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Alyssa Winn
Prof. Jennifer Courtney
ENGL 2010-482
8 December 2016

Foster Care: The Consequences of Absent Family Connections

Families struggle, parents are poisoned by addictions, homes become unstable. In any
case where a childs environment threatens their physical and emotional safety, the Division of
Child and Family Services will investigate and if necessary remove the child from the situation.
The goal is always to provide services to the parent(s) or guardian(s) to assist in their
rehabilitation and ideally the reuniting of the family. If a child is unable to be reunited with their
biological family and they are not adopted, the child will remain in the foster care system until
they age out at 18. Few young adults are capable of navigating the world on their own, especially
without guidance and support from a family unit. In order to strengthen our society, we have to
better prepare foster youth to be productive members of the community, and to remove them
from a destructive life cycle.
In recent years there has been a wave a research that testifies a family environment is the
best placement for a child because it delivers more personalized attention and teaches the child
how to function within a family unit and the community. In the article Californias Two
Different Visions for Better Foster Care, Jessica Mendoza discusses the change in policies in
California that support that a family environment is more beneficial to most foster children. Her

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argument will soon be put into action because Gov. Jerry Brown (D) passed a bill that will
restructure the budget, phasing out funds from group homes in favor of giving more resources to
recruit and maintain foster families (Mendoza).
Although, a group home can be better for short periods of time for medical or
psychological treatment, that can be more difficult to provide elsewhere, it is widely accepted
that a family setting is the ideal placement. Unfortunately, there is a shortage of licensed, foster
families to care for the large number of children, especially those sixteen and older that remain in
the foster care system. This results in most of our young adults transferred from foster families to
group homes as they age through the system. The Annie E. Casey Foundation has compiled child
welfare research to show that youth who live in institutional setting are at greater risk of
developing physical, emotional, and behavioral problems that can lead to poor outcomes and are
less likely to find a permanent home than those who live in foster families (Data Snapshot on
Foster Care Placement).
In an effort to combat the issue of few licensed foster families in Utah, former Gov. Mike
Leavitt (R) created Utah Foster Care in 1998 to help recruit, educate and retain qualified foster
families. Utah Foster Care is a non-profit organization that works in cooperation with the
Division of Child and Family Services (About Us). The responsibilities of Utah Foster Care
were limited from what the State of Utah DCFS controlled to allow the organization to focus on
more thoroughly researching potential families, making more personalized placement
recommendations to the Division of Child and Family Services and to provide more resources
and support to current foster parents.
The individualized attention and training was essential to the success of the foster care
program in Utah. Paul Tough, of the New York Times, has compiled several studies that have

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been completed since 1986 that have shown that additional resources and counseling given to
parents alleviates some of their stress therefore providing the children a more stable foundation
to begin coping. In one such experiment completed by Mary Dozier at the University of
Delaware and Philip Fisher at the University of Oregon showed:
Infants and toddlers whose foster parents received just ten home visits showed fewer
behavior problems than a control group and significantly higher rates of secure
attachment (a close, stable connection with adults in their lives). The childrens ability
to process stress improved, too. In fact, the daily patterns in their levels of cortisol, a key
stress hormone, came to resemble those of typical well-functioning, non-foster-care
children (Tough).
These studies have not only shown the importance of a foster child having a safe stable
relationship with adults but that those foster parents also need support and resources to provide
the best care for a child.
If a child is unable to be reunited with their biological family, he or she will remain in the
foster care program until they are adopted or age out of the system. The age of a child greatly
affects where they will be placed within the system. The Annie E. Casey Foundation created the

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graph in figure 1 using statistics provided by the Adoption and Foster Care Reporting System, to
show that 36% of teens over the age of 16 are placed in group homes compared to 1% of
children ages 1 to 5. Unfortunately, a majority of the older teenagers in group and institutional
care are more likely to exit foster care when they reach the age of 18 without the benefit of the
falling back on family connections (Data Snapshot on Foster Care Placement).
The abrupt transition to adulthood without a network of support launches unprepared
foster teens into society. More than 1 in 5 ends up homeless after the age of 18, 1 in 4 becomes
involved in the justice system within two years of leaving foster care and only 58% of foster care
youth will graduate high school by age 91. Some of those hardships, among others, that former
foster care teenagers face are illustrated in figure 2, provided by the Jim Casey Youth
Opportunities Initiative.

The Midwest evaluation of the adult functioning of former foster youth: outcomes at age 21
study completed in 2007 reaffirms that:

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In comparison with their peers, [foster youth] are, on average, less likely to have a high
school diploma, less likely to be pursuing higher education, less likely to be earning a
living wage, more likely to have experienced economic hardships, more likely to have
had a child outside of wedlock, and more likely to have become involved with the
criminal justice system (Courtney).
To combat this crisis, the program Foster Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act
was enacted into federal law in 2008.
This legislation allowed for federal funded foster care and benefits to be extended, for
those that qualify, to ages 18 to 21. The cost of funding the extended benefits is far less than $8
billion in welfare, Medicaid, lost wages and incarceration costs that society is currently paying
when teens age out of foster care (Wiltz). Although the law was enacted in 2008, states werent
able to take advantage of the funds until 2010. Utah is one of the 20 states that provide programs
to help teens in foster care make successful transitions to adulthood. Marjorie Cortez from
Deseret News provided an update from Utahs Division of Child and Family Services 2013
annual report that at age 19, 87% of teens made positive connections with adults that werent
caseworkers and 46% said they had either part or full time employment (Cortez). There is still
much we as a society can do to prepare our youth but programs like Transitioning to Adulthood
and Fostering Connections for Success are strong strategies to help transition foster youth into
society.

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Works Cited
"About Us." Utah Foster Care. Utah Division of Child and Family Services, n.d. Web. 21 Sept.
2016.
Courtney, M.E., Dworsky, A., Cusick, G.R., Havilcek, J., Perez, A., & Keller, T. (2007).
Midwest evaluation of the adult functioning of former foster youth: outcomes at age 21.
Chicago: Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago.
"Data Snapshot on Foster Care Placement." Kids Count (2011): 1-4. Annie E. Casey Foundation.
Web. 27 Sept. 2016. <http://www.aecf.org/m/resourcedoc/AECFDataSnapshotOnFosterCarePlacement-2011.pdf>.
Mendoza, Jessica. Californias Two Different Visions for Better Foster Care. Christian
Science Monitor. 09 Mar. 2016: n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web 17 Sep. 2016.
Tough, P. To Help Kids Thrive, Coach Their Parents. New York Times. 22 May 2016. SR.1.
SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 17 Sep. 2016.
Wiltz, Teresa. States Tackle Aging Out of Foster Care. Stateline.org. 30 Mar. 2015 n.p. SIRS
Issues Researcher. Web. 17 Sep. 2016.