When Shaquita aged out of foster care at 18, she had no idea what to do and didn’t know who could help her. “My foster mom did not know what to do,” she told Children’s Rights. “So we went to the Department of Children and Family services and asked them what would be the next steps. Start over?”

Starting over is the grim reality many foster youth face upon aging out of care, and the biggest obstacle often is finding a way to support themselves. According to a multi-state study, 47 percent of former foster children are unemployed. Even former foster youth who do have jobs can run into trouble supporting themselves, as more than 71 percent report an annual income of less than $25,000.

“We’re preparing our kids in foster care…to be another statistic,” is how Shaquita puts it and, while she did manage to attend college and start a career, this hasn’t been the case for Shannon.

After spending most of her time in foster care, Shannon aged out at 18 and has experienced both homelessness and unemployment. “It’s almost like a catch-22,” she told Children’s Rights. “If you don’t have a place to go, you’re not getting a job. If you don’t have a job then you’re not going to have anywhere to go.”

Children’s Rights believes many states must do more to make sure youth have the support they need to find employment and go on to productive lives as adults. Our legal advocacy campaigns include reforms designed to ensure these youth have access to services like job training and extended foster care benefits past the age of 18–which, studies show, is tied to increases in both employment rates and annual earnings.

Porscha is just one example of what our reform campaigns can do. When she first entered foster care, she was bounced between homes before being placed in an institution. However, thanks to Children’s Rights’ strong advocacy on behalf of foster children, Porscha’s caseworker was able to connect her to continuing education and job opportunities. Now she has a full-time job and is getting the education she needs to land an even better one.

Too many child welfare systems don’t have the basic programs that make the difference between a successful career and a life spent struggling to get by. For every success story, there are still countless former foster youth who don’t know if they’ll ever be able to support themselves. It’s impossible to know the scope of the situation, as there is no national data, and so many former foster youth disappear off the grid upon exiting care.

For almost 20 years, Children’s Rights has been the voice fighting for change on behalf of this forgotten population, but we need your help. You can join our fight by making a donation online and spreading the word about our work by following us on Twitter and liking us on Facebook.

After a decade spent in foster care enduring moves between homes and institutions, separation from his siblings, and cocktails of meds that fogged his mind, Tevin turned 18. Just like that, he was on his own.

“My caseworker picked me up, gave me my clothes and my CPS file, and dropped me off at a shelter downtown. She just left me there,” he told Children’s Rights.

Tevin said the area around the shelter was frequented by drug users and prostitutes. He was scared, and decided to sleep on the streets instead. Foster care left him with no life skills. No job. No high school diploma. No family connections. “One day I was a kid, and the next day I was a grownup,” he said. “I didn’t know what to do in the real world on my own.”

Throughout the country, thousands of young people like Tevin struggle with homelessness after they age out of foster care. The scope of the problem is huge. Roughly 26,000 young people age out of U.S. foster care each year. And as many as 31 percent of former foster youth spend time homeless or couch surfing, according to a 2011 study conducted by Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago.

In Oklahoma, Timothy became homeless instantly at 18. “I wasn’t thinking about aging out until the night before when they said ‘What are you going to do tomorrow?’ I said, ‘I don’t know,” he told KJRH-TV.

In Washington, Sharayah told the local news site Crosscut that she was “keeping my stuff in my backpack and staying wherever I could,” when she aged out of care.

In California, Kevin was approaching homelessness, when his friend’s parents took him in. “We weren’t going to be the ones to throw him onto the street,” Linda Campbell told LA Weekly.

Children’s Rights believes states must do more to ensure all young people who’ve spent time in foster care have support and a safe place to call home.

