Sofia Rudin

In Rhode Island every year, dozens of young people age out of the foster care system without a permanent connection to a family. Last year, the state’s Department of Children, Youth, and Families began allowing 18-year-olds to voluntarily remain in state care until they’re 21. But the need for support services as these young people become independent remains.

As part of our series on foster care, Living In Limbo, three young people who aged out of state care over the last decade share snapshots of their experiences.

Many foster kids in Rhode Island are eventually reunited with their birth parents. But for some, that isn’t possible. For these kids, adoption is one way to leave foster care — and the uncertainty that comes with it — behind.

Ally and Matt have been foster parents to Clara and her younger brother James for more than three years. We continue their family’s story as they prepare for adoption.

Earlier this year, Rhode Island’s foster care system was in the spotlight because of the death of a 9-year-old child in state care. A searing report on the death from the Child Advocate blamed the state’s Department of Children, Youth, and Families for failing to step in. It also revealed the extent to which the well-being of foster children depends on the capacity of their foster parents.

This is especially true for foster kids with serious medical conditions. As part of our series Living In Limbo, we meet one family working to get the care their youngest foster child needs.

Kids in foster care are often coping with the aftermath of abuse or neglect, along with the added trauma of being removed from their home. They’re grappling with this past, while living in the shadow of an uncertain future. The Public’s Radio is telling their stories in our series, Living In Limbo: Foster Families And Their Stories.

Over the past two days, we’ve introduced you to Mary and her four foster kids. Many parts of their life together are getting easier with time. But the kids are still learning to make sense of the circumstances that brought this foster family together.

When Rhode Island’s Department of Children, Youth, and Families decides to remove kids from their home, caseworkers immediately start looking for family members or family friends who might take the kids. They’re called “kinship foster parents,” and they often have little or no time to prepare. As of last spring, two thirds of all kids in a foster home in Rhode Island were living with a kinship foster family.

Yesterday, we introduced you to Mary, and told you how she came to foster to her nieces’ four kids. We continue our series, Living In Limbo: Foster Families And Their Stories, with a look at how the family is learning to get through each day.

Every year in Rhode Island, about 1,200 kids are removed from their homes by the state’s Department of Children, Youth and Families. We typically only hear about their experiences when something goes terribly wrong. As Rhode Island searches for a new DCYF director, The Public’s Radio is taking a deeper look at what’s at stake in our series, Living In Limbo: Foster Families And Their Stories.

There’s nothing new about the turmoil facing Rhode Island’s foster care system. The department faces pressure to improve oversight in the wake of the death of a 9-year-old foster child last summer. It’s being asked to do more with less. Caseloads are still higher than anyone would like them to be. The reasons kids are […]