Approaching the Transition to Adulthood: Distinctive Profiles of Adolescents Aging out of the Child Welfare System

Abstract

The transition to adulthood is marked by new roles and responsibilities in such interrelated domains as education, employment, and family formation. This study investigates the capacity of adolescents on the verge of emancipation from the child welfare system to navigate this transition. To explore heterogeneity in adolescents' preparation for independent living, person-oriented methods are applied to a large, representative sample of youth about to exit foster care. The analysis suggests four subpopulations defined by distinctive profiles on indicators reflecting multiple domains of life experience. Identifying the particular needs and challenges of subpopulations has implications for efforts to match adolescents aging out of the child welfare system with appropriate services.During the transition from adolescence to adulthood, increasing maturity comes with expectations that one will take responsibility for oneself, make independent decisions, and become self-sufficient (Arnett 2000). In this period, young people contend with multiple opportunities and challenges that can have important implications over the life course. Individual developmental pathways are determined by decisions regarding education, employment, residential arrangements, marriage, and parenthood (Shanahan 2000;Cohen et al. 2003). Important changes in social roles and responsibilities can generate stress and test an individual's capacity for adaptation, but these changes also present opportunities to overcome earlier difficulties and to begin on a new developmental trajectory (Maughan and Champion 1990;Masten et al. 2004).For each generation, cultural expectations and social opportunity structures influence the timing and patterning of role entries and exits during the transition to adulthood (George 1993;Elder 1998). In recent years, early adulthood has been characterized as a period of volitional identity exploration that involves "trying out various life possibilities and gradually moving toward making enduring decisions" (Arnett 2000, 473). However, the life circumstances of many young people may severely limit their range of options or compel them, out of necessity, to adopt adult roles at an early age. Pathways to adulthood are strongly linked with social class, as well as with the resources and support of one's family of origin (Cohen et al. 2003; Osgood et al. 2005). For example, poverty and family disruption may cause young people to move away from home and support themselves at an early age, perhaps interrupting their education and restricting their future options with respect to career and family formation (Goldscheider and Goldscheider 1998). From a developmental perspective, these early, offtime transitions, for which youth are not well prepared, have the potential to compound NIH Public Access Author ManuscriptSoc Serv Rev. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2010 January 6. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript environmental adversity, threaten coping capacity, tax social supports, a...

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