Getting a first job usually takes more than filling out an application. It can take someone who knows about an opening, a ride to an interview, help finding a birth certificate, and encouragement when things don’t go as planned.
For teenagers in foster care, those everyday supports can be difficult to find. They can be especially hard to keep, too, when a child moves from home to home.
At an event in Little Rock, the Ready for Life Task Force released its recommendations for helping teens in foster care who are aging out of the system. Speakers challenged Arkansas to rethink how it prepares young people for adulthood. The goal is to reduce the risk of homelessness, poverty, and incarceration by making sure teens have the relationships, stability, and opportunities they need before they leave care.
The proposed approach centers on a dedicated coach for each young person, homes prepared to support teenagers, and community organizations working toward shared, measurable goals.
Eric Gilmore, CEO of Immerse Arkansas and chair of the task force, said the work began with a difficult realization: The troubling outcomes facing young people leaving foster care have been known for years, yet they have too often come to be treated as inevitable.
He asked the audience to consider how they would respond if someone predicted similar outcomes for their own children.
“Whose kids are these?” Gilmore asked. “Who do they belong to?”
The task force’s work included a survey of 350 young people in Arkansas foster care. Employment emerged as the support they most wanted but struggled to access.
Gilmore described barriers that can make even an ordinary teenage milestone difficult: frequent moves, red tape, and trouble getting the documents or transportation needed to work.
Young people also identified needs related to housing, education, and relationships. They wanted connections to families, communities, and people who would stay in their lives.
Those needs are closely connected. A young adult may enroll in school but struggle to attend without stable housing. A teenager may want a job but not have a driver’s license. Or, repeated moves could have disrupted both the opportunities and relationships that help a young person navigate them.
Gilmore said young people in the system were moving roughly once every five months, a pattern that can mean adjusting to a different home, school, and community again and again. Then comes the expectation that they will build an adult life.
The task force recommends a community provider model. Under the proposal, community organizations would take on the day-to-day work of preparing young people for adulthood, replacing the current transitional youth services approach. DCFS would retain legal responsibilities, including custody, court reporting, and permanency determinations.
At the center would be a BASE Coach who helps each young person build four foundations:
Well-being: Support for mental health, healing, and everyday stability.
At least one caring adult: A lasting connection to someone the young person can rely on.
Safe and stable placement: A home that provides security and support.
Earning potential: Access to education, training, employment, and the practical tools needed to pursue them.
The coach would help turn those goals into steps that fit the young person’s life, whether that means getting a driver’s license, finding a job, reconnecting with supportive relatives, or pursuing a trade.
The recommendations also call for recruiting and supporting homes specifically prepared to help teenagers move toward adulthood. Gilmore described an approach that would look at each young person’s existing community and relationships to identify people who could provide a home and lasting support.
For Stefan Specht, who spent time in foster care, the need for community is deeply personal. “Being in the system felt like being on an island,” he said.
A young person can physically live in a town while knowing few people outside the foster care system, he explained. That separation can make it harder to find a job, build relationships, or feel a sense of belonging after leaving care.
“You live on the island, you become an island,” Specht said.
He noted that preparing young people for adulthood requires opportunities to participate in community life while they are still in care.
EverHope CEO Rebekah Mitchell emphasized that support should help young people practice making their own decisions. She said having someone to offer guidance, and remain available when a decision goes badly, is part of how teenagers learn independence.
"Teens need community. They need people around them consistently that care. When I think about the first job that I got, I say that I got that first job. But I was able to say that because I had normalized all of the support already around me that allowed me to be successful in that step."
The housing discussion brought that point into focus.
Karen Phillips, Restore Hope’s chief operations officer, recalled being a young mother facing the sudden loss of a place to live. She, her husband, and their infant had been staying with her mother-in-law when they learned she was moving to a home without room for them.
Phillips had people she could call. Her parents helped them relocate, and a family connection later opened the door to a job in the mortgage industry. She credited that support, along with years of mentorship, with helping shape her future.
Her story illustrates how a housing crisis can unfold differently when someone has family, connections, and people willing to offer an opportunity. Phillips noted that young people leaving foster care may need help building that same circle of support. A place to live matters, but so do employment, transportation, mental health care, and someone to call when an unexpected problem threatens their stability.
The task force also wants providers to share responsibility for results.
Gilmore described a common “scoreboard” that would help partners track whether young people are graduating, maintaining stable placements, finding work, and entering higher education or trade programs.
A shared case management system, called HopeHub, would help organizations coordinate their work around the same young person. Gilmore said this will allow partners to assess what is working and where they need to change course.
The proposal also calls for a statewide coordinating organization to support providers with training, shared practices, and implementation.
The point is to make progress visible: Are young people gaining the relationships, skills, and stability they need to build the lives they want?
The task force recommends beginning in a limited number of counties, testing the approach, and refining it before expanding.
The written report proposes starting with coaches in pilot counties selected according to need and population, followed by the development of specialized homes in those counties.
Speakers at the event expressed both urgency and optimism. Arkansas has organizations committed to young people, employers who can offer opportunities, and people willing to provide homes and mentorship. The challenge is connecting those resources around each teen in a consistent way.
The task force’s vision is a coach for every teen, a home for every teen, and a community prepared to help them move forward.
For young people approaching adulthood, that could mean leaving foster care with more than a transition plan. It could mean having people beside them as they put it into practice.
Smart Justice is a magazine, podcast, and continuing news coverage from the nonprofit Restore Hope and covers the pursuit of better outcomes on justice system-related issues, such as child welfare, incarceration, and juvenile justice. Our coverage is solutions-oriented, focusing on the innovative ways in which communities are solving issues and the lessons that have been learned as a result of successes and challenges.
The podcast is available on all major podcasting platforms.
Subscribe to the Smart Justice newsletter.