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Miriam Krinsky
Attorney, Children's Law Center of Los Angeles
We don't, as a community, make an adequate commitment to the youth who leave our foster care system.
Q: What does the term "aging out" mean?
It's interesting some of the labels that we use. When a youth, who all of us in our community have agreed when we take them away from their home to raise them in a foster care system, reaches a certain age, generally age 18, sometimes a little older than that, they leave our foster care system. And other labels that are used are actually called "emancipation," which is telling that we look at it as freeing the kids from foster care.
Q: What are the reasons behind any youth being forced to age out of the system, if they're not ready to go?
Often, there are financial reasons that drive any family. The system, all of us, are their family. When you and I and everyone else in our community agree to raise a child in our foster care system, we stand in the shoes of their family. And just as a family continues to support a child when they leave the home, we don't, as a community, make an adequate commitment to the youth who leave our foster care system.
Q: Why don't we do more to help foster youth transition more smoothly to become successful, independent adults?
Funding and priorities tend to be reactive rather than proactive. We're too used to policy being driven by the fire that's burning brightest at the moment. We know that children who come into our foster care system will receive our investment down the road if they end up in our prisons, on unemployment or the streets. Prevention is really saying, "What do we need to do before the small problem becomes a burning brush fire?"
Attorney Miriam Krinsky heads the Children's Law Center of Los Angeles, a nonprofit organization that provides counsel for children in the foster care system. She lectures nationwide on criminal law and child welfare.
Related Articles
Related Episode
Recommended Web Sites
Children's Law Center of Los Angeles serves as the "voice" for more than 20,000 abused and neglected youth.
The Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care develops practical, evidence-based, nonpartisan policy recommendations.
The Fostering Results works to improve court oversight of child welfare cases.
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Published: September 15, 2005
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