Our legal advocacy has secured reforms in places like New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut, where kids can now stay in state care and receive services past their eighteenth birthdays. Studies show that when youth remain in care until they are 21, it cuts their risk of homelessness and leads to more education and higher lifetime earnings. It also gives child welfare workers more time to help young people plan for their futures

“If states fail to reunify children with their families or place them in adoptive homes, the least they can do is teach kids skills to be successful adults and help them form life-long connections like mentors to rely on as they mature,” said Sandy Santana, chief operating officer of Children’s Rights.

After sleeping “behind buildings,” Tevin said he has finally found the support he needs. But it wasn’t easy. On the streets, he stopped taking his medication, and “couldn’t function.” He was eventually admitted to a hospital, then a rehab facility. That’s where he learned about Angel Reach, an organization that has since become his lifeline.

Tevin now has a roof over his head and a support system to lean on. He is back in school, and has access to classes for life skills he never learned in foster care, like cooking and money management.

Children’s Rights is thankful Tevin found stability, but his journey — and the journeys of thousands of other young people — shouldn’t have to be so rough. Children’s Rights will continue to push foster care systems to give kids vital support and services, so they aren’t forced from foster care to the streets. Join our efforts by contributing online, liking Children’s Rights on Facebook, or following us on Twitter @ChildrensRights.

In Iowa alone, about 6,100 children are staying with foster families. But 765 of those kids could be adopted by a qualified family right now because their biological parents have had parental rights terminated.

This month, public adoption events are scheduled in eight Iowa cities. On Friday, five children in Cedar Rapids officially joined new families.

Gabby was one of those five children who was adopted. However, her new family is one she’s known for a long time. A friend and neighbor of the Blauer family for years, Gabby is now, officially, one of the family:

Typically, families and children don’t want to end up in a juvenile courtroom. But members of the Scott and Dana Blauer family were more than happy to answer questions from a juvenile judge about [Gabby]. The Blauers were ready to formalize an adoption and Gabby was more than ready to join a new family.

“It’s taken a long time,” the 16-year-old said later adding with a sigh “it’s good.”

Perhaps no one was more excited about the new addition to the family than Roxanne Blauer, the family’s 16-year-old daughter who is already best friends with Gabby:

“It’s the greatest thing ever to have my best friend since very young come in and be my sister now legally and everything,” Roxanne Blauer said.

Roxanne and Dana don’t agree on who brought up the idea of adopting Gabby, but Dana says the adoption won’t change anything about the already deep bond the family has with Gabby:

“Gabby’s always been a part of our life anyway even as a small child. So it doesn’t feel any different,” Dana Blauer said.

Going forward, organizations like Iowa KidsNet are taking the lead on getting more of the state’s kids adopted. While much more needs to be done for these kids, stories like Gabby’s give workers hope that they’re on the right path:

“Iowa KidsNet has done a wonderful job and they don’t stop here. They follow up to make sure families are doing a good job. I’m just real excited about it because I come from an adopted family,” [Iowa KidsNet volunteer Kevin] Slater said.

[The boy] weighed just 34.8 pounds and was 3 feet, 5 inches tall — about the weight of an average 4-year-old when measured on standard growth charts. The complaint said the boy was “very thin, his bones were protruding, and his abdomen was distended.”

He was transferred to Rochester and found to have a slow heartbeat, anemia, brain atrophy and delayed bone growth due to malnutrition, the complaint said.

According to a second report by Forliti, the Hauers have been licensed Minnesota foster parents since 2005 and county officials recommended them as foster parents as recently as a month ago. Somehow, the horrific abuse and neglect detailed in complaint documents went unnoticed:

The boy told officials the couple made him sit at the table and drink a liquid diet while the rest of the family ate. He said at times he was so hungry he ate dirty food from a compost site. He told doctors he didn’t brush his teeth and regurgitated his food “because he wanted the taste of food and he did not know when he would eat again,” the complaint said.

The boy said he was given a bucket to go to the bathroom at night, and had to clean it himself in the morning. One of the other children was responsible for hosing him off two to three times a week with a garden hose, the complaint said.

