Foster Care to Adulthood: Smoothing the Transition in Texas

by John Michaelson/TNS

AUSTIN, Texas – Success is being found in efforts to help the hundreds of Texas foster teens who are aging out of the system each year with the often tough transition into adulthood. The Preparation for Adult Living or PAL Program assigns case workers to help foster youth prepare for life on their own. Julie Moody, spokesperson with the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, says that includes support on everything from opening a checking account to applying for college.

“Anything teenagers need help with, our kids also need that help,” says Moody. “But they don’t have necessarily parents that they can lean on to give them good advice.”

Moody says also helping with the transition in Texas is funding that allows foster youth who turn 18 to opt-back in to care until they’re 21 as long as they’re still in high school, in college or working.

While making sure these young people have support is important, Moody notes the need would be much less if more of them were to find “forever homes.”

“No matter if kids are seven or 17, the truth is a child never outgrows the need for parents, and at every stage of our lives, we need love and guidance from adults who care about us,” she says.

In Texas, there are around 28,000 kids in foster care at any given time, and each year about 1,500 of them “age out” of system.