Giving foster kids tools for when they ‘age out’

updated 4:00 p.m. ET Sept. 10, 2007

ST. LOUIS - Annica Trotter knows firsthand the challenges foster children face as they become adults: She was already living on her own at age 18, three years after turning herself over to the state, entering the foster care system as a pregnant 15-year-old.

Trotter is now part of a St. Louis-based program that could serve as a national model to ease the transition from foster care to independence. The St. Louis Aging Out Initiative focuses on young people in state custody who don't have the resources needed to make a smooth transition to life on their own once they "age out," or are legally emancipated from the foster care system.

Without the program, it's estimated about half of the foster children in the St. Louis region who age out become homeless at some point. Less than half have a high school diploma or its equivalent, and about 80 percent of young women who age out become pregnant before 21, organizers said.

The program aims to help foster children before they're on their own.

"A lot of communities nationally are struggling with this," said Curtis Holloman, of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Local Initiative Funding Partners program. "How do we make sure these youth who live in so many different families or at so many different addresses are healthy, productive adults?"

The foundation, a New Jersey-based health care philanthropy, recently gave the St. Louis program a three-year, $500,000 matching grant; some $600,000 was already committed by area organizations involved in the program. If successful, Holloman sees it as a potential national model.

Many reach adulthood lacking crucial skills
Trotter said former foster children like her often enter adulthood lacking certain crucial skills.

Although she knew how to look after her own place or to call maintenance if something broke, she said, "I needed help with how a bank account worked, what's credit, filling out and maintaining a budget. No one really had time to explain those `little' big things to me, or they just assumed someone else had."

Now 21 and in college studying to be a paramedic, she works with foster children to help them navigate adulthood.

About 20,000 young people "age out" of the foster care system annually in the United States, including about 350 a year in Missouri. Missouri is among the states that can provide services up to age 21, but foster children seeking independence can opt out at 18.

Once they do, they're left to make their own decisions about finances, school, jobs, housing, even health insurance -- though foster children in Missouri qualify for health care coverage until they are 21, under a new law this year.

The Aging Out Initiative helps them acquire life skills, with a goal that they can take care of themselves financially by age 25, said Kevin Drollinger, executive director of Epworth Children and Family Services, the lead agency on the project.

It seeks to help teens with questions like, "What sort of funding assistance is available for college? How do I get my GED or learn about trade school?" Drollinger said.

"The idea is to piece together services and to let them choose from there."

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