County Acts to Boost Hiring of Foster Children : Employment: Action calls for county departments to give 5% of entry-level positions to youths leaving program. Quake may create up to 300 such jobs, one official estimates.

To improve the lot of foster care children once they leave the program at age 18, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a motion requiring that all county departments aim to give 5% of their entry-level positions to such youths.

“This is a great step forward,” said Peter Digre, director of the county Department of Children’s Services. “It sets a concrete target and standards that will lead to hundreds of kids having the security of employment.”

Digre estimated that despite a county hiring freeze, a boost in earthquake-related government jobs means the motion could create up to 300 jobs for the estimated 1,000 Los Angeles County youths who will be released from foster care this year. The action instructs two county departments to track whether departments are meeting the goal and to submit quarterly reports to the Board of Supervisors.

The motion, by Supervisor Deane Dana, cited a recent Times article about the plight of foster children once they leave the foster care system.

Although U.S. taxpayers last year spent more than $11 billion on foster care, most of the nearly 16,000 youths emancipated each year lack the skills or resources to get a job or an apartment, or to live on their own. According to various studies, 61% leave with no job experience, 25% end up on streets, 34% go on welfare and 66% leave foster care without a high school diploma. One-third survive by terrorizing others through muggings and robberies, studies have found.

“The bottom line here is that we are trying to avert these children getting on welfare. We need to keep them off the streets,” said Linda Tarnoff, a Dana deputy.

The board’s action also establishes the first job-training program for foster youths. It will give the 700 to 800 foster youths who are completing their junior year in high school priority for 8,500 federally funded summer youth employment and training programs

Under that program, foster youths who are behind in school will be given additional summer course work, said Stephanie Klopfleisch, chief deputy director of the Department of Community and Senior Citizens Services, which administers the program in Los Angeles County.

Digre said the department was moving on other fronts to help such teens, securing pledges from companies such as Walt Disney Co. and Hollywood Park Inc. to hire foster youth graduates. The department is also in the process of building or acquiring three housing complexes that would provide transitional housing for 75 foster care graduates each year.