The Hauers, according to court documents, felt the boy was hoarding food and placed him on a liquid diet to keep him from regurgitating solid food. These kinds of parenting tactics and the couple’s own statements to the authorities paint a disturbing picture:

The complaint said Mona Hauer told authorities the boy’s eating habits were his “attempt to be in control of the home and that (he) had in fact controlled the home for some time.” She also said she didn’t think he was too thin.

Russell Hauer told medical staff that he and his wife withheld food from the boy at least once as a form of punishment, the complaint said. He also told officials the boy “had won or gotten his way” when he was taken to the hospital.

The story is even more disturbing given that these parents were chosen to care for a child with special needs:

At the time of the boy’s adoption, a doctor found he had experienced trauma that would require intensive psychotherapy. The doctor gave several recommendations, but the Hauers did not follow through, the complaint said.

Caseworkers and their supervisors failed to complete investigations in the time required by law 18 times before children ended up dead. They routinely — at least 31 times — did not contact neighbors and acquaintances who might have told them a child was at risk of harm or even death. More than half of the time, caseworkers violated at least one state rule when conducting abuse investigations, according to an analysis of fatality case reviews by the state Department of Human Services.

Almost half of the children known to social services who died of abuse and neglect since 2007 had at least one call “screened out,” or not investigated, because child welfare workers deemed the allegations did not meet the threshold for child abuse or they didn’t have enough information.

Despite high-profile child deaths, warnings from panels and expressions of concern from elected officials, the state’s $375 million system has seen the number of children dying of abuse and neglect rise over the past five years. This trend has local experts wondering what is keeping the state from fixing this issue:

“It’s 2012, and all the advancements we have in our society, whether it’s technological or medical, we can’t figure out how to keep kids safe?” said Stephanie Villafuerte, director of the Rocky Mountain Children’s Law Center, a nonprofit law firm that often represents foster children. “You are talking about dead children.”

One issue past Governors and legislators have highlighted is the fact that Colorado’s child welfare system is made up of county-level departments that operate without state oversight on policies such as maximum staff caseloads and worker pay. The lack of state supervision, as well as documented instances of failures to follow state policies, was highlighted in The Post’s review:

In more than half of child abuse deaths in the last six years, caseworkers did not follow state policy regarding how to investigate neglect and abuse allegations, according to The Post’s review of state fatality reports. Of 59 reports released to the newspaper, 31 listed violations of state rules.

Caseworkers erred by screening out calls that deserved follow-up, failing to check on children within the time allowed by law and neglecting to communicate with law officers or another county’s child welfare division when a child moved, according to state reviews of the deaths.

In 2012 alone, nine kids with prior state DHS contact have died. On average, a child dies of abuse or neglect every 30 days in Colorado. This growing problem has many concerned, but Reggie Bicha, who was named DHS director in January, says he’s determined to improve what some have called a broken system:

“We are trying to shift a huge ocean liner in our child welfare culture in Colorado,” Bicha said. “I want us to turn the boat in a better direction for kids and families.”

In 2011, 208 youths aged out of state care, and 113 were discharged to independent living at ages 16, 17 or 18, according to a Nebraska Appleseed report. Fifty-seven percent of them immediately lost Medicaid coverage.

“Although over half of youth who exited care without achieving permanency applied for the program, an average of 215 youth each year were left without the important financial support offered by (the) Former Ward (program),” the report said.

Lincoln Senator Amanda McGill introduced a bill that would have extended foster care services to youth past the age of 18, but it has not passed into law. However, she says that the state’s Department of Health and Human Services is working with local organizations to find a long-term solution for youth like Reba and John:

“I’m 32 years old and still depend on my family at times for supports and guidance and advice,” she said. “To be a young person who doesn’t have that at 18, 19, 20 years old is impossible for me to fathom.”

