Yours, Mine, Ours and Then Some: Aging out of foster care

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Aging out of foster care

Our Judicial system in regards to children is broken. The children aren't put first, reunification is. They put such an emphasis on keeping sibling groups together that they sometimes put the siblings in a worse situation. For example Jenny was a baby when she went into foster care but because they wanted to keep all five kids together they ended up in a failed adoption. It takes the courts way to long to terminate rights. Legislatures are trying to limit DCFS scope however when something horrible happens like Josh Powell murdering his boys everyone cries outrage at the Judge. The Judge is following the laws and regulations legislatures have determined. I don't know the answers but I know it's a mess.

Many youth who leave foster care at 18 years of age or older entered foster care as teenagers. As they prepare to leave care, they need support and services to help them begin the transition to adulthood and prepare for work and personal responsibilities. Studies of youth who leave foster care without a safe, permanent family reveal consistently negative life outcomes. One found that 25 percent of foster care alumni who aged out did not have a high school diploma or GED. Another study found that less than 2 percent finished college compared with 23 percent of youth in the general population. Over half of youth who aged out of foster care experienced one or more episodes of homelessness, and nearly 30 percent were incarcerated at some point—many times the rate for other young adults.Youth who aged out of foster care were less likely to be employed or to have health insurance than were their peers who had not been in foster care. 55% will be unemployed and 40% of girls will have a baby within 18 months of leaving foster care. These negative experiences compromise these young adults’ abilities to lead independent, fulfilling and productive lives and create substantial costs for government.
Other notes: foster children are 53% more likely to be prescribed psychotropic drugs then children not in foster care.
I read another study that said 40% of children who have been in foster care will have their own children taken into foster care.
Jenny entered foster care at eight months. She lived with over 25 families and it several group homes. She was never adopted. She got pregnant at 16, had lost a baby to DCFS at 17 and was pregnant again at 18. I found these pictures of Jenny on the web. I am adding them to this journal not to be critical of her but rather to document what the foster care system can do to children. While she makes me crazy with her continual bad decisions and not taking advantage of the many opportunities given to her she is a product of the system. She got broken at a very early age and by the time she was a teenager there was no fixing it.

Here is Jenny's life in mugshots. I know there are a couple missing but this is what I could find online. It is definitely enough to tell the story. This is why all her kids need to be adopted to stop this cycle.

I think she must have been pregnant with Brie in this one. The child that the domestic violence was in front of was baby Kylie. This picture is sad because she looks just like Kylie.

DV in front of a child

Shoplifting

Aggravated assault