Support Services for Youth in Transition: Community Connections and Supportive Relationships

Resources address ways to help transitioning youth develop connections in their communities and sustain relationships with caring adults and peers.

20 Things a Permanent Connection Means to Me (PDF - 7,035 KB)
Fresno County Department of Children and Family Services, California Permanency for Youth Project Initiative (2006)
In Finding Permanency for Youth: Resource Handbook
Offers a list of what permanent connections mean to a group of current and former youth in foster care and on probation polled in California.

Connected by 25: A Plan for Investing in the Social, Emotional and Physical Well-Being of Older Youth in Foster Care (PDF - 1,463 KB)
Hanson Langford & Badeau (2013)
Mainspring Consulting & Youth Transition Funders Group
Recommends investment strategies for public and private funders and funder collaboratives seeking to improve the social, emotional, and physical well-being of older youth transitioning from foster care.

Guide to Mapping Community Assets for Transitioning Youth (PDF - 4,833 KB)
Gaughen (2010)
Annie E. Casey Foundation, Fostering Connections Resource Center, Connected by 25, & The Finance Project
Helps State and community leaders systematically map the support and services available to young people transitioning from foster care.

Helping Youth Succeed as Adults: The Challenge of Aging Out (PDF - 1,331 KB)
Redell
The Connection, Spring 2008
Stresses the need to provide connections for youth and describes the California-based Family Connections program in which CASA volunteers are trained to locate close family friends, neighbors, and family members with the goal of creating a permanent connection for the youth they serve.

Helping Youth Transition to Adulthood: Guidance for Foster Parents
Series Title Factsheets for Families
Author(s)
Child Welfare Information Gateway
Availability View
Download (PDF - 487KB)
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Year Published 2013
Provides foster parents with guidance on how to help youth and emerging adults build a foundation for a successful transition to adult life outside of foster care. The first section provides background information on some of the unique challenges that youth in foster care face as they navigate their teenage years, and it includes information on brain development in young adults and programs that can help youth transition successfully to adulthood. The second part includes eight tip sheets that provide information and resources for foster parents on specific topics—such as money management, health care, and employment—so that they can better help youth prepare for independence.

Measuring Relational Permanence of Youth: Youth Connections Scale (PDF - 513 KB)
Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare (2012)
Introduces a tool to help child welfare professionals measure the emotional and relational permanence of the youth with whom they work. This brief also discusses the pilot validation study of the scale and strategies for implementing the scale as an evaluative and case-planning tool in child welfare.

Overcoming System Failure to Help Youth Find and Sustain Positive Relationships
McAllister
Fostering Perspectives: Views on Foster Care and Adoption in North Carolina, 13(1), 2008
Focuses on the lack of support for young adults aging out of foster care and emphasizes the need to build support networks. The article explains the need to provide youth with a personal support system of at least five caring adults in addition to professional relationships, and barriers to building support networks.

A Reason, a Season, or a Lifetime: Relational Permanence Among Young Adults With Foster Care Backgrounds (PDF - 441 KB)
Samuels (2008)
Explores the social support networks of youth aging out of the foster care system and examines how foster care might constrain or facilitate supportive relationships into adulthood.

Safe Passage: How Philanthropy Is Working Together to Help All of America's Youth Connect by Age 25 (PDF - 828 KB)
Youth Transition Funders Group (2006)
Discusses ways to invest in initiatives that help connect and support youth in transition in three key areas: education, the courts, and foster care.

Tapping the Inner Circle: Supporting Youth in Transition (PDF - 217 KB)
Chiamulera
ABA Child Law Practice, 27(3), 2008
Explores the social support networks among 29 youth formerly in foster care who participated in Opportunity Passport, an Independent Living program provided through the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative. The findings indicate that adults play a key role in the transition to early adulthood and that transitioning youth have support needs that directly relate to the loss of their biological parent and family support system.

Young People Need Families: Practice Strategies to Make Permanence a Priority (PDF - 352 KB)
National Convening on Youth Permanence (2008)
Describes strategies for helping youth find a permanent family, prepare for adulthood, achieve academic and career success, and gain access to quality housing and health care.