During this time, individuals can experience changes in their social roles and function, family and peer supports, exposure to substance use, educational and vocational programs, as well as changes in healthcare providers from pediatric to adult settings.
[1] The phrase transitional aged youth (TAY and the variations listed above) originated in the foster care system but has since taken on broad applicability to other (primarily healthcare) sectors.
For example, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has broadened its scope to include TAY with SED and in the general public, through its Now Is The Time Healthy Transitions program.
[5] This expansion likely reflects the growing knowledge that all youth of transition age are at risk for mental health issues, substance abuse disorders, and suicide.
Cognitively, they start to form a moral code, combining aspects of societal expectations and rights as well as universal ethical principles.
As they work towards independence, TAY must acquire skills for adulthood, such as learning how to manage finances, housing, and medical and legal decision-making, in order to move away from reliance upon family for basic needs.
Intimate relationships are often more challenging to develop, and many may not find a partner during this developmental period, as TAY navigate the stresses of biological and hormonal drives, psychological wants for intimacy and acceptance, and weigh potential negatives including parental disapproval, possible pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and peer rejection.
This period is marked by significant physical, cognitive, and psychosocial growth, and is an important time for building foundations for good health.
Behaviors such as driving, sexual experimentation, tobacco, alcohol, and substance use, and diet and exercise habits can impact health in the short- and long-term.
They must acquire these new skills while learning how to balance employment or increased academic demands (for those in college), wellness and social activities, and with decreased support.
Finally, transportation issues may impact access to care, and worries about money are also widespread in the young adult population and may limit treatment options.
The subcortical areas, known as the amygdala and nucleus accumbens, influence motivation, passion, pleasure, and aversive experiences, while the prefrontal cortex and connecting white matter tracts are important for attention, emotional and impulse control, flexibility, planning, and judgment.
Even with external control and expectations, this group remains at very high risk for morbidity and mortality associated with suicide, substance use, psychiatric illness, and accidents.
At the same time that these youth and their maturing brains need more external regulatory support and lower risk environments, they instead have easier access to alcohol and drugs, high-risk social activities, and loss of close parenting and supervision.
TAY with untreated mental health disorders are at high risk for substance abuse, physical assault, and encounters with the correctional system.
[25][26] Former foster youth with mental illness often have past trauma histories, such as being a victim of child abuse and neglect, that make it challenging for them to develop and maintain healthy adult relationships.
[32] Youth with serious mental health conditions can have significant delays in their psychosocial development that can impair their ability to function as they enter adulthood.
(Children's Defense Fund) This Act also assists foster youth with extra support surrounding their education and healthcare needs as the age out.
Foster care youth are more likely to experience a lack of social support before they enter the system and are more likely to come from low income households with higher rates of physical and verbal abuse (Lindquist & Santavirts, 2014).
Although around 80% of former foster youth do find employment within 2 years of leaving the system, most of these jobs are part time and often require little skill or minimal pay (Dworsky, 2005).
lack of experience in social functions increases difficulty to succeed at job interviews, while trying to communicate with medical professionals, and with simple daily life.
Education is a part of the crucial foundation for adult life, yet many foster youth frequently encounter significant gaps in this vital area.
Placement instability, generally defined as several changes in residency and/or caregiver for a child following entry into care, is a potential predictor of negative developmental outcomes” (Garcia et al., qtd.
McGuire et al.,)[36] This lack of permanency has been equated with both phycological and behavioral issues within foster youth that lead to poor outcomes in education.
According to Anthony bald and the journal of economic perspectives “among “emancipated” former foster youth in California, one in five previously dropped out of high school...” (Courtney et al qtd.
Jenefer E. Blakeslee expounds on this by stating “The social contexts that might typically support overall health and wellness—stable family-based networks, connections to schools and recreation, relationships with prosocial peers—are potentially disrupted or inhibited by the circumstances that lead to child welfare system involvement,”(1)[38] Social support for foster youth is scarce even while they are in the system, after emancipation becomes even slimer.
While policies and programs aim to meet base level needs the mental-emotional wellbeing is often neglected, lack of support in this area leads to a variety of issues.
Without a support system in place, youth often turn to substance abuse to dull the pain, and to remove the feelings of fear that they constantly carry with them.
They may use substances to temporarily cope with the distress they feel or with symptoms of related mental illnesses like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).” (Sec.
Emancipated youth are more likely to be teen parents, experience partner violence, as well as face issues with poverty and substance abuse, sadly this cumulation could lead to their children ending up in the foster care system.