Summary of Problems and Barriers to Successful Independent Living Transitions for Foster Care Youth
Adolescents in Departmental care in Maine need consistently available assistance from adults they trust in order to acquire the many life skills that they will need to function "interdependently" in the community as they are leaving care. They also need to have well established community supports in place once they leave Departmental care; a "safety net." Unfortunately, a number of older youth are leaving care with little or no community supports in place despite the best efforts of the Department's caseworkers and care providers. We have found that offering youth the option to remain in voluntary extended care as they "age out" of custody at age 18 has greatly increased the opportunity for an older youth in care to make a successful transition into their adult life. We strongly encourage our youth to accept this option as they approach the age of 18. However, despite encouragement to take advantage of remaining in voluntary extended care with the Department up to the age of 21, some youth choose to return to live with a family member, friends, and sometimes adult shelters. If a youth refuses continued service support after age 18, it is usually because they have consistently refused most services prior to age 18. These are often youth who have lived in residential treatment programs, or correctional facilities, and who have had numerous placement disruptions while in Departmental care.
The diversity of the target population, their transience, and geographic location is still a challenge in terms of all older youth being able to receive the full continuum of independent living and life skills education services. Most youth in care between the ages of 16 and up to the age of 21 are receiving independent living preparation and life skills training services. As was mentioned earlier, the life skills assessment and independent living case planning service system has improved a great deal over the past three years. There are some youth who refuse independent living preparation services. Maine is a predominantly rural state that makes it extremely challenging for the Department's Life Skills caseworkers to bring youth together to receive life skills education in a group setting. However, most Life Skills caseworkers are able to at least provide some independent living and life skills education either during an adventure trip, in a several week group session format outside of trips, or as part of a youth leadership planning activity. As was mentioned earlier, contracted group and residential care agencies and treatment foster care agencies are using a consistent life skills assessment and independent living instructional model. This has brought uniformity to life skills assessment and independent living case planning and practice statewide. A great deal of the Life Skills caseworker's contact with youth is individual which is important in terms of achieving desired outcomes with the youth. Few older youth in care refuse independent living and life skills services. Most gladly accept this kind of assistance.
Overall, more youth in care between the ages of 16 and up to the age of 21 are receiving independent living and life skills services either directly from a Life Skills caseworker, or from foster parents and group care providers. Now that the state's Maine Automated Child Welfare Information System (MACWIS) is up and running, the Independent Living Program staff has been able to access information about every youth in care who is eligible for services. From this information it can be determined what an individual youth is receiving for independent living preparation services and what progress they are making on identified life skills goals. All Life Skills caseworkers know how to utilize the automated information system to access independent living and life skills information for each youth referred to them and are recording their work with youth in the automated system on a regular basis. The Independent Living Program Manager maintains a database, separate of MACWIS, based on information found in each youth's automated case record and from detailed information provided by the Life Skills caseworkers regarding the youth that they are working with. Life Skills caseworkers and Children's Services caseworkers are recording life skills assessment information, the independent living case plan, and the progress made on life skills goals in the youth's automated case record. The Independent Living Program Manager uses to the database that is separate of MACWIS to track independent living program outcomes for those youth not working directly with a Life Skills caseworker. In this way we are able to obtain a more complete and accurate "picture" of what is happening with all Independent Living Program eligible youth in terms of their involvement in independent living and life skills education.
The specific needs of our older youth in care and their readiness to learn independent living and life skills varies considerably. The youth's experience, before and during foster care, continues to affect their willingness and ability to recognize the need for, and to participate in, independent living program services. Many youth entered Departmental custody prior to adolescence, and a number of youth entered care well into their adolescence. These youth have come into their current living situations from a number of different living arrangements; their own dysfunctional families, a restrictive institutional program, a less restrictive foster family home, a group care facility, or numerous short-term emergency shelter, or homeless shelter programs. The frequency with which some of these youth move from placement to placement has a negative effect on their ability to receive independent living and life skills education services with any consistency. A number of our older youth in care have had at least 10 different living arrangements since being in Departmental care. The average number of "placements" that an older youth has had by the time they are nearly 18 years old is between 4 and 7. This is probably the most significant factor affecting their ability to learn basic independent living preparation life skills. As was mentioned earlier, the fact that contracted service provider agencies use the same life skills assessment and instructional materials should help in terms of providing consistency of life skills assessment and instruction for youth moving to another placement.