One possible solution, according to experts, would be for the state to take advantage of the federal Fostering Connections Act which offers federal matching funds for the cost of extending foster care to the age of 21. An independent analysis of Nebraska’s foster care system showed it would cost the state $2.7 to $3.1 million in the first year of implementation, with federal funds contributing an equal or even greater amount:

“There’s an opportunity here to make an investment in young people,” [Nebraska Appleseed's Sarah Helvey] said. “And research nationally has shown that there’s a two-to-one return on that.”

Extending foster care to 21 would help Reba get the college degree she wants, but is worried about accumulating debt that she can’t afford to pay back. As for John, he’s leaving Nebraska to join the Navy and hopes that the state finds the right way to help youth who exit out of care:

“I need a job, need an education and I can have a better life for myself,” he said. “Unfortunately, I am only one example of many youth who have learned this lesson too late.”

DSS increased the number of foster children moving into permanent homes from 789 in 2010-11 to 1,184 in the 12-month cycle that ended June 30. Nearly two-thirds of the children who left long-term foster care during the year went to adoptive families rather than being reunited with their biological family, according to DSS figures.

Local experts criticizing this trend point to the state’s desire to meet various federal mandates and avoid fines for failing to do so. The result, they say, is that kids are being moved out of foster care too quickly and without the proper precautions:

“In theory, what we all want is for children to not be spending their lives in group care, or in foster care for that matter, unless it’s a permanent foster situation,” said the Rev. John Holler, president of Epworth Children’s Home and member of the board of directors of the South Carolina Association of Children’s Homes and Family Services.

“But the Department of Social Services is under such pressure to meet numbers because of federal mandates that any provider you talk to you hear the stories of children being sent to places they shouldn’t be sent in such a short timeframe.”

The state would face federal fines if more than 6.2 percent of children returned home from foster care were abused within six months. South Carolina’s rate has remained at about 3 percent, according to DSS Director Lillian Koller. Despite the vocal criticisms, she maintains kids are being moved safely into permanent homes:

“We watch it like a hawk and we are well within the very low tolerances for that kind of re-reporting of abuse and neglect,” she said. “So these families are truly permanent families. The children are safe and thriving in these homes.”

The sudden shift in moving children out of foster care is part of the state’s focus on streamlining the adoption process, while also providing more services designed to keep families together:

“If they can’t be reunited safely with their biological families, then we need to get them another family, an adopted family,” Koller said. “There has been throughout this nation too little attention given to that.”

“Sometimes kids were stable in a foster home for years but there was no attention given to trying to get them a family for life.”

The latest quarterly report by the case monitor said DCF had a “strong overall performance” during April 1 through June 30.

Joette Katz, the former state Supreme Court justice, took over the sprawling, $800-million-a-year agency in January 2011. The reports by Wallingford-based court monitor Raymond Mancuso since the first quarter of last year have shown progress.

One troubling aspect of DCF has been its over-reliance on placing children in group settings rather than foster homes. However, that has begun to change thanks to policies introduced by Katz that have more children being placed with relatives and fewer children being removed from their homes for poverty-related reasons. The Connecticut Mirror’s Jacqueline Rabe Thomas reports on Mancuso’s findings:

“There is considerable evidence of collaborative case-planning in most cases. A very important factor for children’s needs being identified prior to discharge and subsequently met appeared to be solid partnership and alliance between the Department, providers, families and youth,” Raymond Mancuso reported.

“We are certainly impressed,” [Children's Rights lead attorney Ira] Lustbader said. “[DCF officials] have shored up placements to move these children living in congregate care to more appropriate living situations.”

Despite the department’s progress in finding appropriate housing for more kids, challenges remain–namely the department’s need to add new foster homes:

But with 1,050 children still under the care of shift workers, advocates say the agency still has much work to do. The agency has routinely fallen short of the requirement that it add 850 new foster homes. The court monitor’s progress report says the agency has added a small number since last quarter, but it still has far to go.

