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Over 400,000 children are in foster care in the United States, and more than 100,000 of them are waiting to be adopted. Yet many will age out of foster care into adulthood without an adoptive family. Teens and young adults aging out of foster care, even those with preparation and training for the transition, often do not fare well in young adulthood. Many face challenges in areas of education, employment, homelessness, finances, the criminal justice system, and meeting health and mental healthcare needs. Research demonstrates what only makes sense: teens with tangible support from meaningful adult relationships fare better than those without. This article describes an innovative program that connects teens in foster care with supportive adults through social events that can lead to meaningful long-term teen-adult connections - including friendships, mentoring, and even, in some cases, adoption. Pediatric nurses, aware of the challenges these teens face adjusting to adulthood, can begin to explore referral and support options for such teens in their own locales using the resources herein.
Almost 428,000 children nationwide are in the United States foster care system (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [DHHS], 2016). Over one-fourth of these children, approximately 112,000, are waiting to be adopted. Yet only 15,000 (4%) are in pre-adoptive foster homes, the term for a foster family planning to adopt a child (DHHS, 2016). Some children are also in foster families who will adopt them, even though the family's status has not been officially changed to "pre-adoptive" (S. Punnett, personal communication, November 11, 2016).
Social workers/adoption recruiters unfortunately have difficulty finding adoptive families for many children, particularly older children, in foster care. As children age, the amount of time a child waits to be placed with an adoptive family markedly increases, and the percentage placed for adaoption decreases dramatically (Family & Youth Initiative, n.d.). In fact, after spending 12 to 18 months in foster care, the chance of leaving care decreases "rapidly," and after 36 to 42 months in care, the chance of leaving care before emancipation is "incredibly low" (National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being [NSCAW], 2013, p. 5).
In 2015, the mean age of children in foster care waiting to be adopted was 7.6 years, and 43% of these children were...