Imagine telling your children on their 19th birthdays that they must leave the family home, will receive no more financial or emotional support, and are on their own to figure out how to make money or go to school.
That is the reality for 700 youths every year in B.C. — foster children raised by the Ministry for Children and Families who, on their 19th birthdays, lose all the supports on which they had come to rely.
For some youths that means being forced out of a foster home or group home, where a family or non-profit agency provided them with shelter, food, clothing and guidance.
For many, it means losing the $1,000 a month provided by the ministry to pay their own rent and support themselves. In both scenarios, the youths also abruptly lose contact with any government social workers or transition workers who give advice and free food vouchers and bus tickets until age 19.
Foster children are often among the most vulnerable kids in our society. They either have no parents or have been taken from their parents by the child welfare system or the courts. They have not been adopted, so are being raised by the state.
Advocates say the majority of kids in care are resilient and determined to survive on their own. But while some find varying degrees of success, others fall down.
B.C. children’s advocate Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond says she has seen “case upon case” of social workers taking a new 19-year-old to a homeless shelter after government support ends.
“The last contact they have with their guardianship social worker is driving in the car to a shelter,” Turpel-Lafond said.
Multiple studies show these vulnerable youth, once cast adrift, face dire outcomes compared to children raised in traditional families.
They are more likely to end up on welfare and live in precarious housing, abuse alcohol and drugs, get arrested and jailed, drop out of high school, and have fragile social support networks.
But there is a solution that appears to give hope to some of society’s most damaged children — a solution, experts argue, that won’t cost taxpayers more money in the long run.
Nineteen U.S. states have extended foster care support to age 21. Ontario recently adopted the same policy, and its youth advocate has penned a cost-benefit study that argues it would be economical for that province to boost the age of support even higher, to 25.
“If (foster care) and other supports are extended for four additional years, fewer youth will likely become involved with the criminal justice system. Fewer youth will likely access social assistance. More youth will likely finish high school and post-secondary education, thereby increasing their earnings and the taxes they will pay,” says the 2012 Ontario study titled “25 Is The New 21.”
“For every $1 the province of Ontario spends supporting its youth by extending (foster care) and supports to age 25, Ontario and Canada will save or earn an estimated $1.36 over the working lifetime of that person.”
American, British and Australian studies suggest similar results.
The cost-benefit analysis of supporting foster children beyond age 19 has not been done in B.C. The Sun plugged B.C. numbers into the formulas used by Ontario and found there would also be a benefit to local taxpayers — a return of $1.11 for every dollar spent on extending care to age 24.
Outside the foster care system, fully half of young people from traditional families now live at home with their parents from age 20 to 29 as they pursue higher education and careers, a 2011 StatsCan report found.
So, shouldn’t the B.C. government offer a longer and more seamless support system to the 7,000 foster kids in its care?
Minister for Children and Families Stephanie Cadieux said she is aware of what is happening in other jurisdictions, but believes the B.C. government provides sufficient services for youth who have aged out of care.
She acknowledges, however, that the poor outcomes for these youth are proof that government must do a better job of connecting them to existing programs, which are run by various ministries and are often difficult to find.
“We don’t need to extend foster care to do that. What we need to do is work collectively across government to ensure that kids aging out of foster care are accessing all of the services in the adult system that they need,” Cadieux said in a recent interview.
“We are always looking at how to improve the outcomes, because I don’t think anyone is satisfied with the high school completion rates or the (other) outcomes for kids who come out of care.”
Her ministry provides some transition help for youths over 19, such as Agreements with Young Adults, which pay about $1,000 a month for living expenses for up to 24 months while youths are in school. But the Agreements with Young Adults and other education-assistance programs have limited time frames, restrictive rules and are only helpful to the highest-functioning youth.
For the majority who, at age 19, are still struggling, they must turn to the bare-bones adult welfare system and a variety of other disconnected programs, such as social housing, mental health support, and skills training.
That patchwork-quilt system simply isn’t working, say advocates, who argue services for these youth should be under the same roof — Cadieux’s ministry — to better help them transition to adult life, at least until the age of 21.
