Do Adolescents Who Achieve Legal Permanence Fare Better Than Their Aged-out Counterparts during Emerging Adulthood?

Background/Purpose: It is well known that youth in foster care come from low-income, minority and single-parent families. When the state deems their parent(s) unfit, there are two pathways out of foster care: (1) state-sanctioned families (SSF) formed through adoption or guardianship, and (2) without an SSF, youth age out of foster care. Research has consistently demonstrated that aged-out youth face poor prospects across key domains of well-being and adult functioning, including economic-related domains, during the critical transition from foster care to young adulthood. To mitigate the outcomes of aged-out youth, federal child welfare policy incentivizes states to move older youth into SSF. The policy assumption is that, at a minimum, these youth would fare better during emerging adulthood than their aged-out counterparts by virtue of having access to lifelong connections and support through their SFF. However, little research exists about how youth in SSF fare as young adults.

The paper begins to fill this gap in knowledge by comparing the well-being and adult functioning of young adults (YA) who left care as adolescents through SSF to YA who aged out of foster without SSF. Particular attention is paid to how these two groups of YAs navigate and negotiate social support from their SSF, birth families, and other sources of support.

Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 30 YA (90% African American; average age 27) who either aged out of foster care (n=17) or exited foster care through SSF (n=13) during adolescence. A priori and open coding of interviews were conducted to develop well-being and adult functioning themes, followed by a comparative analysis of SSF and aged-out YA.

Results: Findings revealed a mixed picture of well-being and adult functioning among the YA sample. The SSF group were less likely than their aged-out counterparts to graduate from high school, enroll in college, and have intact relationships with their families (SSF and birth families), and less likely to receive government benefits. There was little difference between the two groups in victimization and criminal justice involvement. Contrary to policy assumptions, SSF YA reported receiving greater economic and other support during their transition to adulthood from their birth families – the very families these children had been removed from and whose parental rights the state had terminated – than from their SSF.

Conclusions/Implications: The findings accentuate the challenging nature of the transition to adulthood for YA with foster care histories. On key indicators of employment, receipt of government benefits, and romantic partnering, SSF YAs fared better than their peers who aged out of foster care. These positive outcomes are the intention of the child welfare policy. However, study findings provide no support for the policy assumption that the attainment of SSF provides greater familial, emotional, and material support, nor that SSF yields better outcomes relating to educational attainment, violence, and incarceration. A future research agenda will be discussed, including understanding both the outcomes of permanency policy and the mechanisms affecting these outcomes.