Children and youth in foster care often face significant difficulties due to health and mental health issues rooted in their histories of trauma. Further, being separated from one’s family and entering foster care often creates additional trauma. Helping children and youth heal is essential to their short and long-term well-being and success in adulthood. To meet the complex health and mental health needs of children, youth, and young adults in foster care, policies should incentivize and expand the types of mental health services available and limit the use of psychotropic medication. Helping children and youth heal opens the door for them to succeed in school, work and life.

Families provide a sense of belonging and offer the love, support, and guidance that youth need as they navigate their teenage years and young adult lives. For youth in foster care, supportive relationships with adults are not only critical in navigating adolescence, they are cornerstones of successful reunification, adoption, and guardianship—the pathways to permanency. Unfortunately, the foster care experience for youth is often marked by frequent placement changes, school changes, and leaving foster care without being safely reunited with their families or connected to another lifelong family. But solutions exist. Policies should nurture family connections for all children, youth, and young adults in foster care, create better permanency outcomes, expand every youth’s network of caring adults, and stop youth from aging out of foster care on their own.

The transition from adolescence to adulthood is a crucial time in the life of a young person. Parents, relatives, and supportive adults play a key role during this period of rapid growth and their involvement can influence the trajectory of a young person’s life. In addition, adolescence is a period of rapid brain development and provides a window of opportunity to engage youth in decision-making, help youth build resilience and equip them with skills and relationships so they can thrive. Policies should ensure that youth and young adults are actively engaged in decision-making about their lives and the programs that serve and support them. Policies also must promote positive experiences and healthy relationships for all youth and young adults so they have opportunities for success in adulthood.

Overall, there is much room for improvement with respect to the outcomes and opportunities that youth and young adults in foster care experience. The poor outcomes associated with youth aging out of foster care are well documented and include increased risk of homelessness, higher rates of poverty and challenges stemming from unmet mental health needs. Youth and young adults of color and youth who identify as LGBTQIA are more than twice as likely to experience poor outcomes. Policies should increase accountability on all levels to ensure that each young person’s experience is positive and results in the best possible outcomes. Policies should also reflect the fact that young people with lived expertise offer invaluable perspectives on what’s working and what’s not.

Youth who have spent time in foster care face a particularly steep climb on the road to adulthood. They may still be healing from past trauma and often don’t have the safe, stable, connections to supportive adults that others rely on. Policies should address the systemic gaps that contribute to this steep climb by making supportive services and resources available to help all youth who experience foster care meet basic daily needs, including housing education and career preparation. Policies should also support nurturing connections to culture, community and lifelong family. Policies should ensure young parents also are supported in their transition to adulthood and as they care and nurture the health and well-being of their children.

Youth and young adults who experience foster care have the same dreams and aspirations for bright futures that others have. They desire to succeed in school, work, and family life. Yet, studies consistently highlight the dire outcomes for young people who age out of foster care, which justifies the fear that many young people have about being able to secure stable housing and pay for basic daily needs, much less save for their futures. These worries are often intensified for young parents who are caring for young children. Policies should put all youth and young adults on a path towards economic security by supporting education and early work experience for all young people who experience foster care as well as helping them build key assets, both during their teenage years and into young adulthood so they can gain a foothold in the world of school and work.