Two years ago, Patty Duh Chin and Leslie Gross joined The Imprint Weekly Podcast to discuss the SOUL Family concept, a framework for a fourth form of permanency after foster care. For decades the paths out of foster care (without simply becoming an adult and aging out) included reunification, guardianships with kin, and adoption. Duh Chin later joined The Imprint again to talk about the plan at an online discussion we held about helping young adults in foster care achieve self-sufficiency.
The concept moved closer to reality last month. The Kansas Legislature approved a bill that would officially add SOUL Family as a viable outcome for foster youth in late March, and at the end of April, Gov. Laura Kelly (D) signed it into law.
“Every child deserves to live in a safe household with responsible adults who care about their well-being,” Kelly said, in a statement announcing the signing. “With this fourth pathway, we can ensure more children have a say in the environment they grow up in and the adults who are raising them. This legislation is transformational for Kansas kids.”
Here’s the idea in a nutshell: Teens 16 or older who are in foster care will have the option of working with the system and the courts to essentially curate a group of adults in their lives that, when put together, form a stable and permanent network to support that youth as they transition into adulthood. Where an adoption or guardianship envisions one family and household as the home base for a young person, a SOUL Family might identify a sibling that is there to help them navigate college life, an uncle and aunt they can stay with if housing becomes an issue, and their attorney from foster care as an ongoing source of legal support.
The idea was born in 2018 from a group of participants in the Jim Casey Fellows, a program operated by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. After the framework was developed, Kansas — where more than 56% of youths 16 and older leave foster care without permanent families — offered to make the Sunflower State a test case for it.
“All older youth in foster care want the ability to choose,” said Marquan Teetz, a former foster youth who advocates for the law in Kansas. “We’ve been ordered most of our lives by a system that doesn’t understand us or the connections we’ve built.”
It was quickly determined that there would need to be legislation to codify the pathway to a SOUL Family as a court-sanctioned outcome. Per the Kansas incorporation of SOUL Family — likely the particulars would vary from state to state if others express interest — this path can only be considered if parental rights have been terminated and a judge deems it to be in the best interest of the youth. The law makes clear that where more than one adult is involved in the legal custody of the youth, a “primary” must be assigned who would be responsible for resolving any disputes or disagreements between a youth and a SOUL Family member.
Once a SOUL Family is established, the child welfare agency’s involvement ceases, but the court continues jurisdiction unless a judge decides otherwise.
This new pathway is available effective immediately, so we could see youth identifying SOUL Families as soon as this year. As a new option, though, Youth Services Insider would not be surprised if quite a bit of time goes by before we see the first SOUL Family in the state. What comes next will certainly be an awareness and training campaign aimed at ensuring that caseworkers, permanency specialists, judges and other stakeholders know about the new option, can explain it to youth, and are able to actually establish a SOUL Family.