Frequent moving also affects the older youth's ability to keep up in school. Moving to another placement often occurs in the middle of a school term. The new school system sometimes has incomplete information about the educational needs of the youth transferring into their school. It is not uncommon for a youth in care to be 19 years old when they graduate from high school and to have been enrolled in a number of different school systems. It is not uncommon for a 17 year old in care to be in the 9th or 10th grade. There are some youth who've been out of school for significant periods of time due to behavioral instability. Nearly 50% of older youth in care are, or have been, in special education programs for identified mental functioning deficits, or behavioral reasons. The youth's grade level is often not a true "indicator" of their actual functioning in terms of literacy and other academic skills. The Department's Children's Services caseworkers and Life Skills caseworkers continue to work with schools to insure that the youth's educational needs are being met. The Independent Living Program Manager has been working with the Quality Assurance Program Manager in terms of meaningfully addressing the youth's educational, or vocational plan as part of the state's quality assurance effort.
As was mentioned earlier, a number of youth in care choose not to continue, or are not eligible to continue, in the Department's voluntary extended care program once they reach age 18 despite encouragement to do so. They may have had a difficult experience while in foster care and distrust the caseworkers, or care providers that have worked with them. Some older youth view Departmental extended care as just another way to exert what they have always viewed as negative "control" over their lives. The relationship that they have had with their caseworker, or care provider is particularly critical in terms of how they will view the possibility of extended care with the Department. As was mentioned earlier, the voluntary extended care policy was recently revised with youth leadership involvement. Major improvements were made to the policy that made it a more positive policy to allow for more individualistic consideration of the youth's needs after the age of 18 and up to age 21. This may be the first time that older youth in care have had an opportunity to participate in the development of policy affecting their lives. The process of involving youth leaders in this policy revision process was written up for an article in a New England social work publication and a national independent living newsletter sponsored by the National Resource Center at the University of Oklahoma.
The Independent Living Program staff continues to maintain, as a primary emphasis, the establishing of meaningful relationships with caring adults that often results in improved educational and community integration outcomes. A number of youth leaving care do not have supportive adults and peers in the community available to assist them following their discharge from care. Some return to immediate family members, other adult relatives, or older siblings only to find out that the support that they hope for isn't there. Others may be living in a community they are unfamiliar with and need to establish a number of connections with the community. As was mentioned earlier in this narrative, the mentoring program has been expanded to statewide by means of a three year AmeriCorps grant. New sites include Portland, Ellsworth, Machias, Lewiston, and Augusta, Maine. We are hoping that this program will assist some of our older youth in care with making long lasting connections with their community.
We are encouraged that more care providers, both foster home and group home, are recognizing the importance of starting independent living and life skills education with youth before they turn 16 and become eligible for the services of Maine's Independent Living Program. This enables the Department's Life Skills caseworkers to begin their work with some of these youth at a more advanced stage in the continuum. Some care providers have been providing life skills services before the youth is 16.
Maine's Independent Living Program staff continue ask that caseworkers, foster care providers, and group care providers at least explore the possibility of members of the youth's own family being able to provide some form of independent living support for them as they near the time of transitioning out of care; especially if the youth is planning to return to live with a family member. Many youth in care are planning to return to live with a family member at age 18, with or without Departmental approval; in an attempt to reestablish meaningful contact with members of their birth family. Because of this, we feel that we should assist these youth with making that contact and include family members in the transitional independent living planning. The Department's Life Skills caseworkers and Children's Services caseworkers use this approach taking into account any safety issues that might be of concern. The revised extending care policy also addresses the issue of youth who may be living with someone in their family as they near age 18.
More adolescents in care need specialized therapeutic foster care, residential care, or in/out patient mental health and substance abuse services. It takes considerable time and effort to effect specialized placements for adolescents. Some youth wait a significant length of time for a placement and become understandably frustrated while waiting for a placement opening. They sometimes run away from a placement while they are waiting; frustrating for both caseworker and the youth. It takes time to "pick up the pieces" when this happens. A number of older youth in care refuse to live in what they view as a more "restrictive" setting with program rules they don't agree with. Approximately half of those youth entering care each year between the ages of 14 to 17 have been adjudicated of juvenile criminal offenses and are on probation. Most of these youth also require specialized placements and educational services as well as various treatment services. The Department of Human Services Commissioner has assigned one of his staff to work on developing specialized placements in Maine for older youth in care who are in out of state residential placements. The Independent Living Program Manager has been working with this individual in terms of what type of resources are needed for these older youth who are returning to Maine. The number of older youth in care living in out of state residential placements has been significantly reduced over the past two years.
The number of children and adolescents entering care is increasing without an increase in casework staff and that can have an adverse affect on services for older youth in care. Turnover of casework staff has been, at times, a significant problem as well. The recent passage of the national Adoption and Safe Families Act has placed an important emphasis on requiring the Department to move much more quickly toward a "permanency plan" for children entering custody. The Department's district program caseworkers and supervisors have sometimes found it to be difficult to balance the permanency planning needs of younger children with the transitional independent living needs of older youth in care.
