South Carolina Moves to Strengthen Extended Foster Care

There’s a new law in South Car­oli­na — one that aims to help young peo­ple make a smoother, more suc­cess­ful leap from fos­ter care to adult­hood. The leg­is­la­tion paves the way for the state to tap into a sig­nif­i­cant fund­ing source — the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment — to help cov­er the costs of its extend­ed fos­ter care pro­gram­ming, which serves young adults between the ages of 18 and 21.

Pri­or to pass­ing this law, South Car­oli­na foot­ed the full bill for its extend­ed fos­ter care ser­vices. As of May 1, 2022, 164 young adults across the state were uti­liz­ing this support.

Now, with fed­er­al dol­lars added to the mix, offi­cials antic­i­pate hir­ing more case­work­ers and tai­lor­ing sup­port to meet the needs of more youth, says Con­nel­ly-Anne Ragley, who directs com­mu­ni­ca­tions and exter­nal affairs for the state’s Depart­ment of Social Ser­vices, which has received tech­ni­cal assis­tance from the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Youth Advo­cate for Improv­ing Extend­ed Care — and Succeed

“We, as fos­ter youth, deserve a safe space, no mat­ter our age,” says Sier­ra Burns, 20, who is in extend­ed fos­ter care in South Car­oli­na. Burns has been active with the state’s youth advi­so­ry coun­cil and advo­cat­ed for the new leg­is­la­tion along­side oth­er coun­cil members.

When the bill was signed into law on May 11, 2022, Burns attend­ed the cer­e­mo­ny and shared her sto­ry about aging out of care.

“I felt I was ready,” Burns recalls of her leap to inde­pen­dence and out of the fos­ter care sys­tem. But, she quick­ly learned oth­er­wise. ​“I need­ed emer­gency hous­ing two months after I turned 18. With­out reach­ing out, I would have been home­less and would have been unable to pro­vide food or any oth­er basic needs for myself.”

Today, Burns says that she feels bet­ter pre­pared for adult­hood as she nears age 21, and she wants her peers to enjoy this same sense of security. 

“Trau­ma does not dis­ap­pear once we turn 18,” she told the crowd on hand for the bill-sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny. ​“I want you all to know, from a youth per­spec­tive, this is a huge step of progress that will make future youths’ lives change —for the better.”

The Nation­al Pic­ture for Extend­ed Fos­ter Care

Near­ly 15 years after fed­er­al sup­port became avail­able for extend­ed fos­ter care, 49 states and the Dis­trict of Colum­bia have adopt­ed such pro­gram­ming. Two excep­tions — Okla­homa and Puer­to Rico — still lack sim­i­lar pro­gram­ming for youth who turn 18 while in care.

Despite these gains, more than half of the old­er teens exit­ing fos­ter care each year — an esti­mat­ed 20,000 young peo­ple nation­al­ly — are thrust into inde­pen­dence upon reach­ing their state’s age of major­i­ty. The risk of eman­ci­pa­tion varies: Com­pared to their white peers, Black teens are 24% more like­ly and Lati­no teens 17% more like­ly to age out of care, accord­ing to nation­al data from 2020.

Like Burns, many eman­ci­pat­ed youth strug­gle with­out the safe­ty net and sup­port of per­ma­nent fam­i­ly, guardians or kin care­givers. Their intro­duc­tion to adult­hood is mired with increased rates of home­less­ness, hunger, aca­d­e­m­ic inter­rup­tions, crim­i­nal activ­i­ty, missed med­ical care, unwant­ed preg­nan­cy and oth­er harms, research shows.

Even when state pro­gram­ming is avail­able, young peo­ple don’t auto­mat­i­cal­ly ben­e­fit from it. For exam­ple: Just 25% of eli­gi­ble 19-year-olds were uti­liz­ing their state’s extend­ed care pro­grams before the pan­dem­ic, accord­ing to a Casey Foun­da­tion analy­sis. A sig­nif­i­cant but short-lived change occurred dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, with Con­gress pass­ing a tem­po­rary mora­to­ri­um on youth aging out of care. This stay expired in fall 2021.

Two Steps for Law­mak­ers to Consider 

Pol­i­cy­mak­ers look­ing to do more can fol­low South Carolina’s exam­ple and com­bine exist­ing state and fed­er­al resources to bet­ter serve young peo­ple in extend­ed care, says Leslie Gross, direc­tor of the Casey Foundation’s Fam­i­ly Well-Being Strat­e­gy Group.

“Child wel­fare sys­tems are respon­si­ble for build­ing a stronger bridge to adult­hood for all youth in their care,” Gross explains. ​“A com­bi­na­tion of greater fed­er­al and state part­ner­ship and invest­ment is nec­es­sary to ensure that every young per­son who reach­es age 18 while in fos­ter care has the com­pre­hen­sive and ongo­ing sup­port they need to thrive as adults.”

Beyond lever­ag­ing fed­er­al resources, says Gross, states can also fol­low South Carolina’s exam­ple in anoth­er way — by engag­ing ​“youth in the design and deliv­ery of effec­tive programming.”