Increased age limit to 21 improves odds for at-risk children

By Brian Leubitz

During her tenure in the Assembly, Karen Bass made improving foster care a focus.  The biggest piece of this effort is likely AB 12:

Beginning January 1, 2012, the California Fostering Connections to Success Act (AB 12) takes effects, raising the age limit for foster care over three years from 18 to 21. During that time, kids in foster care will get financial assistance with housing – including college dorms, group homes, foster homes, shared housing and transitional housing – and have access to job skills and life skills classes, mental health counseling, advice on college or vocational education, and a host of other programs designed to help them become self-sufficient. (Silicon Valley Education Foundations)

Click through to read the compelling story of one young adult in foster care, but from a general perspective, this makes a lot of sense.  I couldn’t imagine being completely on my own when I was 18, and to expect anything but disastrous results from just releasing at-risk 18 year olds to the rather cruel world seems naive at best.

Of course, the big concern is that we don’t continue the support for these young adults.  With the recent wave of budget cuts and the likely additional cuts when that $4b doesn’t show up, a defunding could recreate the risk all over again.

I mentioned the foster care story in the California Watch earlier today, but there is just so much to the story I didn’t want to leave it at that.

But a surprisingly low number of these students receive all the grants they’re eligible for because they don’t get adequate information about financial aid, and the aid programs themselves present hurdles, according to a new but little-noticed study from the Institute for College Access & Success.

Plus, automatic Cal Grants are only for students who apply within a year of graduation – aging out many former foster youth. The study recommends a few important changes: Speed up the timing of the Chafee Grant. Award more grants, factoring in attrition. Rethink the age limits on Cal Grants and Chafee Grants. Guarantee Cal Grants for foster youth.

The need for aid for former foster youth – not to mention all low-income students – will only increase with this year’s fee increases. (California Watch)

There are a number of failures here. A straight-up funding failure on the part of the state. We simply aren’t providing enough resources for the children that are under the care of the state. The governor threatened to completely eliminate CalGrants next year, and he is likely to put pressure on that again this year.

But the most upsetting failure is the lack of intervention in the lives of these children. While the state should be working with them to facilitate the transfer out of foster care and into their own majority, there just aren’t enough resources for the local foster care agencies to provide enough one-on-one support to each of these students.

We owe our foster children more than that.  It is a sad statement that once again, Arnold and the Republicans are looking at making life even more difficult for them.

Two weeks ago, the House of Representatives passed Paid Parental Leave for Federal Employees. Women’s Policy Inc. explains that “the bill would allow federal employees to be paid for four of the twelve weeks of parental leave to which they are entitled under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) (P.L. 103-3). The legislation also would permit federal employees to use up to eight weeks of accrued sick leave for parental leave.”

It seems like a pretty good piece of legislation, and even if you have some reservations about the particular legislation, the principle of supporting new parents is certainly tough to argue with. Unless of course you’re Rep. Darrell Issa, in which case you’re completely insane and terrified of the coming scourge of out-of-control foster parenting:

“[L]et’s look at this from a practical standpoint. You are running a federal department. You have somebody who you need, and every single year, as often happens, they take on a new foster child that they keep for three to five years and they have, let’s say, three foster children. That means that individual will be gone on paid leave over and above their vacation, over and above their 13 days of sick leave a year, they are going to be gone four weeks every year, conceivably for a full 20 years.

A relatively brief perusal of foster care statistics reveals that only 46% of foster care placement is to a non-relative foster family home in the first place. It’s hard to believe that those nearly 237,000 foster children, when distributed throughout the entire national network of foster families drawn from 300 million Americans, is a terrible danger to the 7 million non-contractor federal employees from the same year as the foster care statistics.

But apparently our federal bureaucracy is overrun by lurking foster parents poised to strike now that they can spend their entire federal careers taking in foster children in order to get out of work. I’m the son of federal bureaucrats of varying level and description, and I find it hard to believe that going into work is so awful that you’d plot some nefarious foster parent plan for your entire adult life expressly to game the government.

Of course, Darrell Issa is the guy who thinks that 9/11 victims are just trying to bilk the government for a quick buck. And if Halliburton wants another Iraq contract ($15 billion in reported profits last year) or someone suggests eliminating tax breaks for oil companies, Issa’s happy to shell out the bucks. Or if it’s earmarks for pork that’ll help him get re-elected, he’ll throw down more than $100 million in federal dollars.

But the foster parent menace! It threatens us all. Sorry Darrell, but not everyone hates government as much as you do.