Helping Foster Children Cope as Instant Adults

You’re a teen-aged foster child, and you’ve long since learned that life isn’t easy. Not for you, anyway.

You were removed from your parents’ home because the problems there were so severe. You may have suffered physical or sexual abuse or the consequences of your parents’ drug addiction.

Since then, you’ve spent some time in shelters, been bounced from foster home to foster home, or maybe into a group home. Each time, you’ve adapted as best you could.

But now you’re about to face the biggest challenge of your life. On your 18th birthday, you will be legally transformed into an adult, whether you feel grown up that day or not.

That means the state won’t support you anymore, unless you’re still finishing high school, so you’ll have to get a job--whatever you can qualify for with no experience and, at best, a high school education. Probably minimum wage.

Without the government subsidy, your foster family probably can’t afford to keep you, so you’ll need a place to live. Just your luck that Orange County is one of the nation’s most-expensive housing markets. Even to get in the door, you’ll probably need to come up with 2 months’ rent and a security deposit.

You’ll need a car to get to and from your job. Don’t forget car insurance--health insurance, too. All told, you’ll need a couple thousand dollars just to get started.

Don’t let it bother you that most of the other kids are going off to college. If you stash away some money, you may be able to take some night classes next year.

Good luck, kid. You’re on your own now.

Oh, by the way. Happy birthday.

Similar scenarios are played out about 10 to 15 times a month in Orange County, according to Mike Nissen, one of the organizers of LEAP (Life Enrichment and Assistance Program), a private, nonprofit service set up by the county Child Abuse Council to help foster children as they become adults.

“These kids are falling through the cracks,” says Susan Scott, another of the organizers. “It’s a very tough situation as to what to do with them. People are willing to help young children. But when they’re over 18, they say, ‘Let them go out and get a job. They can sling hamburgers at McDonald’s.’

“Well, some of them can, but others can’t. And even if they can, they can’t afford a place to live. In Orange County a lot of people, even if they’re college-educated, still can’t get an apartment on their own.”

The problem is compounded, says Scott, by the fact that “these most generally are not well-adjusted kids. They still have problems because of their backgrounds.”

“Some kids have more resources than others,” says Glenda Mauer, who chairs the Child Abuse Council. But as a group, (former foster children) are very needy.”

Because the system stops keeping track of foster children after they become adults, there are no statistics on what happens to them. Nissen, a Newport Beach marriage, family and child counselor, says some end up living a nomadic existence, camping out on friends’ couches for weeks at a time.

“My guess is that some of them are living on the street somewhere,” says Scott, also a marriage, family and child counselor in Newport Beach.

Since LEAP was set up over a year ago, 15 young adults 18 to 21 years old have received some sort of assistance in setting up their lives. Some are former foster children; others come from various kinds of dysfunctional homes.

Now the council hopes to expand the program to try to reach more brand-new adults in need, Nissen says.

The program’s goal is to help its clients become independent, says Mauer.

“We didn’t want to carry on that dependency feeling,” says Sheila Dobbs, the council’s former chairwoman. LEAP concentrates on locating resources, but “they have to do all the follow-up and learn to see it through,” she says.

For example, LEAP paid for a suit of job-interview clothes for one client and helped another write and publish a classified ad seeking work. They found a doctor willing to treat a young uninsured man for a medical problem that had to be solved before he could get a job.

“We gave him the doctor’s name, but he had to follow up himself. And he did,” Dobbs says.

So far, LEAP hasn’t been able to help any of its clients with housing, “and that’s what they need most,” Scott says. “We’d like to be able to give them their first and last months’ rent, if they could show that they have a job and are responsible. But so far we haven’t had much luck finding places for them to live.”

The program’s funding comes from the council’s $17,000 Thomas F. Riley Endowment Fund, named for the Orange County 5th District supervisor. All the money is from private sources.

Each client is assigned a volunteer advocate who serves not as a parent but as an adviser in dealing with the realities of adult life. In some cases, that can be the former foster parent, Nissen says.

“Usually the (former) foster parents are trying to help,” he says. “But they just don’t have the resources.”

The program is now being revamped, Mauer says, “so that we can get the services to young people more efficiently.”

So far, several major obstacles have prevented LEAP from helping more clients, Nissen says. Not only are most former foster children unaware of LEAP, but so are many social workers. “The key is letting them know we’re here,” he says.

Some potential clients call LEAP only to be discouraged by the lengthy application form they must fill out to receive help. “I’ve had phone calls from people who say, ‘I’ve heard about your program,’ and I’ve sent them an application and never got it back,” Scott says. “It is a fairly extensive questionnaire. But we can’t be dispersing hundreds of dollars without knowing the background of the person we’re giving it to, or how it will be used.”

Also, Nissen says, there’s a shortage of volunteers to serve as advocates. “We need someone who’s willing to ride along with the kid for about a year or two to help him get going.”

Unfortunately, the program’s emphasis on independence lessens its appeal to some potential volunteers, he says. “A lot of people would rather deal with younger kids. The idea of having someone lean on you seems to appeal to people more than helping them become independent.”

Jan Hofmann is a regular contributor to Orange County Life.