Youth Aging out of Foster Care

Youth Aging out of Foster Care

Population

Youths tend to have challenges in completing colleges or vocational training studies after exiting the ex-fostered care system. The target population of the youth is mainly those below the age of 18 years; both males and females should participate in the study; both Americans and African-Americans from different ethnic groups should participate.

The demographic characteristics of such youth were; they were 50 in number, (68%, n=34) were between the age of 16-18 years, (20%, n=10) of them were between 15 to 16 years and (12%, n=6) of them were 15 years and below. In the study, ( 64% ,n=32) were male while the rest ( 36%, n=18) were females. The level of the study was that (68%,n=32) were in lower classes while the rest (36%, n=18) were in upper classes.

The mental health issues affecting these youth are mainly anxiety/ depression, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and the behavioral / conduct disorders that occur in youth who lack parental care tend to experience most of the time.

These individuals tend to lack skills, indulge in drug abuse, and face low self-esteem issues because, after foster care, young individuals are not followed up to track their progress. They end up having depression and indulging in activities that alter their future lives. Children who are in the foster care system do not have permanent status with their biological parents, their next of kin, or adoptive parents. With this lack of parental care, they are taken care of by some government facilitated programs until a certain age. Over recent years, there is a belief that young people who are almost turning 18 years old age out of foster care. In the United States, about 20000 youths per year live in foster care until after their eighteenth birthday. With this transition, these youths are vulnerable to poor social and economic outcomes during their adulthood years. Some of the teens from foster care systems return to their homes with no other support rather than government programs. This reduced concern to the youths will make them drop out of school, abuse drugs, and other criminal offenses that come with poor care (Jackson, Colvin & Bullock, 2019). Due to concern for the prospects of these youths, more attention has been projected to those getting out of foster care.

According to various foster care units, more services and resources needs to be channeled to these youths to safeguard their future lives. Despite this, in the United States, there were no funds directed to teenagers who were transitioning out of foster care. Besides, employment opportunities need to be provided to those individuals who are exiting foster care. For the effects such as depression affecting the youths leaving foster care systems, mental health education is recommended to relieve them from anxiety and other post-traumatic events that happened before they were adopted for foster care.

Available interventions

Depression in youth is mainly associated with reduced social occupation, lack of interpersonal relationships, substance abuse, and risk for harm to self. Age-appropriate treatment is necessary, and evidence-based therapy is ‘Cognitive behavioral therapy.’ CBT targets on improving the emotions of an individual by solving the current problems affecting them. It is used to treat other mental conditions such as anxiety. It used evidence-based techniques to address mental issues. This approach is made through counselling, where the therapist assists an individual in identifying the distressing symptoms and in setting goals to solve the problems (Jackson, Colvin & Bullock, 2019). For the case of anxiety, the use of CBT is to help patients in learning how to identify and manage the contributing factors to their anxiety. In the clinical setting, these interventions are achieved through the initiation of counselling sessions between therapists and clients.

The other evidence-based approach is the personal centered therapy (PCT); this approach is used in conditions such as ADHD where clients have hyperactivity issues. To address this problem, therapists need to choose a counselling technique that is suitable to address the needs of the clients, and this is mostly achieved in this group of clients who have particular health needs.

The other evidence-based therapy is psychodynamic therapy. This therapy assists patients in creating self-awareness. Particularly the youth from foster care are allowed to understand how their past is influencing their present behavior. They are given time to figure out how their current behavior is being affected and help them in achieving a positive behavior change. This is mainly done by helping youth make positive decisions and help them in identifying the past conflicting issues of the past.

Evidence for intervention use

First and foremost, the ideal clinical intervention for ex-fostered care youth is mental health education and counselling. These youths are most vulnerable to depression and other mental health issues. Some of them come off the fostered care systems with post-traumatic stress disorders and anxiety issues. From the previous researches, youths who are taught how to cope with mental problems, for example, using occupational therapies and counselling approaches, have shown to live a better life than those with no mental health education. Also, the introduction of occupational therapies such as games and sports together with team building activities assist making individuals free from stress and making them creative (Schoemaker et al.,2019). From recent studies, sports are shown to have a positive impact on an individual’s growth. Counselling using the CBT, PCT, and psychodynamic therapies has proved to be very positive among the individual’s health because the counselling processes have facilitated self-awareness, identification of the conflicting issues, and helping youth finding solutions to address these health problems.

References

Blaustein, M. E., & Kinniburgh, K. M. (2018). Treating traumatic stress in children and adolescents: How to foster resilience through attachment, self-regulation, and competency. Guilford Publications.

Jackson, S. M., Colvin, A. D., & Bullock, A. N. (2019). Strategies to Address Mental Health Challenges of Foster Youth Transitioning to College. Best Practices in Mental Health, 15(1), 20-31.

Schoemaker, N. K., Wentholt, W. G., Goemans, A., Vermeer, H. J., Juffer, F., & Alink, L. R. (2019). A meta-analytic review of parenting interventions in foster care and adoption. Development and psychopathology, 1-24.