Having nobody to turn to

Ask people who left foster care whether they have anyone in their life and most say yes. Ask whether they have enough people for one specific kind of help and the answer changes with the kind of help. Money is where it breaks.

That distinction is the whole subject. Most pages on this report a single number for whether a young person "has an adult." That number hides the thing worth knowing, which is what kind of help a person is short of.

What the numbers say, and about whom

The Midwest Study followed young people from Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin who were in the care of the public child welfare agency at 17 and had entered care before their sixteenth birthday. The fifth round of interviews ran from October 2010 to May 2011 and reached 596 of the 732 people in the original sample. The response rate was 83 percent. Most of those interviewed were 26.

Table 14 asked whether they had enough people to turn to. The report's three columns are "Enough," "Too few" and "No one."

- People to listen to you: 63.7 / 30.3 / 6.1 percent (595 answered)
- People to help with favors: 55.6 / 35.7 / 8.8 (594)
- People to loan you money: 42.8 / 40.1 / 17.2 (594). 102 people answered "no one."
- People to help you meet goals: 60.5 / 30.4 / 9.1 (595)

The report's own summary of those rows: "Depending on the specific type of support, those reporting that they had enough people to whom they could turn ranged from slightly less than half to roughly two-thirds."

Read the money row twice. It is the only one where fewer than half said they had enough, and it carries by far the largest "no one" count.

Table 110 in the same report asked about a longer relationship. 405 of the 596, or 68.0 percent, had ever maintained a positive relationship with a caring adult other than a parent since age 14. The report says mentors "were most often described as a family member or friend." Among those 405: grandparent, uncle or aunt 27.2 percent; friend 22.0; other 22.2; teacher, counselor or coach 7.9; sibling 4.9; social worker 4.9; neighbor or parent of a friend 4.0; clergy member 3.0; employer or co-worker 2.2; volunteer such as a Big Brother or Big Sister 1.7.

Two things there are worth sitting with. Assigned people are rare in that list. And "ever maintained" is not "still has." The same table shows 14.6 percent with no phone or email contact with that person and 21.2 percent with no in-person contact. On the other side, 52.8 percent had phone or email contact weekly or more, 41.5 percent saw the person weekly or more, and 72.8 percent of the 404 who answered felt very or quite close.

This is a specific group in three states, interviewed more than a decade ago. It is not Arizona and it is not now.

What "an adult" means on the federal form

States report to the federal government whether a former foster youth has a "connection to an adult." The definition sits at 45 CFR 1356.83(g)(48). A youth has one if "the youth knows an adult who he or she can go to for advice or guidance when there is a decision to make or a problem to solve, or for companionship when celebrating personal achievements." The adult "must be easily accessible to the youth, either by telephone or in person."

Then the sentence nobody quotes: "The definition excludes spouses, partners, boyfriends or girlfriends and current caseworkers."

That is a counting rule, not a judgment about anyone's life. If the person who shows up for you is your girlfriend, or the caseworker who picks up the phone, the federal tally records no connection. Worth knowing before measuring yourself against a government number.

Whether one adult changes anything

A Missouri study interviewed young people every three months from their seventeenth to nineteenth birthdays. All were in the legal custody of the Missouri Children's Division at the first interview. At 18, "62% (211) reported the presence of a natural mentor," meaning an adult they named themselves rather than one assigned to them. Naming a non-kin mentor at 18 was related to fewer depression symptoms, less perceived stress and greater life satisfaction six months later. Longer-running relationships were related to less stress at 19 and lower odds of having been arrested, after controls, and were not related to substance use or current employment. 85 of the 339, 25 percent, named no one at either 18 or 19. The authors put a fence around their own arrest result: it "must be considered with caution, as our data does not indicate when the arrest occurred." The whole study is "only generalizable to older youth in foster care from eight counties in the state of Missouri."

A 2018 meta-analysis pooled 30 studies and 222 effect sizes, all conducted in the United States. Having a natural mentor was associated with better outcomes at r = .106 (24 studies, 166 effect sizes, 63,327 participants). Relationship quality mattered more, r = .208, though that figure rests on 8 studies and 7,363 participants. The authors call the first small and the second small-to-medium. Their warning applies to everything above: "Overall, results should be interpreted in light of self-selection bias: those youth who recruit natural mentors may be higher functioning."

A 2008 analysis of a national longitudinal dataset compared 160 mentored with 150 non-mentored young adults who reported ever having been in foster care. Demographics were similar. The mentored group was more likely to report favorable overall health and less likely to report suicidal ideation, an STI diagnosis, or having hurt someone in a fight in the past year, with a borderline trend toward more higher education. Associations again, not causes.

The one randomized trial here is not about aging out. Fostering Healthy Futures enrolled children aged 9 to 11 in the Denver area who were maltreated and placed in foster care, 79 in the program and 77 in an assessment-only control. Nine months of an assigned mentor plus skills groups produced fewer mental health problems six months later (mean difference -0.51, 95% CI -0.84 to -0.19), fewer dissociation symptoms (-3.66, -6.58 to -0.74) and better quality of life immediately after (0.11, 0.03 to 0.19). Fewer had recently received mental health therapy six months out (53% vs 71%, relative risk 0.75, 0.57 to 0.98). Assigned mentors for pre-teens are a different thing from an adult a nineteen year old chooses.

The part other pages leave out

A 2008 study interviewed 29 young adults with foster care backgrounds, ages 17 to 26, at four sites, and mapped their networks. Its first finding: "All participants have an existing support network." Its second: participants "did not see most of these relationships" with child welfare professionals "as permanent." And the one that matters most here: "Emotional support was the most support most frequently noted as being both needed and missing."

So the honest version is not "these young people have no one." It is that the network exists, is thin at one or two specific points, and the paid parts of it have an end date built in.

Which numbers here are strong, and which are not

There are no fees or dollar amounts on this page. Nothing here is money to claim.

The regulation and the statute below are binding text, quoted from the government's current editions. The Midwest Study percentages are solid for the people who were surveyed and say nothing about you. The mentoring effect sizes are the weakest thing here, and their own authors say so.

One thing that is written down

If you are still in care and close to 18, federal law at 42 U.S.C. 675(5)(H) says that during the 90 days before you turn 18, or a later age your state elects, a caseworker on the state agency's staff provides assistance developing a transition plan "that is personalized at the direction of the child." That plan "includes specific options on housing, health insurance, education, local opportunities for mentors and continuing support services, and work force supports and employment services," and "is as detailed as the child may elect." The same subparagraph covers naming someone to make health care decisions for you and offers the option to execute a health care power of attorney. It reaches you through the state's case review system, required by 42 U.S.C. 671(a)(16).

"Local opportunities for mentors" is a phrase in federal law you can point at and ask for by name. If you are already out of care, that window has closed and the statute does not open another one.