Does Transition Planning Increase Service Use Among Older Adolescents in Foster Care?

Background and purpose. In U.S. foster care, caseworkers must prepare transition-age youth (TAY) unlikely to be reunified with their families or to be adopted for independent adulthood. An important tool is the transitional independent living plan (TILP), which involves collaboratively engaging TAY in identifying transition goals and determining service needs. The TILP guides which Independent Living Services (ILS) the TAY may receive. Depending on the youth’s goals and needs, ILS may include training and support around education, employment, parenting, and other areas. Past research examined the availability and effectiveness of ILS and how TILP is co-produced between caseworker and TAY. However, little attention has been paid to the relationship between TILP and ILS. This study examines whether the frequency of TILP development is associated with ILS use.

Methods. We use population data of about 43,000 youths who were in California foster care between ages 16 and 21, who turned 18 between 2014 and 2020, and who have TILP and ILS records. We use California child welfare administrative records to capture youths’ demographic characteristics, foster care and maltreatment histories, and TILP and ILS records. Survey data collected from a representative sample of child welfare caseworkers was used to capture features of the administrative contexts of counties TAY were placed in. Outcomes are the number of ILSs used per month and the scope of ILSs used (i.e., the number of different types of ILSs) for 12 months. The main predictor is the number of TILPs youth participated in. We used linear mixed effects regression (Level 1 = TAY; Level 2 = county) to estimate youths’ ILS utilization frequency and scope when youth were age 17, 18, 19, and 20 using the number of TILPs youth developed in the prior year, controlling for several youth-level and county-level covariates.

Results. Across the four years, youth developed between 0.3 and 0.6 TILPs per year, used between 0.2 and 1.4 ILS per month, and used one to two different types of ILSs. TILP development and ILS use tended to be higher at younger ages. Regression analyses find that each additional TILP TAY developed was associated with more frequent ILS use and utilization of more kinds of ILSs (p<.001). This was true across ages (17, 18, 19, and 20). Some youth-level characteristics (e.g., ever in probation-supervised child welfare, ever placed in congregate care) and county-level attributes (e.g., availability of services supporting TAY) were associated with youths’ ILS utilization patterns. Notably, interclass correlation estimates show that county-level variations explained 8% to 20% of the total variation of ILS utilization.

Discussion and Contributions. Using population data, this study offers valuable evidence demonstrating the roles of TILP development on service utilization. In addition to youth-level characteristics’ relationship with service utilization, our study highlights meaningful variation in ILS utilization across counties, which deserve further investigation. Our study findings underscore the importance of involving youth in their TILP development, training providers to work collaboratively with youth in decisions about their future, and aiming to reduce county-level variation in TILP and ILS practices.