A Families-First Approach to Foster Care

A Families-First Approach to Foster Care

It’s difficult to change systems even when they are widely acknowledged to be broken. That’s the situation facing the nation’s foster care system. According to the government’s most recent estimate, there were roughly 424,000 young people in foster care as of Sept. 30, 2009. Each year, about 30,000 of them turn 18 (or 21 in some states) and “age out” of foster care. What happens to them?