Many foster children slip
through cracks at age 18

Governments have little follow-up on what happens when kids are on their own

The day Aimee Taylor graduated from high school, her foster parents gave her a unique gift.

They put her out on the street.

"I got out of school early. . . . We went out to eat, me and one of my friends. Then we were going to go home and get our outfits for graduation," recalled Taylor of Hamilton. "I went home and all my stuff was on the porch. I just took it and left. What else could I do?"

JAN UNDERWOOD / DAYTON DAILY NEWS AIMEE TAYLOR, 24, looks through records describing her court battle to try to win back her children who were placed in foster care. Aimee grew up in foster care.

Although Taylor's case may seem extreme, each year thousands of foster kids find themselves on their own at 18. The state stops paying foster parents after a child is legally an adult.

Although some foster parents voluntarily continue to help children past their 18th birthdays, a U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) study found an overwhelming majority of foster children leave foster care "with the expectation they will be self-sufficient."

The results, according to the GAO, are catastrophic. A 1998 Wisconsin study found that almost 40 percent of the state's foster children were unemployed a year after leaving care. A 1997 study in New York City found a majority of young adults in homeless shelters had been in the foster-care system. And a 1991 study of foster children in eight states discovered that 40 percent had moved from foster care to welfare or some other kind of government assistance.

"The tragedy is that far too often, graduates of the American child-welfare system become America's homeless, prisoners, public assistant recipients and psychiatric patients," said Bill Pinto, program director for the Connecticut Department of Human Services.

Child advocates say governments that take custody of kids have a responsibility to help them find housing and jobs before taking away their support. They say teens should have the option of moving into subsidized apartments while completing independent-living programs that teach life skills.

"The vast majority of people, if asked, would say no kid should have to be on his own at 18, but there is no public outcry that says kids should be cared for until they are 21," said Robin Nixon, director of Youth Services for the Child Welfare League of America.

Nixon and other child advocates asked Congress to pass legislation that would pay for kids to remain in care longer if needed. But lawmakers balked at the price tag - $1 billion over five years.

Instead, the U.S. House voted in June to double the amount of money spent on independent-living programs to $140 million a year and expand some services to 21-year-olds. The Senate is expected to follow suit. Rep. Benjamin Cardin, D-Md., said he sponsored the legislation because, "Under current law, foster children are abruptly set adrift."

Though the new funding would help the 20,000 kids who "age out" of foster care each year, experts say it's far from enough to reach the 150,000 teens eligible for independent-living programs. And, they say, even when kids do get into such programs, many of them are ineffective.

Cynthia Fagnoni, a director in the GAO's human services division, said her investigation into independent-living programs in California, Maryland, New York and Texas found "independent-living services fall far short in key areas."

In Contra Costa County, Calif., San Antonio, Texas, and New York City, for example, foster youths take independent-living classes in everything from health and hygiene to sexual responsibility. But few actually have the opportunity to live on their own. In fact, some group homes keep household items such as laundry detergent and cooking utensils locked away.

Trying to teach youths to be independent without putting them in their own housing is like "having drivers who train without a car," said Mark Kroner, director of self-sufficiency for Lighthouse Youth Services, a Cincinnati agency that started one of the country's first independent-living programs in 1981. Without hands-on training, kids "wander around for years, becoming homeless or ending up in jail because they steal to support themselves," Kroner said. "You ask them, 'Do you know how to live by yourself?' and they say, 'Yeah.' But you put them in an apartment and they don't."

No one is sure how many former foster youths end up homeless or in other dire situations because most states don't collect such information. More than half the states have been unable to report how many former foster-care youths finished high school, found employment and lived independent of public assistance, although such data is required by federal law. This year alone, 26 states, including Ohio, failed to submit even enough information to avoid financial penalties.

Statistics on independent-living programs also are nonexistent. "There are no reporting requirements," said Shelly Davalos, program coordinator for the National Independent Living Association.

Ohio, for example, gets $2.5 million a year out of the $70 million the federal government spends to support independent-living programs. But only about 30 of Ohio's 88 counties use the money to provide even partial programs.

"Either counties are not interested or they're spending the money elsewhere," Kroner said. "It's incredible to me. You ask people what happens to kids who live in the system and they say, 'I don't know.' "

Experts say tracking outcomes is difficult because many kids who leave foster care don't want to be found. A Maryland official said that only 15 percent of youths returned follow-up letters seeking information about their status. Local officials in Texas estimated that they lose touch with about a third of the youth within three months of their leaving care.

Ruth Massinga, former head of child services in Maryland and chief executive officer of the Casey Family Program, which has children in foster care in 14 states, says governments must do a better job tracking outcomes. "We must know what actually happens to these people."

Massinga said foster-care officials have focused on process instead of how well kids do in their care. "Far too many are not prepared to handle adult life," she said. "At the end of the day, we're not able to say, systematically, that we're attending to their well being."

If officials do start finding out what happens to foster kids after they leave the system, what they learn might not be pleasant.

Aimee Taylor's graduation present was just one more unpleasant memory from a childhood that still haunts her.

As part of her battle to get her own children out of foster care in Butler County, Taylor got an attorney and managed to obtain caseworker notes, court orders and other papers that depict her life in the foster system. The picture that emerges is chilling.

She was living in Florida with her mother and stepfather when, at the age of 3, she entered foster care. A social worker described Taylor and her two brothers as "love-starved kids who attached themselves easily to their foster parents. They all three are well-behaved and loving children."

It was not to last.

In the coming few years, Taylor was to be placed in 12 foster homes in three states. She was reunited with family members, then removed again and sent to a group home, where she repeatedly ran away. By the time she was 18, Taylor said she had been molested, beaten with a paddle and moved back and forth among relatives and foster parents at least 30 times.

The chaos took its toll. After a move from a foster home in Florida to relatives in North Carolina and then back to the same home in Florida, a caseworker reported that Taylor "was doing very poorly in school." Other reports said she fought with other children in a foster home and had a "severe reaction" to renewed contact with her mother. Counseling was recommended.

"I cried the first time I sat down and looked at (these reports)," Taylor said.

After leaving care, Taylor said she ended up involved in other abusive relationships. At 24, she has had five children by two men. She gave the first two up for adoption. The other three were taken by Butler County Children Services and placed in a foster home.

Taylor said children services' contention that she neglected her children is wrong, and she hopes to win them back. But even if she fails, she still expects one day to raise a child. In December, Taylor landed a job as an officer in the Lebanon Correctional Institution. She's studying criminal justice at Miami University so she can be a probation officer for teens. And last month, she got married.

"I may have had a bad life, but I'm making it better," she said. "When I have another baby, and I plan on it, I'm not . . . letting them take it. I'm not going to open my door to them anymore."

Main Story:

Foster home turns into party house
Former residents say teens had little supervision in foster-care program
By Debra Jasper and Elliot Jaspin Dayton Daily News
Published: Monday, September 27, 1999 ; Page: 1A

Sidebar:

KIDS GET HELP ON ROAD TO SELF-SUFFICIENCY
Programs teach basics of living alone
By Debra Jasper Dayton Daily News
Published: Monday, September 27, 1999 ; Page: 5A

Part 3:

Trading at the child-care bazaar
Governments, agencies and parents haggle over the price of caring for kids.
By Debra Jasper and Elliot Jaspin - Dayton Daily News
Published: Tueday, September 28, 1999 ; Page: 1A