The Facts
Children Need Families to Succeed.
Tragically, trauma caused by abuse, violence and neglect compounds these problems rendering children who have grown up without nurturing from a committed parent or parents greatly challenged to succeed. Additionally, the US foster care system allows children and young adults to be moved from home to home. These moves slowly erode a chlid’s trust in adults and disillusion them. Children cope in a variety of ways. Many or their actions have negative or detrimental results.
The Risks
Without a committed relationship with an adult they are at great risk to crime and homelessness, lack of education, underemployment, and teen pregnancy. They lack the skills to build strong relationships and have their own healthy families.
Each year, 26,000 youth emancipate from foster care without the family support, education and community relationships that help them make successful transitions to adulthood. These young people experience very poor outcomes at a much higher rate than the general population.
- More than one in five will become homeless after age 18
- Only 58 percent will graduate high school by age 19 (compared to 87 percent of all 19 year olds)
- 71 percent of young women are pregnant by 21, facing higher rates of unemployment, criminal conviction, public assistance, and involvement in the child welfare system
- At the age of 24, only half are employed
- Fewer than 3 percent will earn a college degree by age 25 (compared to 28 percent of all 25 year olds
- One in four will be involved in the justice system within two years of leaving the foster care system
A Piece of the Solution
Families…through hosting.
“There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.”
~Nelson Mandela
Kidsave’s Family Visit Model is a TOOL that governments, churches and other advocates can use to supplement their efforts finding a child a permanent connection – whether that be an adoptive family, a legal guardianship or a committed mentor. The Model supports social workers and volunteers to help increase the number of families interested in children/older older youth that are traditionally harder to place.
The Model enables community outreach and visits with volunteer host families on weekends and during school vacations which build trust and begin to set the wheels in motion to find a young person a permanent family.
The Kidsave Model
Learn how you can implement the Kidsave Family Visit Model in your agency or organization.