Issue Position: Helping our Most Vulnerable: Supporting the Foster Care Package

Issue Position

Children who age-out of the child welfare system often face significant barriers in comparison to their peers living in permanent homes. Studies show that one in five will become homeless after age 18 and only half will be employed by age 24. Few finish high school or go to college; about 60 percent of boys and half of girls are incarcerated at some point in their life. Additionally, for every child that ages out of the foster cares system, taxpayers and communities pay an estimated $300,000 in social costs over that person's lifetime. Taking a holistic approach, the Foster Care Package addressed ways to assist families and children once they've entered the child welfare system, once they have aged out, and ways to support families to help prevent them from entering into the welfare system in the first place.

KEY ELEMENTS OF THE FOSTER CARE PACKAGE:

Foster Home Licensing Act remove barriers to foster parent licensing in order to improve stability and continuity of foster care placements.
UW and Technical College Tuition Remission for foster care students to help foster care students attend college.
Increased Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Grants.
Increases payments for the foster and kinship care programs, which provide safe homes for vulnerable youth to help foster parents provide food, clothing, housing, basic transportation, personal care, and other expenses for children under their care.
Additional funding for Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASAs).

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