Recommendations for Child Welfare System Support from Youth Currently and Formerly in Foster Care

Each year, approximately 20,000 youth emancipate or age out of foster care. This transition period to independent adulthood is an important life stage for youth leaving the foster care system. In recent years, calls have been made to incorporate feedback and lived experiences of youth currently and formerly in foster care to inform the future directions of policy and program development. This brief summarizes recommendations from youth currently and formerly in foster care who participated in the SYTFC about how the child welfare system could best support their transition from care.

• Several recommendations for child welfare system support were identified from youth responses: (1) engage with youth in a supportive, understanding, and nonjudgmental manner; (2) directly provide and ensure youth accessibility to resources; (3) coordinate youth acquisition of independent living skills; (4) maintain contact and provide support beyond the age of 18; and (5) ensure the quality of placement settings.
• Youth participating in the SYTFC expressed the desire to be heard and listened to by others, to have high-quality placement options, and to maintain meaningful relationships with individuals within foster care placements after transitioning to independent adulthood.
• Youth participating in the SYTFC recommended that child welfare agencies provide more tangible resources (e.g., financial assistance, housing) to assist in the transition to adulthood. Youth also recommended that child welfare agencies provide more life skills training opportunities to increase preparedness and confidence as they move toward independent living.

The SYTFC was designed to be a one-time survey of youth currently and formerly in foster care at risk for human trafficking experiences. A risk model was used to identify at-risk youth in child welfare administrative data. This sampling strategy was intended to maximize the likelihood of reaching youth who have experienced trafficking and therefore to provide the most useful information on how child welfare agencies can prevent, identify, and respond to trafficking. Survey questions address youths’ lifetime experiences before, during, and after child welfare involvement.

Child welfare agencies in Florida and New York provided child welfare administrative data from which the SYTFC youth sample was drawn. The sampling frame consisted of youth who were in foster care during their 17th year and who were 18 or 19 years old at the time of the survey. Youth survey responses were collected in a telephone interview and subsequent web survey. The qualitative, open-ended survey item described in this brief was initially administered during the telephone interview and then repeated as part of the web survey to provide youth with multiple opportunities for providing feedback.

Geiger, P.J., Aranguren, N., & Dolan, M.M. (2022). Recommendations for Child Welfare System Support from Youth Currently and Formerly in Foster Care. OPRE Report 2022-84, Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.