UTSA professor studies child welfare policy

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(Sept. 30, 2015) -- UTSA Social Work Assistant Professor Alfred Pérez is an advocate for foster youth and scholar of child welfare policy. As someone who aged out of foster care and a former child welfare practitioner, his research is often influenced by his professional and personal experiences.

Pérez uses data from Cornell University's National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect to study the effects of child welfare policies on youth in foster care systems and the extent to which these policies accomplish their goals without yielding unintended consequences. Recently, he was awarded competitive minority research fellowship at Cornell University to support this research.

According to Pérez, current and former foster youth experience uphill battles in their transition to adulthood, and for youth that age out of foster care, that battle can be tough. Former foster youth face an increased propensity toward homelessness and an inability to complete education or find work.

By age 26, Pérez said, only four percent of foster youth who aged out are likely to earn a four-year degree. For comparison, 36 percent of the general population earned a four-year degree form an institution of higher learning.

“Children who aren’t able to find a stable home while in the child welfare system may not have the skills and support network to become successful citizens,” said Pérez. “School interruption, lack of supportive parenting and lack of educational and support are all factors that can negatively impact a foster youth’s future.”

Pérez is also collaborating with Richard Harris, a professor of Social Work, to better understand the effects of the national independent living services provided under the Chafee Foster Care Independence Program, which was created by the Foster Care Independence Act of 1999.

The program is supposed to offer assistance to help current and former foster care youth achieve self-sufficiency as they transition into adulthood, but Pérez and Harris are finding that it’s not doing as well as it could.

“Despite an investment of $140 million per year since 1999, only a third of all foster care youth are actually receiving the services promised,” said Pérez. These services include but aren’t limited to a guaranteed education, housing, financial management, employment support and counseling.

By combining this study with his child welfare policies research, Pérez and Harris are hoping that their work can address the factors that shape the current utilization of the program’s services.

“I hope that one day, the nation will have a sustainable system in place to assist foster youth in becoming successful and self-sufficient members of society,” said Pérez.

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