Remarks from Congressional Briefing:
“Talking Foster Care with Country Music Star
Jimmy Wayne.”
Amy Dworsky
House Ways and Means Committee Room, 1100 Longworth House Office Building,
Washington, DC, May 15, 2012.
Thank you for inviting me here today to share with you what we know about the benefits of extending
foster care to age 21.
Most young people in the U.S. are experiencing an increasingly prolonged transition to adulthood. They
are gradually taking on adult roles and responsibilities as they acquire the education and work experience
needed to become economically independent. This would not be possible without the financial assistance
and other support that it is now normal for parents or other family members to provide young people well
past age 18. The transition for youth who age out of foster care is much more abrupt. At age 18 or,
increasingly, 21, they are expected to become self-sufficient young adults virtually overnight with little or
no family or state support.
Much of what we know about the benefits of extending foster care comes from the Midwest Study, which
began under the direction of my colleague, Mark Courtney, in 2002. My involvement dates back to 2004.
The Midwest Study is longitudinal. It followed a sample of 732 foster youth from Iowa, Wisconsin, and
Illinois as they transitioned out of foster care and into adulthood. Baseline data were collected when they
were 17 or 18 years old, and most were still in foster care. Additional data were collected at ages 19, 21,
23 or 24, and 26.
What makes the Midwest Study so relevant to today’s Congressional Briefing is that Illinois was, for
many years, one of the few states in which young people could and routinely did remain in foster care
until their 21st birthday. Iowa and Wisconsin were like most other states--youth typically aged out when
they were 18 years old. This difference in state policies means that we can use the Midwest Study data to
compare the outcomes of young people who were able to stay in foster care until age 21 to those of young
people who did not have that option.
I am going to focus on three outcomes for which extended foster care seems to make a difference: postsecondary education, homelessness, and pregnancy. One important caveat before I begin. All of the young
people who participated in this study aged out pre-Fostering Connections. Even the young people who
could stay in foster care until age 21 would not have benefited from any of the law’s other provisions,
such as those related to transition planning. Hence, they aged out under a somewhat different set of
circumstances than foster youth who are aging out today.
Chapin Hall at The University of Chicago
www.chapinhall.org
1
By age 26, young people from Illinois were actually slightly less likely to have a high school diploma or
GED than their peers from Iowa and Wisconsin. However, they were about 50% more likely to have
completed at least one year of college.
We did some additional analyses to rule out several other potential explanations for this difference, such
as differences in the characteristics or placement histories of the foster youth. Even after we controlled for
these other factors, young people from Illinois were much more likely to have completed at least one year
of college. Unfortunately, our data also suggest that allowing youth to remain in foster care until their
21st birthday was not associated with higher college graduation rates. By age 26, young people from
Illinois were no more likely to have a two- or four-year college degree than their Iowa and Wisconsin
counterparts.
As many of you may know, young people aging out of foster care are at high risk of becoming homeless.
Extending foster care means that youth would have up to three additional years of housing paid for by the
state. They might be in a better position, both financially and otherwise, to address their housing needs
when they are 21 as compared to 18 years old.
Study participants from Iowa and Wisconsin were three times more likely to have experienced at least one
night of homelessness by age 19 than those from Illinois. This reflects the fact that nearly three-quarters
of the Illinois study participants were still in foster care. This difference had almost completely
disappeared by age 23 or 24. By age 26, one-third of the study participants had been literally homeless for
at least one night regardless of which state they were from. (Note: This does not include young people
who had couch surfed or doubled up.)
Foster youth from Illinois become homeless at, if anything, a slightly faster rate during the first 30 months
after aging out than the foster youth from Iowa and Wisconsin, although extending foster care delayed the
beginning of that 30-month period by an average of about 2 years.
Several studies have found a very high rate of pregnancy among young women who are in foster care or
who recently aged out. The Midwest Study data provide some evidence that extending foster care may
have some preventive effects. Specifically, young women who were still in foster care at age 19 were less
likely to have become pregnant since their baseline interview than young women who were no longer in
care. This was true despite the fact that they were more likely to have ever been pregnant prior to
baseline.
So what are the policy implications of these findings?
First, there’s the Education and Training Voucher program. This program provides youth with up to
$5,000 each year to pay for education or training until age 23, but they must apply for the funds before
their 21st birthday. This assumes that young people will graduate from high school when they are 17 or
18 years old, immediately enter college, and graduate with a degree 2 or 4 years later. For a variety of
reasons, this traditional pathway is probably not realistic for many foster youth.
Second, the ETV program, like state tuition waiver programs, makes postsecondary education more
economically viable for youth aging out of foster care. However, these programs do not address
nonfinancial needs. This is the rationale behind the growing number of programs that provide former
foster youth with a wide array of services and supports to help them succeed in school and graduate.
Much of the funding for these programs has come from the private sector. Federal funding could facilitate
the expansion of these programs.
Chapin Hall at The University of Chicago
www.chapinhall.org
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Third, the Foster Care Independence Act of 1999 allows states to spend up to 30 percent of their Chafee
dollars on housing for former foster youth until their 21st birthday. Spending the maximum amount
would probably mean diverting funds from other independent living services and would probably not be
enough to address the need. One option would be for Congress to create an ETV-like program for
housing.
Fourth, since 2000, young people aging out of foster care have been eligible for HUD’s Family
Unification Program (FUP), which provides rental assistance in the form of housing vouchers as well as
services. The program has two drawbacks. First, young people aging out of foster care are limited to 18
months of rental assistance which, in many cases, is simply not enough. Second, the number of vouchers
is fairly small. Thus, Congress should consider increasing the number of FUP vouchers available to
former foster youth and eliminating the 18 month time limit.
A growing number of states now extend foster care to age 21; other states have yet to decide whether they
will do the same. Our data suggest that youth do benefit from being able to stay in foster care for up to
three additional years. However, they also show that simply extending foster care is unlikely to be
enough. If we really want these young people to succeed, we need to provide them with services and
supports beyond their 21st birthday. Although this would require additional state and federal funds, it is
the right thing to do for at least two reasons. First, not doing so has its own costs. Second, it is what
parents regularly do for their own children. We should do no less for the young people who are
transitioning out of foster care.
Chapin Hall at The University of Chicago
www.chapinhall.org
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Benefits of Extended Foster Care:
Findings from the Midwest Study
Amy Dworsky
Congressional Briefing:
Talking Foster Care with Country Music Star Jimmy Wayne
May 15, 2012
Educational Attainment at Age 26 by State
Cumulative Percentage Ever Homeless Since Exit by State
Cumulative Probability of Becoming Homeless
During the First 30 Months After Exit by State
Relationship between Pregnancy and Staying in Foster Care