Empowering Youth Aging Out of Foster Care

This project is uniquely community-based as the only known digital information-sharing project that will solicit input directly from AYAFC and multiple community stakeholders. Prior studies had input from youth in care, child welfare personnel and health care providers; our project includes stakeholders involved in life skills and employment training, housing support, legal advocacy, and education for a more robust community perspective. Other information sharing resources have been web-based, which is more challenging to access, or resulted in a paper guidebook. Our innovative app maximizes ease of access and portability without requiring significant cellular data usage. Assessing the health literacy skills of AYAFC can inform future interventions to support transitions to wellness in adulthood while youth are still in foster care.

This project is supported by the Region 3 Foster Care Consortium, a coalition of organizations and individuals committed to improving the lives of children involved in the foster care system. The Empowering Youth Task Force members are community partners who specialize helping youth in foster care successfully transition to adulthood. Each member organization contributes expertise on specific issues surrounding AYAFC they serve. They will engage in participant recruitment, app design and dissemination. Members of the Empowering Youth Task Force include:

The Rees-Jones Center for Foster Care Excellence is a community leader in clinical care, policy and advocacy and research. Roles include project design; development focus group questions; focus group and survey data collection and analysis; expertise on adolescent transitions from the medical provider, behavioral health provider, foster parent, and caseworker perspective; stakeholder engagement, and information dissemination.

The Krissi Holman Family Resource Library at Children's Health provide expertise in literature review and health literacy. Roles include project design; development focus group questions; survey and focus group and data collection and analysis. They will provide links to reliable health information and resources, and plain language educational materials that can be utilized through the app.

The Transition Resource Action Center at City Square supports transition-age youth with employment, education and housing, providing perspective on the issues facing young adults aging out of foster care.

The Southern Methodist University Dedman Law School Child Advocacy Clinic is a community expert on legal issues for youth aging out of foster care and will provide information resources (letter of support attached) The University of North Texas' Persevere UNTil Success Happens (PUSH) Program supports former foster youth and will provide additional perspectives on the needs of youth transitioning out of care.

The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services and their Child Protective Services and Preparation for Adult Living Program contributes expertise in child welfare transition services available to youth.

Superior Star Health Transition Services provides expertise in health insurance and support for AYAFC and will provide perspective regarding youth engagement in health insurance.

Additional community partners include Dallas Court-Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) and Zoie's Place, who provide information as unbiased child advocates and perspective about needs surrounding life skills training, support and transitional housing for AYAFC, respectively.

Study Design Most AYAFC have phones. An app is an ideal tool to help them manage reputable sources for health education and information, document storage, and access to community and child welfare resources. A community-engaged approach with AYAFC with first-hand knowledge of the foster care system will result in an app that is relevant and acceptable.

4.1 Study Design: Aim 1: Using mixed methods, (survey and focus groups) conduct a needs assessment that measures health literacy and assesses health information, supportive care, and resource needs for AYAFC transitioning from foster care to independent living.

Evaluation Methods: Survey of AYAFC to assess health literacy skills, assessment of knowledge of health and community resources, attitudes surrounding available resources and confidence in accessing digital information. Focus groups with AYAFC and community stakeholders to assess current needs surrounding health literacy, health information and community resources.

AYAFC Inclusion Criteria for all focus groups and surveys: 1) AYAFC: English-speaking, ages 18-24 who live in Texas Region 3.

Community stakeholders Inclusion Criteria (focus groups): English-speaking adults (18+) who support AYAFC (e.g. caregivers, medical, legal, and social service professionals)

Aim 2: App Development and Implementation: App development and implementation will use a user-centered design approach. This involves a needs assessment and targeted user feedback to develop an app framework. After legal approval, app infrastructure, capabilities and functionality are developed, design build-out and front and back-end integration occurs. User acceptability testing occurs at each step with testing and piloting before full roll-out.

Evaluation method: (a) Survey of implementation outcomes. (b) 4 additional focus groups with AYAFC and community stakeholders to assess attitudes toward app content, design, and usability.

Aim 3: By survey, reassess health literacy skills, and knowledge, attitudes, and confidence in accessing health information and needs for community resources.