Emancipation

On Thursday, March 19, Jerry Milner of the federal Children’s Bureau is teaming up with former foster youth and tech entrepreneur Sixto Cancel to co-host a virtual town hall inviting foster youth to contribute to the fight against the coronavirus. 

Emancipation Day. Also known as the worst day of my young adult life. Although I wasn’t prepared to actually leave foster care, I had anticipated this day ever since I entered, nine years earlier.

Jamole Callahan is turning 40 this year. He’s carved out a successful career in advocacy and motivational speaking (his Twitter handle is @MrMotivator). But in college, as a youth who had aged out of foster care, his path was far from stable.

  Kendra Owens doesn’t remember a lot about the five months she spent in foster care before her 18th birthday. Her therapist says that it’s her brain trying to protect her, hiding away horrible memories that might trigger her depression or her post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative, once a standalone entity and now part of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, has released a compendium of data on foster youth ages 14 to 21, a group that makes up about 25 percent of the overall foster youth population.

The average length of time spent in foster care in 1999 was 32 months. By 2014, the average time had dropped to 19.5 months. Progress, but still unacceptably high. Much more unsettling, however, are the statistics on emancipation.

The Alaska House of Representatives unanimously approved a bill late last week that would enable foster youth to remain in care until age 21. House Bill 27 would permit an extension of one year in state custody to a youth turning 18 without any permanency plan in place; two additional one-year extensions of custody could be achieved through a hearing.

By Johanna Greeson A bleak portrait continues to emerge for youth who age out of foster care without connections to caring adults and with inadequate independent living skills. The field of child welfare has yet to develop an effective response to this problem.

The brothers escaped on a Sunday. Matt, 14, Terrick, 12, and Joseph, 11 pretended to go to church that day in 2006, but in secret they had planned to run away and never come back.