Evidence-Based Supervisor-Team Independent Living Training

Nationwide, 20,000 adolescents each year leave the foster care system and attempt to live independently (GAO, 1999). Of the 550,000 children in foster care, 20% of them will age out of care and need to be trained in independent living skills so as to ease the transition to independent living. The Foster Care Independence Act of 1999 (Chaffee Act) emphasized the need for the government to ensure that youth aging out of the foster care system move to independent living successfully and prevent health hazards, untreated mental illness, domestic abuse, substance abuse, unemployment, homelessness, criminal behavior and subsequent incarceration.