Journal Articles

Food Insecurity among Transition-Age Youth Exiting Foster Care

Park, Sunggeun, Melanie Nadon, Nathanael J. Okpych, Justin S. Harty, Mark E. Courtney, Ivy Hammond

Significance: One in ten U.S. households experience food insecurity, which is linked to adverse health, behavioral, and social outcomes. Few studies have examined food insecurity among TAY over time and in relation to public aid (e.g., CalFresh, CalWORKS).

Study Methods: This study relied on CalYOUTH survey data and administrative records. CalYOUTH followed a sample of 727 young people over seven years as they exited foster care. Measures of CalYOUTH participants’ food insecurity status at ages 19, 21, and 23 were created using the survey data. Administrative data sources used documented food insecurity, foster care history, and youths’ earnings. Statistical models were used to investigate associations between these predictors and the probability of being food insecure.

Findings: About 30% of study participants were food insecure at ages 19, 21, and 23, despite increases in youths’ income. At the same time, results suggest that staying in extended foster care and receiving greater amounts of public benefits reduced the risk of food insecurity during the transition into adulthood.

Conclusions: Results suggest that accessibility of public benefit programs and income support represents a promising policy lever for reducing the prevalence of food insecurity among TAY. Further, given that the predictors of food insecurity change throughout the transition into adulthood, TAY’s resource and service needs may differ depending on how far along they are in their transition to adulthood.

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Behavioral Health And Legal System Involvement Among Transition-age Youth In Foster Care: A Longitudinal Analysis Of Youth In California

Keunhye Park, Michelle R. Munson, Mark E. Courtney, Kierra Blair, Andrea Lane Eastman

Significance: Unmet behavioral health needs may increase the likelihood of incarceration for young people with histories of foster care, potentially leading to lasting effects into adulthood. Involvement with the legal system can complicate the transition to adulthood, impeding employment opportunities, social relationships, and the formation of identity. This study used longitudinal survey data from young people in foster care at age 17 to examine the relationships between 10 distinct behavioral health conditions and their involvement with the legal system during early adulthood.

Method: The current study involved prevalence and regression analyses using data from a longitudinal study of transition-age youth in the California foster care system—the CalYOUTH Study. Participants included young people at the onset of the transition to adulthood (ages 16.75–17.75) and who had been in the foster care. Behavioral health disorders were measured at age17 and legal system involvement was measured at follow-up interviews ages 19 and 21.

Results: More than half of the young people screened positive for a mental health or substance use disorder at age 17. Among those who later experienced legal system involvement, the most common behavioral health conditions were drug use disorders (40.2%), depression (23.8%), and alcohol use disorders (22.6%). Rates of nearly all behavioral health disorders were higher for young people who later reported legal system involvement than for those who did not. Time spent in extended care after age 18 reduced the odds of later legal system involvement.

Conclusions: This study contributes to existing research highlighting the connection between specific behavioral health conditions and legal system involvement among transition-age youth in care. The findings underscore the need for increased attention to drug use disorders among older adolescents in foster care. Our findings add to the body of the knowledge showing that foster care services provided beyond age 18 may buffer against legal system involvement.

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The Role of Enduring Relationships on Youth Outcomes

Nathanael J. Okpych, Sunggeun (Ethan) Park, Jenna Powers, Justin S. Harty, Mark E. Courtney, Astha Agarwal

Significance: Child welfare policies for transition-age youth (TAY) are the subject of two significant critiques. The first is that policies strongly emphasize helping TAY build skills for independent living, even though research has found interdependent living to be healthy and normative in emerging adulthood. Second, child welfare policies prioritize legal permanence even though many legally “permanent” relationships do not last, and youth tend to define permanence in terms of the love, care, and dependability of a relationship, rather than in biological or legal terms.

Method: This study analyzes data collected by the CalYOUTH Study, which included a representative sample of over 700 TAY in California foster care at age 17 who were interview multiple times as they transitioned to adulthood. When youth were interviewed at ages 17 and 21, they were asked to name specific people they could turn to for emotional support, tangible support, and advice. In this study we identified “enduring relationships”, that is, individuals TAY named as a support person at both age 17 and age 21. Importantly, these individuals were present in TAYs’ lives as they made the transition out of foster care.

Findings: About half of study participants (48%) had an enduring relationship. Enduring relationships tended to be with biological family members, foster and adoptive parents, and individuals they described as family-like. Having an enduring relationship protected TAY from several hardships. Enduring relationships with specific types of people sometimes had specific effects on their outcomes.

Keywords: foster youth; child welfare; enduring relationships; poverty; transition-age youth

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Policy Summary

Examining Prevalence and Predictors of Economic Hardships for Transition-Age Foster Youth

Melanie L Nadon, Sunggeun Park, Huiling Feng, and Mark Courtney

Objective: Youth exiting foster care experience high rates of poverty, homelessness, and food insecurity. However, little evidence documents their experiences of economic hardships, precursors to or early symptoms of the poor outcomes. We investigate the prevalence of foster youth’s economic difficulties and the factors associated with the hardships at ages 19 and 21.

Method: We use various data, including a representative longitudinal survey of older foster youth in California (n = 675). We used two types of dependent variables: whether youth experienced any economic hardship (e.g., utility cutoff, eviction) and the number of hardships experienced at ages 19 and 21. We explored factors associated with youth’s hardship using linear probability and Poisson models.

Results: About half of the youth experienced at least one economic hardship at ages 19 and 21. Older foster youth with behavioral health issues, health conditions limiting daily activity, sexual minorities, and females are more likely to experience hardship and a greater number of hardships, while their length spent in extended foster care served as a protective factor.

Conclusions: Additional and targeted supports to prevent economic hardships are needed. Future research needs to investigate the mechanisms driving predictors of the hardships.

Keywords: foster youth; child welfare; economic hardships; poverty; transition-age youth

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Extended Foster Care and Juvenile Justice System Involvement

Keunhye Park, Mark Courtney, and Andrea Lane Eastman

Objective: Given the disproportionate rates of juvenile justice system involvement among young people in foster care, this study focuses on the association between extended foster care (EFC) services and juvenile justice system involvement among transition-aged youth (TAY) living in care.

Method: This study drew upon California state child welfare administrative data from 2006 to 2016 and included individuals in care between their 16th and 18th birthdays (N = 69,140). Data from the National Juvenile Court Data Archive were retrieved to control for trends in the state’s annual rate of delinquency petitions. Juvenile justice system involvement was documented if a youth moved from child welfare-supervised placement to probation-supervised placement during the study window. The sample was divided into the pre-policy period (2006–2011) or the post-policy period (2012–2016), based on California’s implementation of EFC.

Results: The rate of youth experiencing juvenile justice involvement was lower after the EFC policy than before the policy (43% lower for 16-year-olds; 24% lower for 17-year-olds in the post-policy), even after controlling for characteristics of youths captured by the state’s child welfare case management system and the overall decline in delinquency petitions.

Conclusions: Results suggest that extension of foster care to age 21 reduces the likelihood that older adolescents in foster care experience juvenile justice system involvement. This finding has national implications in the current era of federally extended foster care, where youths in 28 states can stay in care until their 21st birthday, unless contact with the juvenile justice system makes them ineligible. This study adds to the growing body of evidence supporting the positive benefits of extended care and raises questions for future research.

Keywords: Juvenile justice system involvement; Extended foster care; Transition-age foster youth

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