independent living

The Imprint is highlighting each of the policy recommendations made this summer by the participants of the Foster Youth Internship Program (FYI), a group of 12 former foster youths who have completed congressional internships.

The Tennessee-based Youth Villages, one of the largest nonprofits in the country, has awarded New York City and Pittsburgh major funding to implement a promising support program for young adults who have recently left foster care.

As The Imprint reported in multiple stories last week, the Family First Prevention Services Act has become law. It includes the biggest change to the structure of federal child welfare finance since the establishment of the Title IV-E entitlement in 1980.

The House Ways and Means Committee will mark up several bills tomorrow that are derivative pieces of the larger Family First Prevention Services Act, a bill aimed at expanding federal support for certain child welfare services while limiting spending on congregate care.

States have always had discretion in determining the lower age threshold for use of their federal Chafee Foster Care Independence Program allocation. But the top age of eligibility for the program has always been 21.

The annual Foster Youth Intern (FYI) report, published by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute, has emerged as the best injection of fresh thinking on federal child welfare policy. The report includes federal reform proposals crafted by former foster youth who have spent the summer interning on Capitol Hill.

When I started the Family Care Network in 1987, there was certainly a different approach and philosophy driving the foster care system. Looking back, it seems like the Stone Age. The system has come a long way but it has been a tough, hard row to hoe.

Family Care Network, Inc. (FCNI), a transitional housing provider in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Counties has developed a transition-planning tool to help young people prepare for successful, self-sufficient lives.

Discusses efforts to promote a positive youth development approach in foster care, and the disappointing outcomes and barriers experienced by young people leaving the foster care system between the ages of 18 and 21.