When foster children in the system remain unadopted, fewer families want to take them in. It’s sad, but it is just part of the current system. Older children are more of a safety risk, they can be harder to deal with, and their personalities are often already set in stone. Many of them have probably experienced great trauma in their lives, which can make the situation even messier. They ‘age-out’ at 18 years old without a family support system. In the world on their own. These older children are the ones who truly need our help the most. We want to raise awareness about these older system children, so here are a few facts.
In 2016, over 17,000 youth whom states failed to reunite with their families or place in permanent homes aged out of foster care, simply because they were too old to remain.
In 2016, of the 428,000 children in foster care, over 22,000 had goals of emancipation or aging out after leaving foster care without a permanent family.
Youth who age out of foster care are less likely to graduate from high school and are less likely to attend or graduate college. By age 26, approximately 80 percent of young people who aged out of foster care earned at least a high school degree or GED compared to 94 percent in the general population.
By age 26, only FOUR percent of aged-out children got a college degree, while 36 percent of youth in the general population had done so.
Thank you to https://www.childrensrights.org for the great facts! You can get more facts and info on their site.
Thanks for reading!
#APlaceToStay