Across the country, far too many young people age out of foster care into appalling circumstances. “Aging out” occurs when youth under the state’s custody are still in the foster care system when they reach either the age of majority or the end of extended foster care. Aging out refers to the moment in time when child welfare is no longer legally responsible for the youth, and the system abruptly stops providing services–usually when the youth turns either 18 or 21. Each year, thousands of youth age out of foster care, essentially legal orphans with no legal connection to family or a supportive network. Unfortunately, foster youth who go through the experience of aging out of foster care have statistically poor life prospects. Longitudinal studies across the country show very high rates of homelessness, incarceration, unemployment, and lack of access to health care among youth who aged out of foster care. These outcomes are disproportionately worse for Black, Native, and Brown youth, as well as queer and trans youth. This study is designed to understand the experiences of transition-age youth in their transition out of foster care and investigate: Why do poor outcomes for youth who age out of care persist? What are the current lived experiences of youth who age out of care? In what ways does child welfare continue to fall short for youth who age out of care?

Family Problems: Stress, Risk, and Resilience presents an interdisciplinary collection of original essays that push the boundaries of family science to reflect the increasingly diverse complexity of family concerns in the modern world. Represents the most up-to-date family problem research while addressing such contemporary issues as parental incarceration, same sex marriage, health care disparities, and welfare reform Features brief chapter introductions that provide context and direction to guide the student to the heart of what’s important in the piece that follows Includes critical thinking questions to enhance the utility of the book for classroom use Responds to family problem issues through the lens of a social justice perspective

"At age 17, Plato disclosed that he had been certain his whole life that he would die-most likely by being shot on the street like other Black young men he knew-by the age of 18. As his 18th birthday approached, Plato planned to spend his birthday alone, reflecting on the reality that he might have a future. As he approached adulthood and the transition out of foster care, the many possibilities seemed miraculous to him"--

Institutional placements in foster care are out-of-home, non-family placements where some foster youth are sent to live. Each year, of the hundreds of thousands of youth in foster care, over 43,000 live in institutional placements. These placements disproportionately impact Black youth, other youth of color, older youth, and pregnant and parenting teens. Due to calls to reckon with longstanding institutionalized racism, the spread of COVID-19 through institutions, concern over the use of forceful restraints, emerging research on trauma, and the recent death of 16 year-old Cornelius Fredericks in a Michigan group home, there is a growing body of research and a movement calling for the reduction or elimination of institutional placements in foster care. Missing from this conversation was a deep, nuanced understanding of the experiences and mental models of young people who have recently lived in these places. This study exists to fill that gap.

Social problems affect everyone. Because so many actual and potential problems confront us, it is often difficult to decide which ones affect us most severely. Is it the threat of death or injury during a terrorist attack? Is it the threat caused by industrial pollution that may poison us or destroy our physical environment? Or does quiet but viciously damaging gender, age, class, racial, or ethnic discrimination have the most far-reaching effect? Do the problems of cities affect us if we live in the suburbs? Do poorer nations′ problems with overpopulation affect our quality of life? The Encyclopedia of Social Problems offers an interdisciplinary perspective into many social issues that are a continuing concern in our lives, whether we confront them on a personal, local, regional, national, or global level. With more than 600 entries, these two volumes cover all of the major theories, approaches, and contemporary issues in social problems and also provide insight into how social conditions get defined as social problems, and the ways different people and organizations view and try to solve them. Key Features · Provides as comprehensive an approach as possible to this multifaceted field by using experts and scholars from 19 disciplines: anthropology, biology, business, chemistry, communications, criminal justice, demography, economics, education, environmental studies, geography, health, history, languages, political science, psychology, social work, sociology, and women′s studies · Presents a truly international effort with contributors from 17 countries: Argentina, Australia, Canada, England, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Italy, Kenya, New Zealand, Romania, Scotland, Turkey, and the United States · Addresses social problems that are fairly new, such as computer crimes and identity theft, and others that are centuries old, such as poverty and prostitution · Examines social problems differently from place to place and from one era to another · Explains the perspectives and foundations of various social theories and offers different lenses to view the same reality Key Themes · Aging and the Life Course · Community, Culture, and Change · Crime and Deviance · Economics and Work · Education · Family · Gender Inequality and Sexual Orientation · Health · Housing and Urbanization · Politics, Power, and War · Population and Environment · Poverty and Social Class · Race and Ethnic Relations · Social Movements · Social Theory · Substance Abuse Readers investigating virtually any social problem will find a rich treasure of information and insights in this reference work, making it a must-have resource for any academic library.

