The Emancipation Research Project (ERP) is HEY’s two-year project examining the process of youth’s transition from foster care to independence in San Francisco County. The ERP consisted of 27 in-depth interviews held 2008-2009 with professionals and youth involved in the county’s dependency system, and over 30 interviews with other stakeholders. Many topics were discussed, including personal emancipation experiences, official transition planning, and perceptions of stakeholders’ roles. As responses were analyzed, a number of themes emerged. Those themes are available here as HEY Trends.
Clarifying the Child Welfare Worker’s Role: HEY’s Recommendations to Dispel Confusion
The Child Welfare Worker is supposed to be the central professional managing a youth’s case. However, as a youth prepares for independence, their needs will increase as they consider their current placement and their plans for the future. With the many plans to be made, many misconceptions develop about roles and responsibilities. This document can help the youth and their supporters more clearly understand the limitations and roles of others, and provides simple recommendations to all parties on how to best serve youth. It may also be relevant to upper management as they make decisions on how to structure the emancipation processes.
Group Home Involvement in Transition Planning: Group Homes vary in the support they offer to foster youth as they transition out of care. HEY provides best-practice recommendations to better serve foster youth.
In interviews with professionals HEY identified multiple concerns with the utilization of the TILP and duplicative work it seemed to create. This multi-page report clarifies the issues that professionals and youth identified and offers many solutions; it is meant for those making decisions on how workers use the TILP and legislators defining the legal purpose and relation to California Welfare and Institutions Code.
Emancipating Youth Returning to Birth Parents
Although foster youth should only emancipate from care if reunification or adoption is not possible by the time the youth must age out, some youth still return to the same families from whom they were removed.
Connecting Youth and Adult Mental Health Services to Reduce Homelessness Among Emancipated Youth
Youth aging out of foster care may continue to need adult mental health services, but unfortunately, because the mental health system is disconnected, youth often fall through the cracks.
Ex Parte Dismissal Hearings
An ex parte hearing is an emergency court hearing, in which only one party appears before a judge and requests a dismissal from foster care, or emancipation, without a defendant’s presence. The ex parte hearing is a tool used by attorneys when timing is essential in the emancipation process.
Roles in Transition Planning
Each foster youth’s case is unique especially as they age out of care. Therefore, specific tasks to support their transition to independence can never be assigned to specific roles for all situations. HEY’s recent research identified a lack in how tasks are split and assigned to the team of professionals assisting through transition.
Emancipation Professionals and Transition Planning
During HEY’s two-year Emancipation Research Project (ERP), which examined the process of youth’s transition from foster care to independence, HEY spoke with over 30 emancipation professionals on an individual basis. We presented the results to their management and, through the comparison of their responses, developed a basic standard representing how professionals help to balance a youth’s best interests with what the youth says they want to do.
Contact HEY’s Project Manager, Dana Mandolesi at dmandolesi@uwba.org to hear about findings, and discuss possible research collaborations.
