Age Discrimination in Resources for Former Foster Youth

As a former foster youth, I can say with all the confidence in the world that survival mode is the basis for nearly all decisions that are made - survival mode is our default, more often than not. As someone whose default has been survival mode since she was six, I can also say that without having someone in your corner telling you about resources, you automatically assume you're on your own, and you act accordingly. This was the case for me from exiting foster care until I was 26. When I turned 26, my 8-year marriage, which was a domestic violence relationship, had ended and I was getting divorced - I needed help, but come to find out, I was too old to be helped now. Most foster care organizations only help youth until they're 24, sometimes 26. I was a couple months away from 27.

At 27, I was now in a situation where I was getting out of a domestic violence relationship, and included in my 27th year was a super painful and difficult pregnancy that I ended up losing, multiple eviction scares, and a car accident. No matter how many countless hours I spent sending emails and doing research, every organization that claimed to help current and former foster youth only helped the youngest ones - sound familiar? Older foster youth are often overlooked, but older former foster youth are overlooked as well.

You might be thinking that at 26-30 a former foster youth should have already established some security and not need the help that comes with being affected by foster care. However, if you think about it, so many foster kids leave the system without having a social worker or any kind of worker that keeps contact with them - personally, I couldn't even find a way to reach out to my social worker after turning 18. So, without a worker to let me know that there are resources, I thought I had to do everything on my own. I didn't know that there were any options otherwise, and if I did, maybe I wouldn't have ended up homeless as a teenager and entering into a domestic violence relationship and marriage at 19. It wasn't until it was "too late" that I found out there were resources that could positively change the course of my life and help me tremendously. Finding these resources after it was too late felt like a punch to the gut. "It's always something," I thought to myself.

Former foster youth don't stop being former foster youth at 24. In fact, sometimes it'll take them until then or until their frontal lobe has fully developed to even realize the help that exists for them or figure out how to access it on their own. At the end of the day, it's not fair that the youth who are at a higher advantage - those who have workers, mentors, etc. informing them of resources before it's too late - are the only ones that get the help they need. Older former foster youth deserve assistance and opportunities just as much as youth freshly existing care. Being 26-30 doesn't mean life gets easier, or your trauma stops affecting how you function.