Children & Families

Beyond Foster Care: The Clinton administration has proposed an increase in spending for programs designed to help foster children who are not adopted live on their own when they reach adulthood and leave the foster-care system.

Nearly 20,000 young people each year turn 18 or "age out" of foster care without being adopted. Studies show that those teenagers are often not prepared to live on their own.

Within two to four years of leaving foster care, only half have completed high school, research shows. In addition, fewer than half have jobs, one-fourth have been homeless for at least one night, 60 percent of the young women have given birth, 30 percent don't have access to necessary health care, and fewer than 20 percent...