Grant Recipients

This project will analyze Cal-YOUTH data, a longitudinal survey of youth aging out of formal foster care settings in California. As a first step, they will analyze the initial responses collected when youth were about 17 years old to describe youths' close family relationship networks and examine factors that shape whether youth report that child welfare agencies did enough to promote their close relationships with members of their family of origin. Then, they will analyze survey responses collected at ages 19, 21, and 23 to examine how youths' adolescent family networks, and agency efforts to support them, are associated with well-being and attainment across early adulthood.

The Family Unification Program for Youth and Foster Youth to Independence program provide Housing Choice Vouchers (HCVs) to young adults who age out of foster care. Recent reports demonstrate that county-level uptake of FUPY has increased, while FYI has increased the number of HCVs available to young adults exiting foster care, nonetheless FYI is underutilized in California, including the County and City of Los Angeles. Case study methods will facilitate an in-depth and multi-perspective investigation into the FYI program drawing on the experiences of three stakeholder groups: young adults, property managers, and case managers.

Expectant and parenting foster youth (EPFY) navigate the complex journey of parenthood with limited support and guidance. This study employs an integrated approach to estimate EPFY prevalence, examine trends, predictors, and outcomes, and explore their experiences and needs using CalYOUTH survey data, administrative data, and interviews. The findings will deepen our understanding of EPFY and contribute to better support for parenting youth in foster care.

Utilizing qualitative inquiry and a BlackCrit/Black Storywork framing, this study aims to uplift and center the K-12 educational experiences and stories of Black foster youth who are currently enrolled in a four-year public university. Moreover, the study aims to identify the tools and strategies they used to subvert and overcome anti-black policies and practices during their primary schooling journeys.

The team of researchers will study navigational capital (the ability to navigate complex needs to meet one’s needs) in a population of young people who aged out of foster care in California and did not pursue a college education. In their study, they will ask young people to talk about their access to resources, how they learned about what resources were available, and how they decided what resources to use. The hope for the project is to learn more about how people with lived experiences make decisions as they transition to adulthood.

Due to the limited amount of research focused on the college experiences of youth impacted by foster care with (dis)abilities but the significant amount of scholarship that supports that these youth may have unmet educational needs, this study will explore the following question: How do young people with (dis)abilities transitioning out of foster care in California experience attending public 2-year colleges? To answer this, this research team will gather and analyze multiform qualitative data, including intensive qualitative individual interview transcripts and participant-generated photographs through a prompted photo-elicitation method.

The past decade has been a time of momentous change in policies affecting foster youth and former foster youth in California, including the implementation of extended foster care through Assembly Bill 12 and the expansion of Medicaid eligibility to former foster youth up to age 26 under the Affordable Care Act. This project aims to leverage new linked administrative data and econometric methods to provide credible causal estimates of the effects of these policies on the education and labor market outcomes of former foster youth. The first youth to benefit from AB 12 are now finally old enough for meaningful evaluation of their labor market outcomes, making this the right time for rigorous and detailed evaluation of one of the key objectives behind extended foster care.

Maltreated adolescents are highly and disproportionately vulnerable to adverse outcomes in early adulthood, but unlikely to be adequately served by child protective services (CPS) following a report. This study leverages unique detailed narratives and quantitative CPS case records to characterize the nature and context of adolescent neglect and to identify the unmet service needs of the adolescents who encounter CPS due to allegations of neglect.

The proposed study explores the role of county context and county child welfare departments’ administrative practices on transition-age foster youths’ Independent Living Program utilization and outcomes. The proposed study aims to examine (1) the prevalence and patterns of ILP utilization, (2) the associations between county-level factors and ILP service utilization patterns, and (3) the relationship between county child welfare departments’ practices and TAY outcomes.

The study will draw upon the experiences and data from the 160 member agencies of the California Alliance for Children and Family Services to consider the variables impacting the utilization rates of Transitional Housing Programs vs. Supervised Independent Living Programs across counties in California. The research team will look at comparing county contracts and statements of work, explore the relationships between providers and county partners, cost of housing and services implementation, youth voice and choice as well as funding allocations among others as factors to consider.

The team of researchers will utilize data from the California Youth Transitions to Adulthood Study (CalYOUTH) to compare the socioeconomic outcomes (i.e., educational and vocational attainment, receipt of public assistance, housing instability, and early parenthood) of youth who did not identify as heterosexual with those of their heterosexual peers. They will also examine a range of mediating and moderating influences that might promote or impede the socioeconomic outcomes and well-being of youth within the two groups.