The list of proponents includes Turpel-Lafond, several academics, the Vancouver Foundation, and many non-profit groups that work with these youths. And, of course, former foster children who remember how the stress built as they neared the end of their time in care.
Jasmine Eddy dreaded the month she would turn 19, knowing she would have to leave the stable, caring foster home she had enjoyed from age nine.
She was forced to quickly learn how to care for herself. It was difficult, even for a tenacious survivor like Eddy, who is now studying to become a youth counsellor.
“You wonder if you will have enough money, if you can find a place, if it will be long term, if you will have a job, if it will all work out,” Eddy, now 20, recalled.
“You’re on your own for the first time.”
The government stops paying foster parents once a child turns 19. Even in cases where foster parents are willing to keep a foster child beyond that age, the rules often prohibit the young person from staying.
Turpel-Lafond said foster children, despite their best efforts, are floundering under the current system.
“The government says we have this service and that service, we have this pot (of money) and that pot, but they are not working. So I would like to see this change fundamentally. You can’t abandon people at 19,” Turpel-Lafond said.
“We need to up the game and we really need to change that. And we can’t have the laissez-faire attitude we’ve had over the last couple of years.”
Rather than a simple extension of the existing foster care system, she would like to see a children’s ministry-led transition program that offers continued support to youth up to age 24 — much like a parent guiding a young adult through the early years of employment, education or training.
“I think B.C. is behind. Not just in the development of effective youth services, but I think we’re a bit behind in failing to calculate the cost of not doing it,” she said.
“The cost of sending the person to a homeless shelter and watching them fall apart and paying for all of the harm that happens is a pretty expensive trajectory.”
In 2008, the U.S. government made it easier for states to support foster youth until they are 21 years old, as long as they are in school, working, in a program to remove barriers to employment, or incapable of doing these activities due to a medical condition.
So far, 19 states have raised the age of foster care, and three more have passed legislation to do so.
“For every young person who ages out of foster care (at age 18), taxpayers and communities pay an average of $300,000 in social costs like public assistance, incarceration, and lost wages to a community over that person’s lifetime,” says the U.S.-based Jim Casey Foundation, which does research to support smoother transitions from foster care to adulthood south of the border.
Local not-for-profit organizations that work with youth aging out of government care, such as Aunt Leah’s Place and Covenant House, would like B.C. to follow the lead of Washington and Ontario.
Jocelyn Helland, manager of Broadway Youth Resource Centre, said most foster children are strong “warriors” who survive very difficult childhoods, and should be offered the option of continued support up to the age of 24.
“For so many people at 19, it feels like the bottom has been pulled out from under them,” she said. “Because of all the crap in their childhood, they are not graduating from high school. So how are they expected to find a job in Vancouver to allow them to survive?
“They rely on food banks, centres like ours, odd jobs. Some of our young people (experience) the sadness, the loneliness, wanting to have a family of their own. It’s a real struggle.”
The Vancouver Foundation, one of the city’s largest granting agencies, is also lobbying for an elongation of public support to at least age 21.
A recent survey done by the foundation found 70 per cent of British Columbians agree. The survey also found just 28 per cent of British Columbians realize foster kids are on their own as soon as they turn 19.
Vancouver Foundation CEO Kevin McCort said improving the transition for “aging out” of government care requires not just more provincial funding, but also a public discussion about how other sectors can step up to assist these youth.
“If everybody does their little bit, we can gradually whittle away at the problem,” McCort said.
If government care was extended to the age of 21, Eddy said, it would have helped her, both in terms of her home life and her education.
“It makes it more stable. You have more support. When you’re on your own, you have to figure out things on your own,” Eddy said.
Today, Eddy lives with a friend and takes a psychology course at Kwantlen University in Surrey, which she paid for with money she made working in a sports store. She wants to become a child and youth care counsellor.
The Sun spoke to a dozen former foster children for this series, ranging from Eddy, who is likely one day to achieve her goals, to others who are struggling with precarious housing, poverty and loneliness. They all have hopes and dreams, but it will take incredible determination and resilience to overcome the hurdles ahead now that they have lost the support of their “parent.”
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