Emancipation

According to the dictionary on my MacBook Pro (you know the one on the dash board), emancipation is equated with “liberation, freedom, release, deliverance,” and “discharge.”  Despite, these seemingly joyous descriptors, I have to say that emancipation for the class of persons I hope to reach is no walk in the park.  Let me put it this way…I’m 27 years old and I have yet to fully emancipate.


The emancipation that I speak of is one in which a minor “ages out” of the child welfare system (or foster care system as it’s also known).  Each year, approximately 20,000 of the 500,000 American foster youth emancipate or “age out” of the child welfare system (e.g., in 2007, 26,500 of the 510,000 foster youth “aged out” of), and approximately 25% of that 20K come from California.[1]   Yet despite the relatively small number of emancipating youth (9%, in comparison to other methods of leaving the child welfare system such as reunification (54%) and adoption (17%)), census data shows that emancipated youth face many more challenges (both physical and emotional) than their peers who come from supportive environments.[2]  Former foster youth, for example, are less likely than youth who have not been in foster care, to graduate high school; are at higher risk of teen pregnancy; disproportionately suffer from mental, physical, developmental and other health problems; and are more likely to be involved with substance abuse and criminal activities.[3]

Above, I highlighted the word minor because in reality that’s what they are…minors who are expected to leave a broken system and transition into adulthood to live a happy and self-sufficient life.  Ummm, do the powers that be know that “self-sufficiency” refers to the state of “not requiring any outside aid, support, or interaction, for survival,” how can one be expected to age out of the child welfare system and be a self-sufficient adult all of a sudden.  Really…can the law be so blind as to not see that age 18 (and in some situations as young as 15) is nowhere near old enough for someone to be deemed self-sufficient?  And even as I write this, I wonder if there is anyone - no matter what age - that is truly self-sufficient?  I’m 27 and I know many people in my age group and older still living with their momma’s…my bad, person’s whose mother’s are living with them :o).  Okay, that was an extreme (and low) example, but the point is that I know we live in a world of “independent this” and “independent that” and yes I’ve even claimed to be the “independent woman who’s got my own,” that Ne-Yo sang about, but I would never claim to have gotten it on my own (even the prayers that went up on my behalf were outside aid).

Lets look at this more closely…in a “normal” (a word I use loosely) situation a teenager learns essential life skills, such as maintaining a home, finding/keeping employment, and managing finances through their family and home environment.  But I am not talking about the “normal” situation; I am talking about those in the child welfare system, which alone has to say something about their family and home environment -- just to make it plain let’s just say in most instances it is nonexistent.[4] And even if there is a foster family in the picture, let’s be frank, teens from stable family environments rarely if ever have time limits (real or self-embedded) on when they must take on the world as self-sufficient adults (nor the stress thereof),[5] and even when they do leave home, they do so with the comforting feeling that they will always have somewhere and someone to go to if they hit troubled times.  The point of it all is that regardless of family circumstances, the transition to “self-sufficiency” for all persons require a strong safety net of support persons, services and opportunities to build and practice those life skills needed for healthy and productive community life.

SOOO, with all that said – I’ve decided to blog in order to do my part.  My hope is that through my journey, past, present and future, at least one teen on the path to emancipating can find help here.  I wish to (1) share with you my journey to emancipate from the foster care system, which might I add is on-going; (2) provide links to information and resources that helped me along the way, and (3) provide a space where those traveling this journey can seek advice, seek support, share ideas, or just vent.

I wish I had the energy to write about myself tonight, but I’m too tired and must get to bed.

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[1]   (See US Department of Health and Human Services, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Children’s Bureau (2008), Trends in Foster Care and Adoption, available at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/stats_research/afcars/trends.htm; University of California at Berkeley Center for Social Services (2005). Child Welfare Service Reports for California (2005), available at http://cssr.berkeley.edu/CWSCMSreports/.)

[2] Id.

[3] (For a more in depth discussion of these challenges please see Casey Family Programs (2001). It’s my life: Summary of a Framework for Youth Transitioning from Foster Care to Successful Adulthood, available at http://www.casey.org/Resources/Publications/pdf/ItsMyLife_Framework_Summary.pdf).

[4] However, I want to reiterate that I use the term “normal” loosely because I am in no way implying that every teen not in foster care or similar situation learns these things in their family environment, nor am I implying that every teen in foster care will not learn these things; I am rather hoping to speak for those in the gray area.

[5] Again I wish to make clear that I am speaking for those who are in this situation, which means I am in no way implying that all youth aging out of the foster care system are automatically thrown out of what ever situation they are in (i.e., foster home, transitional housing, group home, etc.).