News
From The Field
Updates, partnerships, and notes from the work itself.
A widow, two kids, and the cost of living
About $2,850 a month, and nothing covers it. Every figure here comes from the agency that publishes it, and at the end there is something you can do about it.
Read the note →
More from the field
- Update
Having nobody to turn to
Most people who leave foster care do have someone. What the research shows they run short of is specific: enough people to ask for one particular kind of help. Here is what the studies actually measured, and what nobody has shown.
Read More - update
Getting a birth certificate and state ID
If you are still in DCS custody, the documents are supposed to come to you starting at age 16. If you are out of custody, you order the birth certificate yourself for $20, and the hard part is proving who you are without the ID you are trying to get.
Read More - Update
What it actually costs to start over
The real, published price of the documents and deposits it takes to set yourself up in Arizona, with every figure traced to the agency or statute that sets it. No estimates, and no numbers where the state does not publish one.
Read More - update
What congregate care is actually like
Congregate care means living in a staffed building instead of a family's house. Here is what federal law actually requires, what the counts show, and why a funding limit meant to shrink these placements has not emptied them.
Read More - update
Something that worked somewhere else
Most programs for young people leaving foster care have never been tested against a control group. A few have. Here is what they actually found, with the numbers and links to the reports.
Read More - update
Health coverage after aging out
If you were in foster care and on Medicaid when you turned 18, you can have Medicaid until you turn 26, and there is no income limit. Arizona's own pages disagree about whether foster care in another state counts, so here is what each source actually says.
Read More - partnership
He Is a King That Loves
We spent the morning with three young adults who recently aged out of foster care. They were each given a budget and told to choose. What they chose is theirs, not ours.
Read More - update
From the Archive: The Corner By My Office
A boy in the same raggedy school uniform every morning, waiting on the same corner for a ride. What I found when I finally stopped was a grandmother doing the best she could with very little.
Read More - announcement
Why We Were Hard to Find
For ten years we did this work without a website. An artist's generosity is what finally changed that.
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