Aging Out of Foster Care – Utah

Youth struggle to succeed after foster care, studies show, By Brooke Adams, May 5, 2010, Salt Lake Tribune: “Until she entered foster care, Bianca Flores was too busy tending her three younger siblings to attend school. Her mother was either sick or MIA, gone for nearly a week at a time. There was no dad — never had been. So Flores filled in as best she could, putting her own life on hold. But since January 2009, Flores has powered through three years of high school credits, and this spring she will do what seemed unimaginable a year ago: Flores, 18, will graduate from high school, the second person in her family to do so. Next up is an even bigger challenge — at the end of August, Flores will exit the state’s foster care system and become a student at Snow College, where she plans to pursue a degree in graphic design. If Flores succeeds, she will be defying the odds. Numerous studies, both here and in other parts of the country, have highlighted the struggles of youth who age out of foster care, finding they are more likely to be homeless, unemployed, under-educated and in jail. One report released this month found nearly 60 percent of young men had been convicted of a crime, compared with 10 percent of young men who had never been in foster care. For women, three-quarters were on public assistance by age 24…”