All of the things mentioned above can present themselves as barriers with regard to effective delivery of independent living program services for older adolescents. However, there is an increased level of awareness of the needs of older adolescents in foster care. Improved transitional independent living planning is being done. Using our older youth to "speak out" on behalf of the needs of other youth in care has proven to be an effective way to get the "message" out about not neglecting the needs of older youth who are transitioning out of care. While we realize that we have limited control over some of the problems individual youth experience while in the Department's care, we feel that much progress has been made in getting the voices of our older foster youth heard by others in the foster care system.
Foster parents, group and residential care staff have enhanced their skills with regard to assessing, planning for, and teaching independent living life skills. We have made some progress with regard to training care providers with regard to the principles of youth development and provision of quality life skills education to older youth in care. A series of trainings for group, residential and foster care providers were conducted in September 2000. The topics included "Promising Approaches: Preparing Youth for Life After Foster Care" and "Revitalizing Work with Youth in Care Through Youth Development." During the past few months we have been working the state's Child Welfare Training Institute and the University of Southern Maine's Muskie School to incorporate quality independent living and youth development training into their yearly training curriculum. We expect that these curriculum additions will be in place for the coming year. We will also request approval for federal technical assistance funds for specific trainings whenever possible.
Life Skills caseworkers are continuing their consultation with foster parents who are providing life skills services to the youth in their home. The moves from placement to placement that take place for many youth interrupt their independent living and life skills learning to some degree. Some care providers may see their role as solely being "caretakers" of the youth. Others are somewhat anxious about the "liability" of allowing a youth in their home to participate in "experiential" life skills activities. Some group care providers may be overly protective in this sense for fear of violating their licensing regulations. The Independent Living Program Manager has been participating for the past two years in a licensing task force that has been revising all licensing rules and regulations. Part of the revisions include less restrictions with regard to programs that provide independent living life skills services. This has resulted in more agencies being willing to consider establishing community based apartment living programs for youth who are between the ages of 17 and up to the age of 21. Some barriers have been removed with regard to this.
There are sometimes problems that arise from a lack of knowledge and collaboration within and between the various state departments. An example of this would be some of the difficulties effecting the transition for older youth in care from the Department's Child and Family Services to the adult services provided by other state Departments and programs. Discussions are under way to improve the way that this transition takes place for specific older youth in care. The Independent Living Program Manager has been a member of the state's Juvenile Justice Advisory Group for the past four years and a member of the Prevention and Grants Committees. As a Prevention and Grants Committee member, the Independent Living Program Manager participates in making decisions about programs that will be funded as a result of RFP'S. (requests for proposals) Recent proposals selected for funding have included programs that have strong independent living and life skills services. Some of the proposals selected for funding have included mentoring program components as well. A number of quality community based programs offering these types of services have been funded through the Juvenile Justice Advisory Group as a result of the RFP process.
The Independent Living Program Manager has also been a member of the statewide Committees on Transition and Maine Transition Network for the past three years. The COT/MTN is a state non-profit agency designed to assist all youth with special needs with their transition out of high school into a career track or post-secondary education program. The service population includes a number of older youth in care with special transition needs. The Independent Living Program Manager is a member of the Executive Committee of the COT and has supported their recent federal grant proposals to the U.S. Department of Education for expansion of their state program services. Some of our Life Skills caseworkers are members of the COT regional boards. More state government agency staff and private agency staff are becoming aware of the needs of older youth in foster care as a result of the above connections.
Many youth in Department custody/care are also involved with the mental health, corrections, labor (vocational rehabilitation services), or education departments of the state. Representatives from these departments have been invited to participate, or attend Independent Living Program activities such as the annual Teen Conference. There has been increasing openness to the idea of working together for the benefit of older youth in care. A Department of Human Service's caseworker continues to work directly out of the Maine Youth Center to assist in making appropriate plans for youth transitioning into the community from the Youth Center. As mentioned earlier, there have been ongoing discussions between the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Mental Health and Retardation and Substance Abuse Services with regard to effecting improved transitions for older youth to the adult services offered by DMHMRSAS. Information about programs that serve the needs of older youth in care regarding educational planning, job skills attainment and maintenance, and other independent living life skills programs continue is disseminated to Departmental caseworkers so that they can refer youth to these programs. Linkages that are made with public and private service providers will increase the likelihood that more of our older youth in care have access to services which lead to positive interdependent living outcomes. This should help reduce the negative impact of some of the barriers and problems mentioned earlier in this section.
