On Their Own Quotes

“Each year, between 18,500 and 25,000 teenagers “age out” of foster care by virtue of reaching the age at which their legal right to foster care ends”
― Martha Shirk, On Their Own: What Happens to Kids When They Age Out of the Foster Care System

“Although white children and African American children land in foster care in roughly equal numbers, African American children are disproportionately likely both to enter foster care and to remain there until they become adults, a troubling phenomenon. African American children account for only 15 percent of all children in the United States, but they accounted for 27 percent of those entering care in 2003 (the last year for which national data are available) and 35 percent of those in care.8”
― Martha Shirk, On Their Own: What Happens to Kids When They Age Out of the Foster Care System

“group homes or large residential institutions where many teens live, their caretakers are often poorly paid shift workers; despite the low wages, care in these settings costs taxpayers up to ten times the cost of family foster care. Over time, many teens experience stays in both settings.”
― Martha Shirk, On Their Own: What Happens to Kids When They Age Out of the Foster Care System

“Although the rise in overall numbers has made it increasingly difficult to find family settings for all ages of children, this is especially true for teenagers. They are by nature rebellious and difficult to work with, so relatively few foster families are willing to try. As a result, only 60 percent of children fourteen and older live in foster or pre-adoptive homes, compared with more than 90 percent of younger children.”
― Martha Shirk, On Their Own: What Happens to Kids When They Age Out of the Foster Care System

“Although Hollywood commonly portrays children in foster care as toddlers clutching teddy bears, nearly one-half are eleven or older. And about one-fifth—103,500—are sixteen or older.”
― Martha Shirk, On Their Own: What Happens to Kids When They Age Out of the Foster Care System

“The psychological trauma created by the removal, combined with the neglect or abuse that preceded it, leaves the child forever changed and forever different from other children.”
― Martha Shirk, On Their Own: What Happens to Kids When They Age Out of the Foster Care System

“Try to imagine that you have just turned eighteen and have been put out of your foster home. You may have amassed some savings from a part-time job and received a one-time “emancipation” grant, but you don’t have a job. You have no idea where you’ll sleep tonight, let alone next week or next month. Your belongings are packed into two plastic bags. Your family is unable to help, and may even have disappeared. Further clouding your prospects are your educational deficits and a history of trouble with the law. You read at a seventh grade level. You were held back a grade, and you have a police record.1 What kind of future would you predict for yourself? Can you cope with: • Sudden homelessness, at least temporarily, while you wander through the referral maze? • Difficulty finding a job, since you don’t have a permanent address or even the basic documents you need—like a birth certificate and a Social Security card—to fill out a job application or a W-4? • An interruption in your education, not just because of the cost, but also because of complex eligibility requirements and your inability to document your school record? • The pressure to engage in unhealthy or even illegal behaviors as a means of survival?   Whatever you are imagining as your fate, the reality is much worse for many youth who age out of foster care. Data from several studies paint a troubling picture. Within a few years of leaving foster care: • Only slightly more than half of these young people have graduated from high school, compared with 85 percent of all youth eighteen to twenty-four years old. • One-fourth have endured some period of homelessness. • Almost two-thirds have not maintained employment for a year. • Four out of ten have become parents. • Not even one in five is completely self-supporting. • One in four males and one in ten females have spent time in jail.2”
― Martha Shirk, On Their Own: What Happens to Kids When They Age Out of the Foster Care System

“In most states, on the day that a child in foster care turns eighteen, these supports largely disappear. The people who once attended to that child’s needs are now either unable or unwilling to continue; a new case demands their time, a new child requires the bed.”
― Martha Shirk, On Their Own: What Happens to Kids When They Age Out of the Foster Care System

“For as many as 25,000 other children who reach their eighteenth birthdays each year, the emotions are similar. But there is a defining difference. These are young people who step through a doorway into a world full of unknowns, without the connections and supports that other children take for granted. Something has happened in their lives that forever makes them different: Usually through no fault of their own, they were taken away from their families and placed in foster care.1 They entered a bureaucratic system peopled with strangers who had complete control over where they lived, where they went to school, and even whether they ever saw their families again. The supports in their lives were not people who loved them, but people who were paid for the roles they played—caseworkers, judges, attorneys, and either shift workers in group homes or a succession of often kind, but always temporary, foster parents. In most states, on the day that a child in foster care turns eighteen, these supports largely disappear. The people who once attended to that child’s needs are now either unable or unwilling to continue; a new case demands their time, a new child requires the bed. There is often no one with whom to share small successes. And with no one to approach for advice, garden-variety emergencies—a flat tire, a stolen wallet, a missing birth certificate—escalate into full-blown crises.”
― Martha Shirk, On Their Own: What Happens to Kids When They Age Out of the Foster Care System