Grown Too Soon: The Difficulties of Aging Out of Foster Care

Grown Too Soon: The Difficulties of Aging Out of Foster Care

The purpose of this study is to explore the various difficulties of young adults aging out of the foster care system and to evaluate w hat is being done to provide assistance an d what needs to change.

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It will briefly examine adolescent development including cognitive development through young adulthood, statistics of the average young adult living in the United States, and the struggles foster individuals face as they leave behind the foster care system and enter the world as adults.

The development of youth programs to keep foster children in the system longer will be examined regarding their effects o n foster youth.

The paper will conclude with a review of the progress that has been made and what work still remains provide all foster youth with the chance of a bright future.

Keywords: foster youth, aging out, emancipation, development, foster care, chang

Grown Too Soon The foster care system is flawed in several ways, but one of the greatest and most devastating is how little the system helps foster children as they reach emancipation. On any given day there are 415,000 children in the foster care system, with 22,000 of them “aging out” and entering a world ill-equipped to face the challenges ahead (Children’s Rights, 2014).

While programs have been rolled out in the past several years, such as the “Success Beyond 18” campaign (2013) and Foster Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act (FCA) of 2008 have been implemented, foster care continues to be run on a state-by-state basis and not all states participate in assisting aging foster children to thrive on their own.

Young foster care adults need greater assistance-care programs as they begin to age out to empower and provide them with the greatest opportunity to thrive on their own. Adolescent and Young Adult Development

It was once believed that by the age of six years old, the brain stopped developing. Research has since proven that brain development continues well into young adulthood, until roughly the age of 25. Therefore, the first 25 years of life , i ndividuals are still learning, growing and developing based on the environment around them (Ammodt, 2011). Adolescent development is a particularly crucial time as these individuals are transitioning into young adulthood and must go through a series of developmental tasks in order to become healthy, connected and productive adults. Just as positive experiences during adolescence can strengthen healthy neuron connections creating an influx of growth and learning, negative experiences can weaken those connections, increasing the vulnerability of the individual throughout adolescence and into early

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GROWN TOO SOON 4 adulthood (Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative, 2011). Unfortunately, due to the nature of the foster care system, many foster youths often do not have the support needed to successfully form positive connections, therefore causing increased d…………………

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