May is National Foster Care Month and in Arkansas, the number of foster youths near adulthood has dropped slightly, according to a new report.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation report looked at the transition period for young adults in foster care and found the number of young Arkansans aged 14 and up in the system dropped from 28% in 2006 to 20% in 2021.

Eric Gilmore - executive director of Immerse Arkansas - said his organization is helping youth 14 to 24 escape crises, putting them on a path to healing, growth and transformation.

"Finding a safe and stable place to live, getting a job, finishing their education, and building a community around them - whether that's family or mentors, but people that are going to do life with them," said Gilmore. "We come in at a really critical time, a really hard time in life, and help young people put those pieces together to help make sure that they can be successful."

Gilmore said an Immerse transitional program called LifeBASE provides supportive, stable housing and individualized coaching to equip youth for transition into adulthood.

He added that the coach works with the young person for up to 24 months to hit goals and make progress in the areas of employment, education, well-being, and mental health.

The report shows 81% of 21-year old Arkansans received a high school diploma or General Education Degree in 2021, and Gilmore said the state will help young people financially who want to pursue higher education or vocational certification programs.

But he added that some young people face housing challenges, an unstable support network or other barriers to achieving that goal.

"Most young people, they're thinking about college," said Gilmore. "But these young people have not been prepared educationally to get to that point. So, rather than working on higher education, we're helping them get their high school diploma or their GED."

Gilmore emphasized they are also working with youth who are ready for higher education. For example, he points out a young man who is in the process of transferring to the University of Central Arkansas to finish a degree in graphic design.

He added that another student who came through the Immerse program was recently accepted into the University of Arkansas Clinton School.

Annie E. Casey Foundation Senior Policy Associate Todd Lloyd said there are about half as many adolescents in foster care as there were 15 years ago, but he added that the reasons they are entering the system have changed.

"In the past, young people were coming in for foster care for reasons of behavior, adolescent behavior, child behavior problem," said Lloyd. "But now, there's more of a shift towards them entering care for reasons of neglect, which are often connected to issues of poverty."

Lloyd said neglect is often related to economic insecurity and wants child welfare agencies to work with families to help them address issues of economic challenge and provide support.

The high cost of child care in Washington can strain family budgets. It can be even harder when families are experiencing homelessness.

A statewide call center is helping people find care and a way to afford it. BrightSpark Early Learning Services operates the Child Care Aware of Washington Family Center, which fields calls from families.

The center also has homeless navigation services. Erika Washington, department manager of family access with BrightSpark, said staff ensure they understand each families' needs.

"Does your little one have any special needs? And we're really able to pinpoint programs that meet each families unique needs," said Washington. "This offers families some stability and just knowing that we're on their side, we have their back and we're also understanding of some of the challenges that they may face."

Washington said the call center is able to connect families with state child care subsidies like Working Connections, or through the homelessness grace period.

The center also provides follow-up services after 30, 60, and 120 days.

Washington talked about one family BrightSpark was able to help that moved to Washington and ended up needing housing. The family had one school-age child and two kids under the age of five.

Washington said they connected the family with a child care program that understood how to support families experiencing homelessness.

"So when transportation became an issue, or when hours of operation became an issue," said Washington, "this child care provider was able to really support this family's needs and really become more of like a family or support system for that parent."

Washington said the center wants to uplift families' voices and let them know how they can take action. She said they support enough families experiencing homelessness to understand their needs.

"A lot of times those families who are experiencing homelessness are working the evening hours or weekend hours," said Washington, "and that's a big challenge across our state, of being able to find child care programs that is available during those hours. And so, it's something that we hear time and time again, and we often are providing support but that need continues to be there."

Utah parents can expect to pay between $800 and $1,200 dollars a month for child care but a new program is expanding its reach into Summit County to help with affordability.

The nationwide child care network Upwards will offer need-based child care scholarships of up to $1,700 for preschoolers. The group is partnering with Summit County and Park City Municipal.

Starr Mastrodonato, program manager for Upwards, said to qualify, at least one parent must reside or work in Summit County, and the total family income cannot exceed 100% of the county's area median income. She pointed out removing barriers to child care also means parents can stay in the workforce.

"It really allowed them to make life decisions on, 'We both can continue to work and to contribute to our family,'" Mastrodonato explained. "And that obviously is just monumental in just overall well-being, not only for their household, their children. And it continues to help the economic workforce."

While cost is one factor, availability is another. Research shows no one county in Utah has the sufficient number of licensed care providers to meet demand. Summit County has the highest percentage of child care needs being met at 54%, according to Voices for Utah Children. Statewide, the number drops to 36%.

Mastrodonato explained expanding assistance to Summit County comes after their Park City pilot program was able to assist 34 working families and helped support 17 child care providers. For every child enrolled at a provider location, the provider receives an additional $300 per month. She added Upwards is excited to build on the program's success.

"We're hoping they take this model, to see how successful it has been," Mastrodonato noted. "And within six months, be able to identify that we can expand to reach more families."

Summit County scholarships and child care provider incentives became available earlier this month. They will be available on a first-come, first-served basis each month.


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More employers are offering benefits to adoptive parents, according to a new survey by the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. The amount of paid leave offered to foster parents is now nearly 10 weeks, up 3% from last year.

Jeremy Madden, a resident of Liberty Township, Ohio, and his wife relied on workplace adoption benefits through his employer, Fifth Third Bank, to adopt their baby daughter. He said the process was easy and the financial reimbursement was a game changer, as adoption can cost thousands of dollars. Now, they've settled into life as a family.

"She's fantastic, we wouldn't change anything," he said. "She's brought so much joy and happiness into our life. She's developing her own personality. She is super smart."

Companies that offer new adoption benefits include Harley-Davidson Motor Co. Inc. and Ziff Davis Inc. Highly ranked companies include Ferring Pharmaceuticals and Liberty Media Corp., American Express and MongoDB Inc. Ferring Pharmaceuticals topped the list for providing unlimited financial reimbursement for adoption costs and 26 weeks of paid leave to adoptive parents.

Rita Soronen, the foundation's CEO, cited a 10% increase on average in financial reimbursement for adoption.

"It tells the employees that we're a family-friendly organization, that there's equity if we're offering benefits for families that are formed through birth, we also want to give benefits to families that are formed through adoption," she said, "and it creates a sense of loyalty and retention and goodwill."

She said it's important for employers to consider foster and adoption benefits, not only for its employees, but the good of the community.

"It says to the community that we understand that there are lots of ways that our families are formed," she said, "and we can provide the kind of supports that a family might need to move to that next phase of being a unified and thriving family."

According to the National Council for Adoption, 2022 saw the fewest number of adoptions from foster care since 2015, around 53,000 children nationwide.


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