Listen to thisVIRGINIA
A bipartisan bill to extend foster care in Virginia to age 21 is zipping through the General Assembly without opposition. That's how sensible it is.
One cloud remains for youths in foster care approaching 19, the current cutoff for most in the system. While the legislation is on a fast track, implementation of the change will have to wait a couple of years. Those will be years of heightened peril for the young adults affected.
The delays are necessary, though, because changing the state's program for foster care assistance will mean revising regulations and then getting federal approval: That's essential, because the change in policy will allow Virginia partial federal reimbursement for young adults ages 19 to 21, making the expansion cost-neutral for the state.
The Department of Planning and Budget's fiscal impact statement notes, "Making foster care to age 21 a statewide policy is projected to result in a 23 percent increase in caseload for this age grouping." The extension would make a bit more than half the projected caseload eligible for federal reimbursement.
Meaning? "Total costs would increase from $29.2 million to $35.7 million for FY 2016. However, these costs for the additional eligible populations are fully offset by the additional federal reimbursement of $7.2 million."
That makes the change a no-brainer even in a legislature as averse to tax increases as Virginia's. Taxpayers, of course, are acutely aware that all taxes come out of their pockets. But extending foster care support to age 21 is a savvy use of federal dollars.
Success Beyond 18 (many states end foster care at 18, before some kids graduate from high school) is a national campaign to better the odds in life for young people too soon on their own. It has put a number to the cost to society over the lifetime of a young person thrust into the adult world without the support of family or an adult who assumes a parental role: $300,000.
That's an average. The campaign, led by the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative, reports about 26,000 young people age out of foster care every year. They have no permanent family to guide and ease their transition to adulthood – to help them find a place to live, get a job, continue their schooling.
In short, to lend experience and the financial and emotional support most young adults need to make wise choices that will help launch them into successful lives. Certainly their peers with intact families need all of these things.
Young adults who grew up in a child-care system, not a family, need them all the more.
A 2013 "Success Beyond 18" white paper points out: "As emerging adults with complex histories – histories often involving trauma and loss – they typically need even greater support from family, other caring adults, and community to complete the developmental tasks of this transitional phase."
The bottom-line tab in the U.S. for those who end up with an early pregnancy, on public assistance, in jail or poorly educated: $7.8 billion. A year.
Roanoke Times Editorial Board
23 February 2014
http://www.roanoke.com/opinion/editorials/article_0040f580-9b55-11e3-9b02-001a4bcf6878.html
