A bipartisan bill has been introduced that would line up federal policy with a nascent effort to get more states on board with a fourth path to permanency for older youth in foster care.
The Chafee Opportunities for New Networks and Existing Connection Trust (CONNECT) Act, introduced by Assemblymembers Gwen Moore, a Wisconsin Democrat, and Ohio Republican Mike Carey, would add two new allowable uses for the funds that states receive through the federal Chafee program, which was created to support the transition to adulthood for older youth in foster care. The new purposes:
Helping youth who have been in foster care at age 14 or older develop “sustained, supportive relationships” with adults, mentors and peer groups.
Supporting older foster to participate in developing their permanency plans, and to provide them with written information about available services and steps the agency is taking to support the plan.
This language replaces a less stringent purpose in the current Chafee law to help older youth “achieve meaningful, permanent connections with a caring adult.”
The new language offered up by Moore and Carey appears intended to generally acknowledge that prosocial connections are predictive of better outcomes for older youth in foster care, and that they should have a primary role in deciding on what the permanency goals are in their case. There has been recent advocacy for adding a new path to permanency: the SOUL Family approach, which was developed by current and former foster youth.
Here’s the idea in a nutshell: Teens 16 or older who are in foster care will have the option of working with the system and the courts to essentially curate a group of adults in their lives that, when put together, form a stable and permanent network to support that youth as they transition into adulthood.
Where an adoption or guardianship envisions one family and household as the home base for a young person, a SOUL Family might identify a sibling that is there to help them navigate college life, an uncle and aunt they can stay with if housing becomes an issue, and their attorney from foster care as an ongoing source of legal support.
The CONNECT Act does not specifically address this option, which has officially been codified into law in Kansas and is being considered in other states. But its additions to the Chafee program make it clear that states can use Chafee to fund the main parameters of SOUL Family: youth-led permanency planning, and a connection to multiple supportive adults in their lives.
The Administration for Children and Families sends more than $180 million to states through the Chafee program, which has existed since the 1990s without any significant increase in funding (except for a one-time surge of $400 million at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic).
Most of the funds support independent living support, which is the portion this bill would update. Another pot of about $43 million goes to states for the education and training voucher (ETV) program to assist current and former foster youth with the cost of postsecondary education.
An effort is afoot to update the Chafee program during this session of Congress. The CONNECT Act joins a few bills that have already trickled into the hopper that deal with housing support and the ETV program.