Leaving Our Youth with Disabilities Behind

Leaving our youth with disabilities behind
Thursday, March 20th, 2008-Posted Orginally On NC Policy Watch

A recent report from the National Council on Disabilities offers some startling and sobering numbers regarding children in the nation’s foster care system. These data ought to serve as a warning to all of us to demand more from our policymakers and public institutions. Here are some of the “highlights” of the report:

Currently in the United States there are approximately 500,000 youth in the foster care system. As many as 800,000 such kids are served by the system each year. Thirteen percent of all youth aged 6 through 14 being served by the system have at least one documented disability.
The report from NCD lays out some “troubling patterns” in relation to youth with disabilities in foster care. For instance, youths with disabilities are 1.5 to 3.5 times more likely to have been abused or neglected.

Half the youths studied had mental problems, compared to 22% of the general public. Twenty-five percent had post-traumatic stress disorder, compared to 4% of the general public. Twenty percent had major depression, compared to 10% of the general public.
These challenges for youth in foster care spill over into their academic progress.

The report states that 30 to 40% of children in foster care are in special education. Many of these youth never finish high school. According to the report, only 9% of youth with disabilities attend a four year college and only 5% attend a vocational or technical school.

For foster youth with disabilities that do make it to college, only 5% complete their education. These numbers compare very unfavorably to the general public, where 60% of students graduating from high school continue on to college and 20% of students under the age of 25 attending a college program complete their degree.

State numbers parallel the NCD data. For instance, a recent report issued by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction shows that the four year graduation rate for youth with disabilities was only 49.9 percent, the lowest graduation percentage of all groups presented, while the graduation rate for the general population is 68.1 percent.

Youth with disabilities must have their educational and health needs met. We can no longer ignore the serious disparities that are occurring in this population. When a child with a disability does not receive a high quality of education, strong supports in transition services, affordable housing opportunities and access to employment options, our society has failed them.
Fortunately, there are solutions to these challenges. The National Council on Disabilities recommends the following:

Better collaboration between different service providers in the provision of “transitional services” that assist persons with disabilities enter the societal mainstream.
Better transition planning to help youth with disabilities in foster care transition to adulthood and achieve self-sufficiency.

Community organizations and the business sector should play stronger roles in providing transition services.

Transition services for youth with disabilities in foster care should be comprehensive and individualized and offer a full range of appropriate services.
Transition services should include exposure to the “independent living” philosophy, “hands-on” life skills opportunities, and networking opportunities.
More should be done to ensure access to appropriate transition services for youth with disabilities in the foster care system.

Colleges and other postsecondary learning institutions should better reach out to youth with disabilities.

Transition plans must take into account access to housing for both youth with disabilities and foster youth.

Institutionalized youth with disabilities in foster care are at great risk of being disconnected from society’s networks and should therefore be provided access to even more connecting services.
Youth should be eligible for needed transition services beyond age 21. State child welfare agencies should make transition services available for youth with disabilities up to age 23 or 24 when deemed appropriate.

The bottom line: There are serious and growing disparities that youth with disabilities face both in and out of the foster care system. These disparities show that we need to invest more and invest smarter in this vulnerable population. Until our state and nation face up to this hard reality, we will be consigning thousands of our citizens to lives of unfulfilled promise. We can and must do better.
Want to know more? You can read the NCD report at
http://www.ncd.gov/newsroom/publications/2008/FosterCareSystem_Report.html