Lustbader…said the percentage of cases in which children’s needs are being met remains too low, but he acknowledged the improvement.

Overall, Children’s Rights is hopeful that under Katz’s leadership the department will continue to resolveany outstanding issues:

Lustbader said Katz “champions the department’s successes and owns the things that aren’t going right. She dives in to address them. It’s like night and day” from the previous administrations.

[The malfunction] could have led to children being wrongly removed and prevented caregivers from supporting civil claims against the state.

Officials overseeing CPS have announced that they will be sending notices to more than 30,000 people who received incomplete records over the past two years alone:

The state said it is unable to track or notify those who requested and received incomplete records before 2010.

Those receiving notices include parents involved in the nearly 8,600 open dependency cases, about 1,500 parents who have requested records on their CPS cases, nearly 1,200 judicial or law-enforcement requests, 55 members of the media, and more than 21,000 attorneys.

The latest blow to the state’s struggling system comes on the heels of news that there is a record number of children in Arizona foster care and not enough staff to handle all of the cases. Lawyers who represent families in the state have expressed their belief that the shockwave from the computer glitch could be far-ranging:

“If a case got to the wrong result because information wasn’t disclosed, that’s a big, big problem,” said Mark Kennedy, who has represented about 400 parents over the past three years. “To me, it’s pretty significant when CPS says we’re going to contact 21,000 lawyers. That’s like saying, ‘Start searching your case files because there may be some problems out there.’ “

While it remains unclear exactly what information was hidden in which cases, any undisclosed information could have altered some cases and led to the wrong outcome for children and families. Examples of the crucial records that may have been unavailable include:

Details of Child Abuse Hotline reports. Services provided to the family.
Case notes and documentation from CPS workers and supervisors.
Assessments of children who participated in services.
Appeals of previous child-maltreatment findings.

Spokeswoman Dasya Peterson said that people requesting public records “were given the majority of the information.” However, local attorneys say that until they have more information on what exactly was missing, there is no way of knowing just how deep this problem goes:

Attorney Joseph Ramiro-Shanahan, who also represents parents and children in dependency court, said that’s not much consolation. “That’s convenient for them to say, but who knows?” he said. “I don’t even know what I’m missing.”

Photo Credit: The Gaston Gazette

David and Michelle Buchanan of Gaston County, North Carolina have been fostering children through the local Department of Social Services (DSS) for the past two years. However, their home has been childless since August 31st , when the 21-month-old toddler they hoped to adopt was unexpectedly removed. The Gaston Gazette has more:

The Buchanans are not alone. They are among a group of former or current foster parents who are frustrated with what they see as an unfair system, ruled by DSS with an iron fist. A number of those residents plan to speak out during a Gaston County commissioners meeting…though many are still fearful of it coming back to haunt them.

“It’s been so heart wrenching. We can’t clear our name or get a true answer,” said Michelle Buchanan. “I feel like if DSS really wanted to do what was best for (the child), they could have worked it out with us.”

The couple says their issues with the system began when they needed DSS to find a new home for an 8-year-old boy with behavioral challenges. When DSS failed to respond after several weeks, Michelle voiced her frustrations, which, she claims, resulted in social workers suddenly taking issue with their parenting skills.

Despite successfully completing the required training and recently having their license to foster renewed, DSS soon removed both children. While foster parents have no legal right to the children they foster, the toddler’s birth mother and father had given up their parental rights and the Buchanans believed they were on their way to adopting the toddler they’d grown to love:

“Reunification [with the birth family] was the first priority,” said Michelle Buchanan. “But they told us from the beginning it was also a pathway to adoption.”

“They took my heart and ripped it out and stomped on it,” he said. “And they acted like we were demons.”

The Buchanans say they wanted to appeal DSS’ decision in court, but found local attorneys were unwilling to take the case because it could imperil their relationship with the agency. With seemingly little recourse left, the couple now feels they have lost hope:

“This has been like a death for us.”