The John H. Chafee Foster Care Program for Successful Transition to Adulthood (“Chafee”) must be modernized to better help foster youth successfully launch from foster care into adulthood. Young adults who “age out” of foster care at age 18 experience high rates of homelessness and are less likely to graduate from high school, gain employment, or enroll in post-secondary education compared to their peers.
The Chafee program offers support to help current and former foster youth gain employment, obtain housing, and create meaningful connections with other adults, all to help them transition to independence. The program has remained largely unchanged since its creation in 1999. Despite the benefits of the program, witnesses at a Ways and Means Work and Welfare Subcommittee hearing on the current state of the Chafee foster youth program described underutilization of program funds by states, a lack of coordination between federal programs serving foster youth, and an absence of awareness by foster youth of the services available to them.
This hearing follows work by the Ways and Means Committee that led to the successful enactment of the Supporting America’s Children and Families Act, which made historic reforms to the nation’s child welfare programs for the first time in twenty years.
Vague Chafee Law Denies Foster Youth Specialized Case Management
At the hearing, foster youth touted the importance of specialized case management in achieving life milestones needed to successfully transition to adulthood. Current law is ambiguous as to whether states may utilize Chafee funds to provide specialized case management to older foster youth, often denying those kids the personal relationship with an adult who knows them. One foster youth expert recommended case management as a worthy investment for the program.
Rep. Darin LaHood (IL-16): “Ms. Webb emphasized the need for specialized case management for older youth in foster care and how that one-on-one guidance provided to youth through the Royals program should be standard. Based on your understanding of the Chafee statute, can states utilize Chafee funds to provide specialized case management to the older foster youth and do you think Chafee should be amended to do so?”
Dr. Maggie Stevens, Foster Success, Indiana: “The way the policy is written, the way I understand it, is that it can be used for a multitude of services for older foster youth, including support through case management. I think there’s a lot of confusion amongst the states, as I talk to different state administrators and federal policy analysts on this, because it’s not explicitly stated that this is allowed. There are certain items within the Chafee legislation: training of foster parents, training of case managers, that are allowed. Depending on how you interpret it, because it’s not explicitly stated, some states tend to say, ‘No, we can’t do that,’ while other states lean towards allowing those things…100 percent – I think Chafee funds should be used to support young people in their work and pay for case management…It’s the people; the dollars help, but it’s really the people and the supporters that help our young people move into adulthood successfully.”
States Leaving Millions of Chafee Funds On The Table, Missing Out On Opportunities to Help Foster Youth
The Chafee program helps states fund meaningful transition assistance to foster youth on the verge of aging out of the system. However, states are routinely leaving millions of dollars on the table meant to help foster youth get a job, find housing, and build connections to adults. The result is critical milestones are achieved at lower rates, chipping away at the hope of a productive, healthy life.
Rep. Randy Feenstra (IA-04): “Ms. Gillette, I want to ask you that same question. I really want to focus on the barriers. Just a couple years ago, $2.5 million of Chafee funds were returned and about $6.3 million on ETV (education and training voucher) funds from states. We’ve got to have red tape issues here – can you expound on this a little bit?”
Lisa Guillette, Foster Forward, Rhode Island: “In Rhode Island, in particular, but I know this is an issue nationally, only half of the young people that we’re serving in that age range have achieved the diploma or GED by age 19, so really moving them into ETV programs that have that as a minimum prerequisite is a challenge, and that didn’t happen overnight. We know that if you don’t read a grade level by the end of third grade, your chance of graduating from high school goes down dramatically. We really need Chafee-level reform and benchmarks to support on time completion of high school for every young person. It’s unacceptable. We’re leaving them behind.”
Foster Youth Shares How Case Management Changed Her Life
The hearing featured testimony from two foster youths, including Kimberely Webb from Farmington, Missouri. She shared how that state’s foster youth program, the Regional Older Youth Advancement of Life Skills (ROYALS) program, transformed her life. The program offers specialized case management from an assigned caseworker who meets with foster youth up to four times per month to help them set and achieve life goals.
