Bridging the Gap: Child Welfare Workers' Experience on Working with Key Stakeholders during the Transition out of Care to Adulthood

Background and Purpose: Youth who are placed in out-of-home care until adulthood, or transition-aged youth (TAY), face more challenges than their peers, including homelessness, unemployment, undesirable education outcomes, and mental health issues. Current literature offers important insights into youth perspective on the challenges faced by TAY and limitations of existing ILPs. Child welfare workers assist TAY and play important roles during the transition process. This study explored the perspectives of child welfare workers as they work with different key stakeholders during the transition out of care.

Method: This study interviewed 19 participants who (1) have worked with youth and young people aged 14 and older during the transition out of foster care and (2) have been working with TAY for one or more years. Their roles included providers in independent living programs, mental health, and workforce development. Using thematic analysis, three themes were identified, including (1) characteristics of emerging adulthood of TAY with foster care experience, (2) limitations of TAY focused services and policies, and (3) recommendations for TAY related services and policy.

Results: Like their peers in the general population, participants noted that TAY with foster care history have a strong sense of autonomy. While participants stressed the importance of fostering youth agency, participants also acknowledged the challenges of navigating the tension between promoting youth autonomy and offering guidance and support. In addition, participants discussed that the developmental expectations of TAY are different from their peers without foster care experiences. There is also a lack of continuity and stability in all aspects of life.

Participants also shared their perspective on the limitations of TAY-related policy and transition services. Participants pointed out that TAY-related policy is not developmentally nor pragmatically appropriate. Participants also shared their concerns regarding age constraints on service use for TAY. They believed that different individuals reach their maturity at different ages, and therefore, using the biological age of 18 as the cutoff for service eligibility is arbitrary. Participants noted a shortage of practitioners dedicated to TAY and a lack of adequate training to prepare them for this role.

Finally, participants also shared their recommendations for TAY services and policy. These recommendations echo the developmental needs of TAY. The concept of “youth-led programs” was brought up in several interviews. Several participants emphasized the importance of having flexibility in program design and service delivery when working with TAY. Participants reflected that the major focus on services is around child abuse and neglect in early childhood with limited focus on older youth and young adult with foster care history.

Conclusions and Implications: TAY face tremendous challenges to achieving independence when reaching adulthood. Although child welfare workers recognize the difficulties faced by TAY, their services are limited by existing policies such as age cut-offs for service eligibility. Participants in this study suggested increasing youth-led programs to foster TAY’s independence and developing flexible policies related to service delivery to better accommodate the diversity found among TAY.