Foster youth find housing, work training in Arkansas, but study shows state lags in teaching teens life skills

More Arkansas youths aging out of foster care are finding housing and vocational training than the national average, but also experience more placements, spend more time in institutional or group homes and have fewer family reunifications than average, according to a report released last week.

The Fostering Youth Transitions report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation compiles data from all 50 states on the transition from foster care to adulthood.

Jennifer Ferguson, deputy director of Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, said the results show growth in some key areas for Arkansas, but also show areas where Arkansas lags behind.

The Fostering Youth Transitions report is one of the first national studies of the child welfare system wherein all 50 states can compare data, which Ferguson said can serve as a metric for how well the Arkansas foster care system is working in comparison with similar states, as well as with the national averages.

“When it comes to answering the big question — ‘How well are we doing compared to other states?’ — it’s difficult,” Ferguson said. “It’s always a little hard to compare data to other states. There was no point of reference.”

The Arkansas data is from 2016, which Mischa Martin, director of Arkansas’ Children and Family Services Division, said is not exactly representative of the current state of foster youths in Arkansas, but is still a good indicator of where the energies of the division should be focused.

“We were really at the height of the crisis,” Martin said. “We had 5,200 youths at our highest point. We have 4,437 now. That’s significantly down and allows the staff to focus on not just finding a home for these kids, but the right home.”

Youths are considered to begin the transition stage at

  1. The report shows that 18 percent — 1,532 youths in the foster care system — were ages 14 or older in Arkansas. This number is similar to or lower than much of the surrounding region, with Louisiana’s 19 percent, Mississippi’s 21 percent, Missouri's and Texas’ 23 percent and Tennessee’s 40 percent. In Oklahoma, only 13 percent of foster children are in the transition age.

The report shows 60 percent of those youths aged out — or left the foster care system on their own after their 18th birthday — compared with the national average of 51 percent.

“The goal is for aging out not to be a reason for leaving foster care,” Ferguson said. “The goal is to have some sort of family connection to it. You want them to have some sort of family connection. Employment services can help, but they’re still young adults who need family.”

The report does not include data for aged-out Arkansas youths who are in foster care after their 18th birthday, despite the national data concerning the age group. Eric Gilmore, co-founder of Immerse Arkansas, which aids many young foster children with housing and life planning, said this gap leaves the data set incomplete.

“That complicates the picture,” Gilmore said. “To say that a kid has good housing or employment while they’re in foster care is one thing, as opposed to when they exit. I do think that as a state we’re working really hard on these things, and I just hope to see those number get better and better.”

Half of all transition-age youths are placed in group homes, institutions or family-like settings three or more times nationally, but in Arkansas that rate is 58 percent.

Moving from home-to-home before leaving foster care can inhibit youths from making those connections, Ferguson said, and it’s been a problem in Arkansas for a long time.

“[Living in group homes] limits their real-world experiences,” Gilmore said. “From doing laundry to cooking meals to being able to have a job as a teenager — if you’re in a group setting, some of those things become really difficult.”

Not having a family-like setting leaves youths without necessary life skills to be a functioning adult and, Ferguson said, can delay the teens from making permanent connections that will last past foster care.

Martin said the goal has been to move away from group-home or institutions since long before the 2016 uptick, and that in recent years, the division has had success with the effort.

Between August 2017 and August of this year, the number of youths in group homes dropped by 40 percent, from 111 to 67, according to the most recent data from the Children and Family Services Division.

Martin said the division has also focused on placing children with family members or relatives first. In the Fostering Youth Transitions report, 36 percent of youth were based in family-like settings — including pre-adoptive, relatives and non-relatives — compared with the national average of 47 percent.

Martin said placing youth with a relative when appropriate can help the child keep their connections intact while removing them from the situation that caused them to move into foster care.

“That is part of our ‘How do we get these kids more stable?’” she said. “We want their first placement to be the most appropriate, and that is hard sometimes.”

Another effort to stabilize youth post-foster care is an emphasis on work skills and vocational training, Martin said.

The Fostering Youth Transitions report puts Arkansas well above the national average, with 35 percent of youths receiving employment and vocational training as opposed to the national average of 23 percent.

“It’s good for the community to see how we’re doing,” Martin said.

“Arkansas is good about putting out data; we want to be transparent with stakeholders. We’ve seen progress, but we still have a lot of goals.”

Half of all transition-age youths are placed in group homes, institutions or family-like settings three or more times nationally, but in Arkansas that rate is 58 percent.

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