WHY WE ALL NEED TO WORK TOGETHER!!






A Family For Every Child would like to thank you for believing that every child deserves a family. Your support has enabled A Family For Every Child to make a difference in the lives of our children in foster care. Because of your support, all of our programs have been busy serving children in foster care and families going through the adoption process.

We hope you will find the following information helpful in understanding why we all need to work together.

Problems with the National Foster Care system
The Government and WE are responsible! Are YOU doing your part?
With ALL the problems in our nation's foster-care system, nothing short of a major overhaul would serve as a lasting solution to this national disgrace.

For years, children have been sentenced to navigate the system have been promised refuge from abuse and neglect in their own homes. However, without the state/county agencies being held accountable by no one, foster care remains as inconsistent, abusive neglectful and dysfunctional as many of the homes from which the children were removed from in the first place.

Without cohesion, leadership and accountability, the system continues to fail too many of the 500,000-plus children assigned to it. Once these children age out of the system at eighteen, the state sees the effects that this broken system has on society.

It's like all of a sudden you're 18 and they expect you to be an adult, but the system doesn't teach you to be an adult. It's one thing to be sad about being in the system but still have a roof over your head. It's another to be sad and homeless and unemployed. That's what the stats say I will become.

For the 20,000 youth nationwide who emancipate - or "age out" - of the foster-care system every year, nothing is more terrifying than the number 18.

It is on this birthday that these youth, many abused and neglected before and after entering the system, are expected to instantly become responsible adults. While many children outside of the system are eager to leave home at this point, their parents often serve as a safety net in times of financial or emotional need.

Most emancipated foster children do not have this luxury.

They are moved from house to house, forming few, if any, long-lasting ties to any of the adults they are forced to live with. Then, at eighteen, they are instantly cut off from a system that never prepared them to live on their own.

Former U.S. Rep. Bill Gray, vice chairman of the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care, aptly observed: "There are a half million human beings who could lose their potential. How many future doctors, how many teachers, how many lawyers, how many public servants are in that group? Because of instability, neglect and abuse at the very beginning of life, because of no permanency and no family, we lose what they could become. That's a loss you cannot measure."

There have been enough studies on the plight of foster children in our nation.

Study after study has quantified the struggle for young people in the foster-care system.
This is not "someone else's problem." The 500,000-plus children in foster care and the 20,000 who emancipate each year are OUR collective responsibility!!

The government must act now to begin to fix the broken home that they have built.

The moment a child is taken from his or her home and placed in foster care, the law mandate is to either reunify the child with their family, or find him/her a permanent home through adoption.

If that foster youth reaches 18 and emancipates from the system without either, the state has failed them.

Each year, the state fails approximately 20,000-plus foster youth, who, once they turn eighteen, are no longer eligible for foster-care services such as housing. During this pivotal time, many of these youth find themselves with no place to live, and no one to turn to.

Here are some statistics we fail to see.

Only half of foster youth will graduate from high school. Fewer than 10 percent of foster youth enroll in college and only 2 percent actually graduate. Many foster children go through multiple placements and can attend up to five different schools.

Building classrooms won't help them. They need the guidance and support to ensure that they go to school - and graduate.

More than 25 percent of foster youth will become incarcerated within two years after they leave the system.

Building prisons won't help them.

We say we must invest in critical infrastructure.

Foster care is a system whose infrastructure is a disgrace - invest in fixing it and in the children whose lives depend on it.

As responsible parents, we need to make it possible for more children to live safely with their biological families. We should revamp the federal-funding structure to channel resources into programs such as substance-abuse treatment, counseling, training, housing and employment assistance that can keep fragile families from falling apart. These changes are cost neutral; they simply reflect commonsense approaches that would enable us to use existing federal resources more effectively to support children and families in need.

We can also get involved on an individual basis one child at a time by becoming a mentor or tutor, giving foster youth reliable support from someone who holds high expectations for them and encourages them to see a better life for themselves. To mentor or tutor a foster youth not only benefits the recipient, but it is also one of the most rewarding endeavors in life, showing a young person that you care and can be relied upon, even through challenging times. Cost of mentoring or tutoring youth: An hour or two of your time each week.

Employers have the ability to offer foster youth a life-changing opportunity as well. By hiring young people living in foster care and training them for successful careers, employers provide foster youth with a critical start toward a lifetime of self-sufficiency. Cost of offering and promoting jobs or internships for youth in foster care: Insignificant!

