The Benefits of Extending State Care to Young Adults

2019 ◽  
pp. 131-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark E. Courtney
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Foster Care ◽  
Transition To Adulthood ◽  
The United States ◽  
Background Information ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Foster Care System ◽  
Care Systems ◽  
Potential Benefits

This chapter summarizes recent research in the United States providing evidence of the benefits of allowing youth in foster care to remain in care through their 21st birthdays. The chapter provides relevant background information about the foster care system in the United States, describes two studies that have considered the relationship between extended foster care and young people’s transition to adulthood, summarizes the findings of those studies regarding the potential benefits of extended care, and discusses the implications of the studies’ findings for policy and practice. As child welfare systems around the world increasingly continue to support young people in care into adulthood, research will be needed to ensure that these new care systems meet the needs of the young adults they serve.

scholarly journals Barriers to Sustainability in Poor Marginalized Communities in the United States: The Criminal Justice, the Prison-Industrial Complex and Foster Care Systems

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muriel Adams ◽  
Sonja Klinsky ◽  
Nalini Chhetri
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foster Care ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
The United States ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Prison Industrial Complex ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Persistent Problem ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Care Systems

In the United States of America, 2.2 million people are incarcerated in public and private facilities and over 700,000 are released yearly back to their home communities. Almost half are rearrested within a year. These problems have been excluded from mainstream sustainability narratives, despite their serious implications for sustainability. This paper addresses how the criminal justice, prison-industrial complex and foster care systems negatively impact these communities and families. To comprehend the system links, a sustainability lens is used to examine and address interlinking system impacts obstructing achievement of sustainability and the necessary community characteristics for building sustainable communities. Communities characterized by environmental degradation, economic despair and social dysfunction are trapped in unsustainability. Therefore, a system-of-communities framework is proposed which examines the circumstances that bring about prison cycling which devastates family and community cohesion and social networking, also negatively affecting the ability of other communities to become truly sustainable. We contend that a fully integrated social, economic and environmental approach to a major, complex, persistent problem as it relates to poor, marginalized communities faced with mass incarceration and recidivism can begin creating sustainable conditions. Further, we articulate ways sustainability narratives could be changed to engage with core challenges impeding these communities.

Kinship Care in the United States

1998 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 7-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Jean McFadden
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foster Care ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Kinship Care ◽  
The United States ◽  
Foster Care System ◽  
Professional Recognition ◽  
American Children ◽  
Court Intervention ◽  
Care System

Within the last decade in the United States, kinship care (placement with relatives or those non-related friends of family known as fictive kin) has evolved from an infrequently utilised option for temporary care and/or permanence, to a widely used and often preferred solution for children in need of care. Emily Jean McFadden discusses the background to this development and how it is related to the rising placement of children of colour, particularly African American children and adolescents who are over-represented in the American foster care system. Wide professional recognition of the importance of culture in identity formation and advocacy by professional groups has led to the acknowledgment of kinship care as a preferred placement option; it is now used extensively in many states, both in informal care which takes place outside of court intervention and in the formal foster care system.

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