Helping Foster Youth with Disabilities Transition to Adulthood

Juvenile Law Center,
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Planning early for the transition to adulthood provides clarity for foster youth with disabilities.

For virtually all young adults, making the transition from adolescence to independent adulthood is challenging. Luckily, most of us have parents to help guide us through the transition.

Most foster youth aren’t so lucky. It is challenging to make the transition from living in foster homes, group homes, or residential facilities as a child to living as an independent adult. Most foster youth do not have a parent or guardian to guide them through the transition, or to help them find stable housing and employment. When foster youth leave the system, they’re on their own.

To help foster youth with disabilities more successfully move from adolescence to adulthood, Juvenile Law Center is conducting trainings for caseworkers to help them partner with youth to create comprehensive transition plans that take into account the challenges of the complex adult health care system.

Foster youth with disabilities face an even bigger challenge. In addition to finding housing and employment, these youth must also figure out how to navigate the complex adult health care system in order to obtain the much-needed physical and mental health services they received when they were in foster care.

To address this problem, Juvenile Law Center is conducting trainings this month for caseworkers who serve foster youth. Our trainings are designed to help caseworkers work with youth to create comprehensive transition plans that take into account the challenges of the adult health care system—a system in which coverage is much more limited; adults are not entitled to nearly as many services; and many critical services have long waiting lists.

Our trainings are based on the following tools, authored by Juvenile Law Center Supervising Attorney Jenny Pokempner, to support foster youth with disabilities in moving from childhood into adulthood. These tools stress the importance of planning early for a foster youth’s transition. Tools include:  

  • A guide for professionals and advocates that includes legal requirements for meeting the needs of older foster youth before they leave the system and a list of resources, benefits, and services in the adult system that young people with disabilities will need.
  • A planning tool and protocol for child welfare workers and advocates to use to guide planning for youth with disabilities in the child welfare system from age 14 until age 21. (Note: This tool serves as a companion to the professionals’ guide.)
  • A guide for youth that details their rights, the obligations of the child welfare system, and services and supports the youth can obtain as young adults after leaving the system.

These trainings will bring attention to the extraordinary challenges these foster youth face. They will show that by planning early and providing youth and their caseworkers with the right tools, we can overcome these challenges and give foster youth the opportunities that all youth deserve.