Note: This article originally appeared on Medium.
The goals of today’s child welfare system are to ensure safety, permanency, and wellbeing for any child who enters foster care. There is an assumption that permanency, the placement of a child either through family reunification, adoption, or guardianship, naturally leads to safety and wellbeing. Like in other states, the Texas foster care system is designed around this concept, which we refer to as legal permanency. While this assumption may seem like conventional wisdom, there are many children in foster care, especially those in their teenage years or older, for whom legal permanency may not be enough to provide the necessary support.
For the past seven years, Upbring has been diligently reexamining how we serve children and passionately crafting solutions with a broad vision in mind. Are we steering our efforts toward the right goals? Do our programs holistically cater to a child’s needs? Are we conscious of the potential societal risks? Are we providing the right kind of encouragement for our children to thrive? Our journey involves not just thinking outside the box but reimagining what the box can be — rethinking data, systems, people, finances, and mindsets around child wellbeing.
To find answers and ensure that we were working with the right understanding, Upbring co-sponsored a research study in 2017 in partnership with the Texas Institute for Child & Family Wellbeing at the University of Texas at Austin. The study aimed to examine the long-term outcomes for youth who transition out of state foster care. The research study, referred to as The Texas Youth Permanency Study or TYPS, and titled “A New Model for Promoting Wellbeing in Child Welfare: Prioritizing Relational Permanency, Normalcy, and Competency,” was published in November 2022, with its final report released in January 2023.
Children in foster care face systemic barriers that make it challenging to transition to adulthood at equitable rates with their peers. These challenges put them at considerable risk for poor outcomes including unemployment, housing instability and a lack of higher education — all known to perpetuate the intergenerational cycle of trauma, abuse and neglect.
The TYPS findings underscored that relational permanency, which refers to the presence of authentic caregiver relationships, matters far more than legal or physical permanency as youth transition from foster care to adulthood. Relational permanency also emphasizes the necessity of establishing a continuum of support throughout the child’s transition from childhood to adulthood. This change of emphasis is one example of how Upbring is instituting transformational changes where it is able. Normalcy and life skills competency were also identified as key factors contributing to success as young adults strive for independence.
“I challenged my executive leaders to find our own answers, to dig deeper and provide us with information that will help our organization achieve its mission of breaking the cycle of child abuse,” stated President & CEO Michael Loo. He continued, “Recognizing the importance of applying a holistic approach, ensuring that we are delivering purposeful, innovative solutions with measurable outcomes that improve child wellbeing, the findings and recommendations in the TYPS study affirm the directionality of our other efforts to redefine how we provide services and programs. I want to express my sincere gratitude to Murray Chanow, who spearheaded our efforts, as well as our co-sponsors, the Reissa Foundation and the Simmons Foundation, and our esteemed partners at the University of Texas at Austin for their invaluable contribution in shedding light on this critical topic.”
Murray Chanow, Senior Vice President of Public Affairs, emphasized the potential societal risks if we do not act on holistic change, as children in foster care will continue to be at risk of poor and inequitable outcomes. “The TYPS study confirmed what many of us already knew about the crucial intersection of relationships, normalcy and life skills for youth aging out of foster care. With this vital understanding, we can now leverage this comprehensive body of work to propel us toward informing groundbreaking policy and legislation that will genuinely help these children.”
For more information on the TYPS study, you can read Upbring’s whitepaper at Upbring.org/TYPS. To learn more about Upbring and how to join us in our mission, please visit Upbring.org. Additionally, you can stay up to date with the latest news and updates by following Upbring on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.