Advocating for Older Youth: When a CASA is appointed to an older teen, the advocacy timeline intensifies knowing a youth is headed to adulthood. After experiencing trauma, and often multiple placements, they are now at risk of leaving foster care without a permanent home.
There is much to do and less time to do it. All teens need practical experience and basic life skills – from the simple things (laundry) to bank accounts and understanding options for college or employment. A teen that has been living in foster care has additional and unique challenges. For example, no transportation to a job, solo bank account as a minor, catching up in high school, etc.
Understanding these challenges, a variety of tools and resources have been created by community partners that are dedicated to focusing on improving the outcomes for these teens.
As a start, CASA volunteers can use a Transition Toolkit providing practical tips for the youth developed by Foster Club of America. This toolkit provides a tactical method to identify the life skills most important for their situation and help the youth gain more control over their own future. The path to adulthood means helping teens navigate the many processes as they apply for college, a job or try to find a future place to live.
As CASAs identify the priorities, they reach out to organizations such as AFFCF who offer funding to assist with the bumps that can derail a successful college stay. Programs at EVIT and the Paul Revere Academy offer combined high school and vocational training with dormitory to address the lack of housing for youth in or leaving foster care. Sometimes it is awareness of a need that spurs action such as the recent decision by Arizona’s universities to keep dormitories open for youth who have nowhere to go during school breaks.
Most importantly, it is the support team that needs to surround a teen exiting foster care – and the CASA volunteer is integral in that team to connect them with a community ready to help so youth have a hopeful and successful future.
