The Transition to Adulthood in Child Welfare: Comparing Adolescents in Foster Care and Intact Family Settings

Background and Purpose:  The theme of the 2015 SSWR conference focuses on the social and behavioral importance of a fruitful life.  The current study reflects the stated theme by investigating the transition to adulthood for vulnerable youth.  The use of the phrase "aging out" to describe the departure of youth from the child welfare system indicates a developmental process through which foster youth transition into adulthood. Youth who age out encounter significant barriers in the transition to adulthood and as a result, various federal policies have been put in place to help facilitate a more viable transition by providing both hard and soft services while foster youth achieve milestones such as living independently, obtaining a diploma, attending college or maintaining steady employment. Some youth transition less successfully than others and end up involved with the criminal justice system.  Empirical studies of the aging out population have focused exclusively on youth in out-of-home placements (i.e. foster care).  Yet a substantial proportion of youth involved with child welfare live with their biological parents (often referred to as intact family cases).  The purpose of the current study is to determine if placement status is associated with criminal justice outcomes. 

 Methods and Results: The child welfare records include all youth (n=54,178) involved with Washington’s Children’s Administration between 1984 and 2009.  The juvenile delinquency and adult arrest records include all offenses (n=10,320,724) in Washington State between 1981 and 2009.  These official arrest records serve as our dependent measure.  We developed five subgroups of youth aging out of the child welfare system, one similar to the Midwest Study sample (Courtney, 2005), and four additional categories based on placement status and time in care.  Cox proportional models are used to estimate the risk of subsequent arrest across the five subgroups of adolescents involved with the child welfare system.  Placement in foster care for one year of more, gender, race, and any arrest before age 17 are associated with subsequent offending.  The relative risk of offending decreased approximately 18% for the long-term foster care cases (Exp(b) = .82) as compared to long-term intact family cases. 

 Conclusions and Implications:  Adolescents associated with open intact family cases are at an increased risk of justice involvement.  Yet the federal policies and programs designed to help child welfare youth making the transition to adulthood are limited to youth in foster care settings.  The field must consider the challenges associated with this developmental period for all adolescents in the child welfare system, regardless of placement status.  More inclusive policies will undoubtedly contribute to a long and fruitful life for these adolescents.