Adrian started in foster care at the age of six and was eventually told by the youth shelter that he was “unadoptable” as a Black teenager. He aged out of foster care at the age of 18 and attended college for housing stability, only to be kicked out as he struggled to balance working and studying.
After losing her parents as a young child, Helen entered a kinship placement in high school. When family challenges arose, she crashed with her boss and house sat in order to have a place to sleep. In her first year of college, her relatives told her she no longer had a home to return to, leaving her to finish school without support.
After several wrong turns, Adrian and Helen found their paths in life. Today, Adrian works in policy for a national philanthropy foundation, and Helen is married and manages communications for a large adoption agency. Both stories are success cases of resilience and perseverance.
But for many of the more than 15,000 youth who age out of foster care each year, they are left on their own to survive and figure out their identity. These youth face significantly higher risks of homelessness, unemployment and poverty, with half falling into substance abuse and 70% becoming pregnant before the age of 21.
Here are some ways we can come together to help vulnerable youth transition to adulthood:
Promote adoption for older youth
Both Adrian and Helen wish they had been adopted, but they didn’t have those options available at the time.
Adrian explained, “I did want a forever family, and I think some form of adoption would have been amazing, even better if someone in my family had adopted me. There were just no adoption explorations.”
[Related: Prevention with protection: Making Family First work for every child]
Helen added, “I didn’t know anyone who could adopt me. To this point, if someone I know said I would adopt you, I would seriously consider it. I would love to be ‘chosen’ as a family member.”
Research shows that adoption for older youth is a huge need, yet youth aged 17 or older only accounted for 2% of all adoptions from foster care. We need to start the dialogue sooner with young people, so they are aware of their options and alternatives to emancipation.
Encourage community and connection
Older youth are much more likely to be adopted by someone with whom they have a prior relationship (approximately 57% of children and youth are adopted by their foster parents and approximately 33% by a relative), but many feel siloed and isolated — in independent living situations and/or separated from family.
“What should have made a difference but wasn’t there for me was having people who felt like family.””
—Helen, former homeless student
Helen and Adrian both highlight the critical need for more communities, schools and churches to address this lack of connectivity.
Helen stated, “What should have made a difference but wasn’t there for me was having people who felt like family.”
Adrian agreed, “We need more adults in the youth’s corner and a comprehensive safety net that goes beyond extended foster care. I don’t believe anyone is able to properly exit a formalized, legalized system like child welfare at the age of 18, let alone lead a normal life and be a successful, responsible citizen.”
Organizations like Lifeline Children’s Services Heritage Builders, Silver Line Mentoring and the National CASA/GAL Association for Children are vital in facilitating these crucial human connections. By expanding a young person’s network of caring adults and fostering genuine relationships, these groups can greatly improve their chances of finding permanent families.
And the support shouldn’t stop there. When we provide essential resources and life skills training through programs like YouthVillages’ LifeSet and iFoster, we need to make sure the delivery goes hand in hand with a lasting support system. Allowing authentic and organic connections to form while offering material aid is often the first step in initiating deeper conversations with the youth on their needs, fears and dreams of permanency and family.
Advocate for intercountry adoption (when necessary)
The problem of youth aging out happens on the international stage as well. Julie Duvall was adopted in Oregon as an adult after aging out of a Korean orphanage. Although intercountry adoption has come under criticism recently — with more countries closing their doors — Julie brings a different perspective on understanding the value that adoption can provide.
Courtesy of Leah Sutterlin
Leah Sutterlin
Julie wrote, “Adoption is not without loss, but it can also offer something many orphans never receive: identity. Adopted children are given names, families, citizenship and — perhaps most importantly — a sense of belonging. Many age
d-out orphans lived in silence and fear, denied the privilege of individuality and concealing their past to avoid discrimination.”
Julie now runs Love Beyond the Orphanage, an organization aimed at giving loving support to aged-out orphans in Korea through counseling, education and mentorship.
[Related: The healing power of camp — Trauma-informed adventures for kids in foster care]
She said, that although biological family reunification or domestic adoption should be explored, “intercountry adoption also saves lives in many circumstances and can offer a lifeline to children who would grow up in institutionalized care.”
Teenagers and young adults in foster care or orphanages should not need to face adulthood without support — without a place to return to for holidays or a person to encourage them through life’s many setbacks and disappointments.
We need more patient and caring adoptive parents to step up to the call to offer up their homes and families by becoming licensed for adoption in their state. We need more nonprofit and social workers to proactively encourage young people to consider adoption. Equally as important, we need each adult to keep an eye out for how they can be a safe haven, resource and friend to the youth in need around them. These young people can be in our baseball leagues, offices and school systems — as well as halfway around the world — and sometimes all we need to do is look.
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Leah Sutterlin was adopted from China and works today for the National Council for Adoption and the Christian Alliance for Orphans. Her work on adoption has been published by the Sacramento Bee, Christian Post, Montreal Gazette and other news sources.
