How To Help Foster Children Transitioning Into Adulthood And College

Foster children transitioning into adulthood need support, guidance and encouraged independence. While younger foster children become used to adults running the show, those entering adulthood need to learn how to make important decisions for themselves. Here are a few ways to help your foster children make the transition into adulthood and college with ease.

Encourage Decision-Making

As your foster youth begins to age-out, encourage them to make decisions on their own. If they are considering entering a trade, let them seek out an internship or technical training to help build their skills. If they are considering college, show them how to research different schools on the internet, as well as different majors that may match their personality. Give them the chance to do the research themselves and take them on a campus tour.

Help Open Doors

Facilitate a meeting with the school guidance counselor to discuss scholarship opportunities, grants such as the Federal Pell Grant, and financial aid. There are several state and national scholarships available for foster children enrolling in college, including the Foster Care to Success Casey Family Scholars Program and the National Foster Parent Association (NFPA) Youth Scholarship.

Teach Them The Tools

Offer assistance in a job search by sharing resources, for example, showing them job searching websites like Indeed.com. Make sure they have appropriate attire and help them practice for the interview. Then, give them the chance to apply and follow-up on their own. While you should teach them the tools to be successful, you should encourage them to make their own decisions. This is how they will learn best as they enter adulthood.

Set High Expectations

Continue to speak positively about the possibility of a successful future. Find out what their long-term interests and goals are, and bring them up often. For example,  you could say things like, “When you are an engineer, you’ll design bridges like this,” or “when you go to college, you’ll need to know how to cook a few basic things on your own.” These small conversations will encourage your foster child to see a brighter future for themselves.

Start Them Young

Pre-teens and teenagers can already start learning tools to help them as adults, such as learning how to organize important documents, as well as ways to protect themselves from identity theft. Once teenagers have their first jobs, help them open up a checking account, so that they can start learning how to manage money and set a budget.

Use mistakes like occurring overdraft fees as a way to show them how to avoid such things once they are on their own. Talk to them about the importance of a good credit score to be able to rent a home or buy a car someday. It is never too early to start discussing ways to be responsible once they are an adult.

Foster children have different needs during different life phases. At age 18, they are expected to move out and start a life on their own, which can lead to a lot of uncertainty for a foster child that has had your support to depend on. Help them transition into adulthood by offering encouragement and teaching them new skills early-on. With a little work and a lot of love, your foster child will leave your home ready to fly the nest and to succeed as a hardworking member of society.

Every child needs and deserves to grow up safe and protected from abuse and neglect, and caring foster parents offer children support and stability when they need it most. At Camelot Care Centers, we specialize in higher-level foster care for children and adolescents that need extra support. We partner with our foster parents/homes to provide trauma informed care and additional services, including in-home counseling, parent support and training, tele-psychiatry, and therapeutic mentoring, to maintain children at the least restrictive, yet most appropriate level of care. Camelot Care Centers (“Camelot”) is a Child Welfare Agency licensed by the State of Illinois, a member of the Illinois Collaboration on Youth (ICOY), and is accredited by the Council on Accreditation (COA).