“They Just Need That Connection”: Service Providers' Reflections about Youth Aging out
Methods: This study is part of a larger ethnography of youth aging out of the child welfare system which examines youth leaving care in a Mid-Atlantic urban county. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight providers from agencies serving youth aging out. The sample was evenly divided on gender and race (i.e., African-American, Caucasian). All but one provider had Masters level education (3 MSW). Interviews explored providers’ perceptions about and experiences working with youth aging out. Verbatim transcriptions of interviews were analyzed using a grounded theory approach involving an inductive, iterative process of coding and memoing (Charmaz, 2006).
Results: Providers expectations of youth varied and ranged from stigmatizing (“I was furious ’cause nobody would put up with what he’s doing and what he does if it was their child”) to empathetic (“And I just realized that these youth have been pushed away themselves by so many people in their lives, so their reaction is to push all the other people away.”) A minority of providers suggested youth needed “discipline” and “maturity,” while the majority described the need for caring, stable relationships with patient adults who can function as surrogate parents to support youth throughout the transition out of care. All providers identified challenges in addressing the extensive constellation of the youths’ needs, although they differed on where best to begin (e.g., housing, employment, mental health). Providers expressed concerns about programs defining success through outcome measurements. “Checking a box” that youth completed a training, even placing youth in jobs, did not always translate to “success” as many employed youth still required food stamps and subsidized housing to survive. Providers noted that success had less to do with youth characteristics and was more about the quality of the youth’s relationships with others and access to resources.
Conclusion and Implications: Findings suggest that providers’ expectations for youth are not homogenous and can overlook the extensive hardships youth face with limited resources. Likewise, youth needs were framed in terms of relationships, rather than measurable objectives, which suggests that agencies serving this population may need to reexamine how success is defined. Results also suggest that providers and agencies need to join with youth to explore how to foster youths’ relationships outside of the traditional provider-client context. Future research should examine multiple stakeholders’ perceptions and experiences about services for youth aging out and how success is conceptualized and measured.