adoption. Five of us were relinquished or removed from our first family. One was never adopted. I was adopted just before I was two years old, but my family decided it had been a mistake, as they already had biological children years before. So by the time I was 17, they were “fed up” with raising me. They decided to charge me $150/month (in way long ago dollars) to live in their house, and I had almost a half a year until I was 18, and age of majority was 21 in my state. It seemed so unjust, that foster kids got to live in foster homes until they were 18. I had to give up hope of college, and move out. I did find a shared house for $50/month. I finally worked and saved long enough to go to school, a long path of bursts of classes. In my job I worked with kids in foster care as a healthcare provider. My heart goes out to kids in foster. Also, I know that some kids in adoptive homes don’t even have those benefits. I hope things improve for everyone!

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