CARE For Emancipated Foster Youth

The CARE Collaborative provides case management, subsidized transitional housing, life skills education and mental health counseling to assist emancipated foster youth become self-sufficient adults. Services are offered to emancipated foster youth between the ages of 18-24 who are referred from Contra Costa County.

Emancipated foster youth constitute one of our society’s most seriously disadvantaged and at-risk populations. Each year, 20,000 youths transition from foster care, with 5,000 of those youth residing in California alone. Originally removed from their homes due to parental abuse or neglect, these youth lived with foster families, group homes, or kinship placements before exiting from care into premature “independence.”

During their difficult transition from care, foster youth should receive support and guidance to help them attain healthy adulthood; instead, they find themselves alone without housing, life skills, a source of income, or community support. Not surprisingly, former foster youth are at much greater risk of experiencing serious, negative social outcomes than the general population of youth, such as the following:

• Low Educational Achievement: Foster youth often experience numerous transfers within the foster care system and delays in school enrollment, factors that lead to low rates of educational achievement and retention. As a whole, only 53 percent of foster youth complete high school, compared to 87 percent of the general population of California youth.
   
• Homelessness and Housing Instability: A 2002 study conducted by the California Department of Social Services concluded that two out of three foster youths in California face imminent homelessness upon emancipation.
   
• Poor Mental and Physical Health: A 2002 study completed by the University of California found that 62 percent of youth in foster care have been treated for mental health disorders and that foster youth suffer from physical illnesses at rates higher than the general population of 18- to 24-year-olds. Once emancipated, youth continue to experience poor health, lack of access to medical care, and threats to their personal safety.
  
  
• Unplanned Pregnancy and Poverty: A 2002 study completed by the University of California at Berkeley found that youth who live in five or more foster care placements are more than twice as likely to become pregnant than youth who lived in single placement. This is of particular concern given that close to half of emancipated foster youth live in five or more placements. Early childbearing commonly results in the need for income assistance. According to a recent analysis conducted by the San Francisco Department of Human Services, emancipated foster youth are five times more likely to receive Temporary Aid to Needy Families than young adults of the same age, sex, and race.

Intervention/Approach
Catholic Charities Emancipated Foster Youth Program, located in Contra Costa County, makes a tremendous difference for former foster care teens at a critical point in their lives. The programs provide the following:

• Transitional Housing for Foster Youth.
• Housing Stability.
• Economic Security.
• Educational Attainment.

For more information, call (925) 957-2417.
Contact: Millie Burns