Help state's child-adults

Help state's child-adults

Palm Beach Post Editorial

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Nothing about turning 18 automatically prepares a child for adulthood.
So there is something irresponsible about the state of Florida's
abandonment of foster children once they turn 18.

This month, Gov. Bush signed a law that enhances the so-called
Road-to-Independence program for young adults ages 18 to 23 who had
been in foster care. It gives 18-year-olds an extra year with willing
foster families before they have to care for themselves. It allows
18-year-olds who know of this right to ask a judge whether the state
could do more to prepare the teen to live alone. It provides the young
adults temporary health insurance through the subsidized KidCare
program or Medicaid. And it covers for now the $892-a-month
"scholarship" the state pays to former foster kids who enroll in
college or vocational school.


It also furthers a system that, studies have shown, too often fails to
adequately prepare children who "age out" of foster care with the
skills they need to survive.

Last June, the Florida Department of Children and Families and its
private contractors had to determine the amount of a
Road-to-Independence scholarship based on the logical standard of the
"living and educational needs of the young adult." By December, it was
clear that needs were outpacing stipends. So DCF changed the rules,
giving a one-size-fits-all stipend that disregarded the child's actual
needs.

The Legislature planned to spend $16.4 million on the program, but was
embarrassed into adding $3 million after reports of former foster
children — undereducated, unemployed and ill-prepared for adulthood —
living on the streets, ending up in jails or mental institutions. The
state decided that a maximum of $10,704 per young adult — about $1,000
over the poverty threshold — was acceptable. It is not. The budget
also ignores that more children are becoming eligible for a
Road-to-Independence scholarship.

At best, former foster children get support from community groups,
such as Turtle's Nest and Kids@Home in Palm Beach County — featured in
The Post Monday which help students find affordable housing and get
life-skills training. In some parts of the state, former foster
children are encouraged to return to the dysfunctional families from
which the state removed them.

Florida can and should do better. Orphaned as children, foster kids
turning 18 in Florida should not again be orphaned as "adults."
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion...edit_0628.html

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18