Sometimes, tangible items can have tremendous impact on a young life. Foster youth often lack the funds to pay for an after-school computer class, musical instruments or art supplies. Items that most of us would consider basics, such as school backpacks or supplies for a science fair entry, also may be out of reach. Cost of donating to nonprofits benefiting foster youth: A tax-deductible contribution to fit your budget.

Most important of all, for those children who may not be able to remain with or return safely to their birth families, thousands are needed to open their homes and their hearts and become full-time foster or adoptive parents. The lasting commitment that results from creating a new home is one that can be pursued by couples, married or unmarried, single people and partners. Cost of creating a new, loving family by parenting abused and neglected children: Priceless!

Don't forget these children!

From all of us at A Family For Every Child, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. It is only through the generosity and support of community members like you that we are able to make a real difference in the lives of our children in foster care. Together we can find a family for every child.

Aging Out of Foster Care: The Costs of Doing Nothing Affect Us All

Posted: 07/28/2013 12:59 pm

As parents, we know that our role in our children's lives goes far beyond providing them with the basics of food, clothing, and shelter. We also nurture and guide them, and as they grow older we expose them to new experiences and opportunities, encourage them to succeed in school, develop healthy relationships, and build life skills. Although adolescence can be challenging for both kids and parents, every positive interaction we have is a critical opportunity to establish the building blocks that our teens need to succeed down the road in school, work, and family life.
Now imagine what it's like to be a teenager in foster care. As these young people approach legal adulthood, they face tremendous obstacles, including the unrealistic expectation that they will be able to succeed on their own when they turn 18.
In fact, over the past decade, more than 200,000 teenagers have aged out of foster care at 18 - often without achieving permanent family connections or those critical building blocks of support. Consequently, too many of them face challenges immediately upon leaving foster care - challenges that don't just affect this cohort of young people, but that affect us all.
A study issued in May 2013 by the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative -- and illustrated in a new infographic -- shows that, on average, for every young person who ages out of foster care, taxpayers and communities pay $300,000 in social costs like public assistance, incarceration, and lost wages to a community over that person's lifetime. Do the math and you can conservatively estimate that this problem incurs almost $8 billion in social costs to the United States every year.
It's time to do something. The case for investing in youth aging out of foster care is a powerful one. Major savings are not only possible, but they are achievable in the relatively near term. The most costly outcomes -- and the ones that hurt young people the most -- come as a result of events, decisions, and behaviors that occur within a few years or even within days of leaving foster care, like becoming homeless or dropping out of school. For many of these youth, the challenges that start in their teen years and early 20s, such as academic failure or unplanned pregnancies, continue throughout the rest of their lives.
So what can we do? Like many social problems, the answer lies in prevention. It is important to recognize that the long-term cost of the status quo is enormous, not just on the public coffers but on the lives of young people who deserve better opportunities to succeed in life as productive members of our society. While they face seemingly insurmountable odds, they deserve our support and a serious investment in their futures. Indeed, the most costly solution available is to do nothing, or to do too little, too late.
The first step to solving this problem must be to extend foster care services beyond age 18. Federal resources are available to states for this purpose and a number of states across the country are leveraging these funds and beginning to implement changes. But to achieve better results, extending foster care services beyond 18 must be done right.
What does "doing it right" mean? First, foster care services for teens and young adults must be designed differently than the foster care services currently offered to young children, for whom safety and security are paramount. Those responsible for designing foster care systems at the state level should collaborate with young people in designing extended care to ensure that the supports and opportunities fit their needs as emerging adults. For example, state policies should establish supervised independent living options for youth aged 18 to 21, and allow them permission to re-enter foster care after a period of trial independence if they need further support. Policies should also ensure that services and supports cultivate the skills that young people need to succeed, like financial literacy and asset building.
Young people who have spent their teen years in foster care often have mixed feelings upon turning age 18. They may fear being all on their own, but many also are eager to leave a system that they associate with feelings of stigma and isolation. Young people will voluntarily choose to remain in foster care beyond age 18 only if the services and opportunities available meet their needs as emerging adults. In other words, when it comes to extending foster care, quality - not quantity - is what really matters.
While we live in an era with no shortage of intractable problems, improving the odds for older youth in foster care is different because it's achievable, and most importantly, it's the right thing to do. Just like all kids, teenagers in foster care deserve continued support, access to positive education and work experiences, and the opportunity to make decisions about their own lives.