Many older youths in state custody opt out — and end up in trouble.

Many older youths in state custody opt out — and end up in trouble.

When he was 16, Jason Hunter was given something most of his fellow foster kids at Evangelical Children's Home in Normandy only dreamed of: someone eager to adopt him and help him into adulthood and beyond.

But Hunter, now a junior in college with the partial e-mail address "jasonissuccess," turned her down. Not because he didn't want a home — he had spent years separated from his siblings while in foster care because his mother was addicted to drugs.