AB 12: Help for Emmancipated and Discharged Youth

Goals of Current Policy and Implementation
AB 12 attempts to address the need to have services for youth who have been emancipated or discharged from the foster system. This is required as the data on the subject highlights that youth are simply often not able to be thriving adults on their eighteenth birthdays. Many find themselves on the street homeless, without jobs, in jail or parents before they are fully able to care for themselves.
The goal of AB 12 is to extend foster care to age 21 and access the federal match of the national foster care system. According to the Assembly Bill 12 Primer (2014), AB 12 does the following:
1) Convert California's Kinship Guardianship Assistance Program (Kin‐ GAP) into a federally subsidized program; 2) Provide foster care benefits (also known as AFDC‐FC benefits) for eligible youth up until the age of 21; 3) Provide extended Kin‐GAP assistance or AAP assistance to eligible youth up until age 21, provided the Kin‐GAP payments began or the initial AAP agreement was signed when the youth was age 16 or older; 4) Provide CalWORKs benefits to eligible foster youth up until the age of 21 when the foster youth is placed with an approved relative and is not eligible for federal AFDC‐FC benefits; rovide extended foster care benefits up to age 21 to youth living with a non‐related legal guardian when the guardianship was created by the juvenile court (regardless of the age of the youth when guardianship was ordered).
Youth who are ages 18 to 21 are eligible to receive services as of January 1, 2014 as long as they have a foster care order before their eighteenth birthday, (CFC, 2014). This includes youth who are currently in placement, awaiting placement or are runaways. Youth who have exited the fos...

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California Youth Connection. Current Legislation, Policy & Advocacy - AB12 Implementation. (2014, January 1). Retrieved May 1, 2014, from http://www.calyouthconn.org/ab12-implementation

Children’s Advocacy Institute University of San Diego School of Law (2013, December). California’s Fostering Connections: ensuring that the AB 12 bridge leads to success for transition age foster youth. Retrieved April 20, 2014, from http://www.caichildlaw.org/Misc/AB12_Report_Final.pdf

Collins, M. E. (2004). Enhancing services to youths leaving foster care: Analysis of recent legislation and its potential impact. Children and youth services review, 26(11), 1051-1065.
Courtney, M. E., Dworsky, A., & Napolitano, L. (2013). Providing foster care for young adults: Early implementation of California’s Fostering Connections Act. Chicago: Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago