Aging Out - Challenges After Foster Care

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When times are hard, many return home as adults to have a safe place to plan for a fresh start. Others may remain home a few years into adulthood in order to be prepared for starting out on their own. But when many foster children age out of care, these safety nets are not there for them. For those who do not reunify, connect with other family members, or get adopted, emancipation is the end goal of their foster experience. Ready or not, they are independent adults. 

In Oregon, data for 2021 shows that 60% of 16 to 21-year-olds who left foster care were emancipated (1). The Oregon Department of Health and Human Services has published a page with resources for those transitioning out of foster care (2). In 2022, they published a follow-up with 21-year-olds who formerly were in foster care. Of those who continued to respond at the 3 year mark, 24% of the respondents had experienced homelessness in the last 2 years, and only 9% were employed full or part-time (3). These are grim numbers.


Sadly, the first federal government link found in the search for information on this topic is, as of 2/13/25, currently down (4). Since it looked as though it would have been useful, it is included in the footnotes so that it can be read in the future if it is returned. Perhaps the dead link stings a bit because these youth need to be a priority on the national level as well. Even trying to research for this article, the sourcing of articles from other articles leading to endless source chasing or strange dead ends has been an issue. Finding statistical sources has been difficult even when examining the pages of groups providing resources. Because of this, the work done by Child Trends in researching and organizing the information has proven very helpful, and can be viewed by state or nationally (5). 


The good news is that there actually are groups trying to help these youth. If you are interested in learning more about these programs and resources, or perhaps even helping in their work, please check out the links below!





Footnotes:

  1. https://www.childtrends.org/publications/state-level-data-for-understanding-child-welfare-in-the-united-states (selected Oregon and Older Youth In Care)

  2. https://www.oregon.gov/odhs/foster-care-transition/pages/default.aspx

  3. https://www.oregon.gov/odhs/data/cwdata/cw-ilp-nytd-snapshot-2017-2021-oregon.pdf 

  4. https://youth.gov/youth-briefs/foster-care-youth-brief/challenges 

  5. https://www.childtrends.org/publications/state-level-data-for-understanding-child-welfare-in-the-united-states 



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