Human Behavior in the Social Environment: Interweaving the Inner and Outer Worlds is an essential human behavior textbook for social work students. The third edition emphasizes the biopsychosocial framework within a psychodynamic, developmental and life-course perspective and includes a brand new chapter on the psychosocial complexities of technological advances. Written by an experienced classroom teacher, faculty advisor and clinician, the text approaches development through the life cycle, discussing the challenges, tasks, and problems of each stage. Presenting complex concepts in a clear and understandable way, Human Behavior in the Social Environment: Includes 16 chapters which cover the diverse nature of the circumstances that practicing social workers will be exposed to, including cultural differences, mental health issues, and disability; Analyses several different theories, including psychoanalytic, ego psychology, cognitive-behavioral, and postmodern theories in a manner that enables students to engage critically with the subject matter; Includes case vignettes and material from literary works, biographies and newspapers, intertwined with learning exercises and suggestions for additional readings, forming an engaging and practical volume. Written specifically for social work students undertaking courses and modules on human behavior in the social environment, this book is also a valuable resource for beginning and advanced readers in human services, including nursing, medicine, public health, clinical psychology and counseling.

Fifteen years ago, Jeffrey Jensen Arnett proposed emerging adulthood as a new life stage at ages 18-29, one distinct from both the adolescence that precedes it and the young adulthood that eventually follows. Rather than marrying and becoming parents in their early 20s, most people in developed countries now postpone these transitions until at least their late 20s, spending these years in self-focused explorations as they try out different possibilities in their education, careers, and relationships. Since Arnett proposed his theory of emerging adulthood in 2000, it has turned into a full-fledged academic field, and the ideas have been applied in practical areas as well, such as mental health and education. The Oxford Handbook of Emerging Adulthood brings together for the first time the wealth of theory and research that has developed in this new and burgeoning field. It includes chapters by many prominent scholars on a wide range of topics, such as brain development, relations with friends, relations with parents, expectations for marriage, sexual relationships, media use, substance use and abuse, and resilience. The chapters both summarize the existing research and point the way to new prospects for research in the years to come.

In the decade after high school, young people continue to rely on their families in many ways-sometimes for financial support, sometimes for help with childcare, and sometimes for continued shelter. But what about those young people who confront special difficulties during this period, many of whom can count on little help from their families? On Your Own Without a Net documents the special challenges facing seven vulnerable populations during the transition to adulthood: former foster care youth, youth formerly involved in the juvenile justice system, youth in the criminal justice system, runaway and homeless youth, former special education students, young people in the mental health system, and youth with physical disabilities. During adolescence, government programs have been a major part of their lives, yet eligibility for most programs typically ends between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one. This critical volume shows the unfortunate repercussions of this termination of support and points out the issues that must be addressed to improve these young people's chances of becoming successful adults.

Currently, there are over 400,000 youth living in foster care in the United States, with over 20,000 aging out of the child welfare system each year. Foster youth are more prone to experience short- and long-term adverse developmental outcomes including diminished academic achievement and career opportunities, poor mental and overall health, financial struggles, homelessness, early sexual intercourse, and substance abuse, many of these outcomes are risk factors for involvement in the juvenile justice system. Despite their challenges, foster youth have numerous strengths and positive assets that carry them through their journeys, helping them to overcome obstacles and build resilience. The Handbook of Foster Youth brings together a prominent group of multidisciplinary experts to provide nuanced insights on the complex dynamics of the foster care system, its impact on youth’s lives, and the roles of institutions and policies in the foster system. It discusses current gaps and future directions as well as recommendations to advance the field. This book provides an opportunity to reflect on the many challenges and strengths of foster youth and the child welfare system, and the combined efforts of caregivers, community volunteers, policy makers, and the professionals and researchers who work with them.

This chapter provides a brief overview of the book highlighting the modest progress from child welfare to child well-being re?ected in these chapters, and the parallel movement in Kahn’s career and research, as his scholarship developed over the years. It then moves to explore the relationship between two overarching themes, child and family policy stressing a universal approach to children and social prot- tion stressing a more targeted approach to disadvantaged and vulnerable individuals including children and the complementarity of these strategies. Introduction To a large extent Alfred J. Kahn was at the forefront of the developments in the ?eld of child welfare services (protective services, foster care, adoption, and family preservationandsupport). Overtimehisscholarshipmovedtoafocusonthebroader policy domain of child and family policy and the outcomes for child wellbeing. His work, as is true for this volume, progressed from a focus on poor, disadvantaged and vulnerable children to a focus on all children. He was convinced that children, by de?nition, are a vulnerable population group and that targeting all children, empl- ing a universal policy as a strategy would do more for poor children than a narrowly focused policy targeted on poor children alone, As we ?rst argued more than three decades ago (Not for the Poor Alone; “Universalism and Income Testing in Family Policy”), one could target the most disadvantaged within a universal framework, and this would lead to more successful results than targeting only the poor.