Since the late 1990s, the federal government has increased supports that promote college success for foster youth (Okpych, 2012), such as the $5,000 education and training voucher that foster youth can use each year toward college expenses. A key piece of federal legislation supporting foster youth is the 2008 Fostering Connections to Success and…

California is one of the early adopters of extended foster care. The California Fostering Connections Act (AB12) was signed into law on September 30, 2010. The law ensured that, starting January 1, 2012, eligible foster youth had the right to stay in care until their 21st birthday. In addition to having the largest state foster care population in…

Support for the extended care provisions of the federal Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 was, to a large extent, based on the belief that allowing youth in foster care to remain in care past their 18th birthday would improve their outcomes as adults. In a previous memo (see ED597309), the authors reported early…

Youth transitioning out of foster care and into adulthood need multiple supports to navigate the challenges they face. Over the past three decades, federal child welfare policy has significantly increased the availability of those supports. In 1999, the Chafee Foster Care Independence Program was created, increasing the amount of funds potentially…

The Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 allows states to claim federal reimbursement for the costs of caring for and supervising Title IV-E eligible foster youth until their 21st birthday. This issue brief provides preliminary estimates of what the potential costs to government and the benefits to young people…

Although they make up a relatively small proportion of all children in the U.S. foster care system, foster youth approaching adulthood have over the years attracted considerable attention from policymakers. Three times in the past 25 years the Social Security Act has been amended to try to better support the transition to adulthood for foster…

Research has found that foster youth who remain in care beyond age 18 are more likely to participate in services and tend to have better outcomes than those who do not. However, not all youth eligible to remain in care beyond age 18 do so. This study examines Illinois, one of the few states that extends care up to age 21, to identify the major…