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The National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) will be hosting an audio conference on - Family Preservation for Older Youth - on Thursday, June 12, 2008 at 3pm ET.

According to NAEH, with at least one million youth on the streets and in shelter in America, and hundreds of thousands more leaving juvenile justice placement, mental health facilities, and child welfare systems, the problem of youth homelessness continues unabated. Research indicates that most youth flee homes due to severe conflict, abuse, and neglect. The issues propelling older youth into homelessness are often the same issues that drive younger children into child protection and foster care. Preventing youth homelessness before it occurs is a critical part of ending homelessness among youth. Some communities offer family preservation services to families with infants and younger children as a means of preventing an out-of-home placement. These same services should be offered to older adolescents experiencing family conflict and neglect, with the assurance that youth will only be returned to safe and nurturing families. A review of community responses and best practices in family preservation (which focus on resolving conflict and decreasing the incidence of abuse and neglect) will be offered with a special consideration toward practices geared toward older adolescents.

Featured Speakers

Anne Cornell, Chair of the National Family Preservation Network
Debbie Shore, Executive Director at Sasha Bruce Youthwork

Click here to find out how to listen.

The Urban Institute’s Child Welfare Research Program has published two new reports on aging out youth and child care vouchers.

“Coming of Age: Employment Outcomes for Youth Who Age Out of Foster Care Through Their Middle Twenties” recommends that in some cases services to youth aging out of foster care extend beyond those reaching age 18 or even 21. Among the observations “at age 24, youth who age out of foster care do not fare well on a variety of employment outcomes. Compared to youth nationally and even youth from low-income families, they are less likely to be employed or employed regularly, and, not surprisingly, they earn very little.” To read the full report click here.

The second report “Child Care Voucher Programs: Provider Experiences in Five Counties” suggests numerous policy strategies to help the voucher system better meet the needs of providers so that they can meet the needs of families. According to the report, the policy recommendations can be grouped into strategies to ensure payment levels similar to what providers charge private-paying parents, to minimize revenue losses arising from changes in family eligibility or authorization status, to improve payment timing, to make it easier to work with voucher agencies, and to help providers deliver extra supports to subsidized parents and children. To read the full report click here.

It is always a pleasure to have New Jersey’s successful initiatives highlighted in a national magazine. Thus it was with real pleasure to read “Foster Kids No More
The youth housing revolution takes off” in the May 2008 issue of Affordable Housing Finance. The article mentions the first two permanent housing for aging out youth projects in new Jersey - Life Link Homes developed by Robins’ Nest and Camden DREAMS by the Center for Family Services.

The article notes “From coast to coast, dozens of new communities like Life Link are being built to provide supportive housing to kids aging out of foster care, usually when they turn 18. A few years ago, these communities were rare, but now several states have put funds behind the developments. At the same time, the oldest projects have been operating long enough to show developers planning new ones how it’s done and what to watch out for.” According to the Government Accountability Office “Between 25 percent and 40 percent of the young people who leave foster care become homeless within a year”.

To read the full article click here.

The following is the opening of the article.

Foster Kids No More: The youth housing revolution takes off

AFFORDABLE HOUSING FINANCE - May 2008

BY BENDIX ANDERSON

GRASSBORO, N.J. — Fire trucks have been called to the Life Link Homes here seven times since construction finished last October. No one has been hurt, and the fires caused no damage to Life Link’s 30 apartments, which provide permanent housing with services to young people just out of foster care. The tenants are old enough to sign apartment leases, but for the most part, they have little cooking experience. So they regularly set off smoke detectors with minor accidental fires, which automatically summon the firefighters.

“Serving aging-out youth can be challenging,” said Ruth London, chief operating officer of Robins’ Nest, Inc., a nonprofit developer and service provider that helps more than 4,500 children and young adults a year in New Jersey’s foster care system. “It can also be tremendously rewarding.”

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Tags: Aging-Out-Youth, Camden DREAMS, Ending Homelessness, Robins-Nest, Supportive Housing

On October 26, 2007, Robins’ Nest opened the last twenty units of permanent, affordable housing in Life Link Homes. Life Link Homes is a permanent, affordable and supportive housing development sponsored by Robins’ Nest, Inc. Now that it is completed, this project provides thirty (30) permanent, affordable and supportive housing units three buildings.  Each building  consists of ten (10) efficiency apartments, each with it’s own kitchenette and bathroom.  Additionally, each building will have common areas as well as a manager’s apartment.  The project will provide housing for young adults aging out of the foster care system.

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Life Link Homes is a permanent, affordable and supportive housing development sponsored by Robins’ Nest, Inc. When complete, this project will provide thirty (30) permanent, affordable and supportive housing units three buildings.  Each building will consist of ten (10) efficiency apartments, each with it’s own kitchenette and bathroom.  Additionally, each building will have common areas as well as a manager’s apartment.  The project will provide housing for young adults aging out of the foster care system.

Read the rest of this entry »