Kimberely Webb, former Missouri foster youth: “I’m a 20 year old living in Farmington, Missouri…Over the years, I’ve been placed in care three different times at ages 6,12, and 16, spending a total of five and a half years in the system. That time in the foster care system was not easy. There were many barriers to overcome, such as having to move foster homes five times over the course of nine months. This impacted my ability to focus on my education and led to no connections with my peers. Constantly missing school, required for meetings in court, family support teams, and check-ins with a caseworker also made my education journey difficult. The last time being put in care, my older sister became my foster mom, and I was able to graduate high school. After graduating from high school, I looked for employment within one mile of where I lived due to the lack of access to transportation…The inability to be able to practice driving was also a challenge…I was able to gain my driver’s license, but it was nerve wracking to purchase a vehicle…These experiences might seem small, but they add up, and they make it hard to feel control in your own life.
“That’s where Missouri Regional Older Youth Advancement of Life Skills, ROYALS program, came in, and things changed for the good. The ROYALS program provided specialized case management for youth in foster care, and works with us to help us achieve our goals. The ROYALS program didn’t just treat us like another case number. Caseworkers took the time to build a real relationship with me. They spent one on one time teaching me life skills, not just talking about them, but showing them to me. Some of them were budgeting by using clothing vouchers or putting in a job application…They gave me the information I needed and supported me in making my own choices…What makes ROYALS truly different is how much they believe in young people leading charge in their own lives…I believe real improvements for older youth could be made, expanding the ROYALS program and allowing all older youth to have access to it.”
Backwards Funding Formula Fails to Get Resources to the Right Places to Reach Foster Youth
Education and Training Vouchers (ETV) provide up to $5,000 towards the cost of higher education and are critical resources for foster youth who may have fewer options to finance trade school or college. Unfortunately, the current funding formula is a mismatch for the current size of the foster youth population. An expert testified that a change in the funding formula would help states provide these critical vouchers to teenagers and young adults in the foster care system.
Rep. Rudy Yakym (IN-02):“Vouchers are distributed to states based on the overall number of children in foster care, not the number of older youth that are eligible for the program. In Indiana, from fiscal years 2018 through 2023, the number of Chafee eligible youth in foster care increased, while the number of children overall in the state’s foster system decreased. Can you provide insights as to what impact this has had on eligibility of ETVs for youth in Indiana?”
Dr. Maggie Stevens, Foster Success, Indiana : “The way that Chafee funds are distributed to states is based upon the total number of youth in care, so that includes our infants, our toddlers, our young children, all the way through our teens and adults. However, Chafee services are only provided to those teens and young adults who are in foster care in their teenage years. What has happened in Indiana, as you mentioned, from 2018 to 2023 we saw more than a 50 percent decrease in the number of overall youth in foster care…it was mostly in our zero to 17 population and our older teens all the way up to 21, 23, we were seeing increases in eligible youth. What we experienced in 2023 specifically with the Chafee ETV program, was a 15 percent decrease in funding because of our statewide overall numbers.”
Rep. Yakym: “So it would seem logical that we could make some adjustments to the federal funding formulas so that we can direct dollars to where they’re needed most?”
Dr. Stevens: “I would wholly support that.”
Need for Coordination of Federal Programs and Community Partnerships
The experiences of some youth in foster care limit their ability to explore their career interests and gain stable employment due to the lack of family connections. Federal programs under the Department of Labor also offer foster youth the ability to gain paid work experience and pre-apprenticeship programs. One expert testified how her program offers work experience for those in foster care and builds partnerships with local employers and leverages other federal programs to increase employment opportunities for foster youth.
Rep. Aaron Bean (FL-04): “Ms. Guillette, the Works Wonders model accounts for the different life experiences of foster youth…how can traditional workforce systems and the child welfare system coordinate to bridge that gap to better prepare foster youth to enter the workforce?”
Lisa Guillette, Foster Forward, Rhode Island: “Works Wonders works because it gives young people experiential learning opportunities and work experience and because of the disconnection that they’ve experienced in foster care, they don’t always have the normative experiences with family to talk about work and talk about opportunities. So, when we put young people into high quality experiences with local employers, I think the big piece for us is that with community organizations that have tons of board members that work in this companies in our community, and they’re very eager to partner and create experiential learning opportunities for young people. WIOA-funded Work Experience Dollars really help us round that out and provide 250 hours of experience for young people.”