This State Involved Foster Youth in Its Data Outreach to Other Foster Youth

Struggling to maintain communication with foster care children to administer federally-mandated National Youth in Transition Database surveys, New York state began incorporating foster youth into its outreach efforts.

The award-winning Peer Caller Program that resulted saw a 70 percent increase in connections with foster youth maintained between surveys, conducted at ages 17, 19 and 21.

That additional information on youth preparing to leave or having left the system is critical to improving the program down the line.

“Before the Peer Caller Program, I was the only person making these tracking phone calls, in addition to the daily demands of running the survey, and right away I realized that was not effective.” Hillary Dolinsky, project manager for the University of Albany’s Center for Technology in Government, told Route Fifty in an interview. “I needed help facilitating the collection of youth voices to inform policy and program choices that will affect future generations of children in foster care.”

The New York State Office of Children and Family Services in 2010 contracted out data collection to CTG, which had the technology and capabilities to run Internet and paper surveys and create a database. CTG was assisted by the Center for Survey Research at Stony Brook University, which handled phone surveys.

NYTD surveys may vary from state to state, but they all attempt to ascertain the independent living services foster youth are taking advantage of—mostly through yes or no questions. Those services include job training, employment search assistance, education training vouchers and financial aid for post-secondary education.

Foster youth in New York are eligible for Medicaid until age 26, regardless of whether they are adopted, so survey questions inquire about healthcare and mental health services.

There are also questions about whether or not foster youth have developed a permanent relationship with an adult for advice and emotional support.

Knowing what internships youth have held and vocational skills they’ve acquired can help gauge how prepared they are for adulthood.

“These data will be used to examine what additional supports might be needed to help these youth find employment, continue to higher education, find and maintain housing and help to meet other needs to set them on a path to success as independent adults,” Laura Velez, deputy commissioner of Child Welfare and Community Services in the New York Office of Children and Family Services, said in an email.

Another piece of the puzzle was developing and maintaining a liaison network of about 170 child professionals managing agency rosters for every district, the primary challenge being tracking youth, especially those who’ve left the system, between surveys.

The more than 35,000 14- to 21-year-olds leaving foster care each year move around often, change their contact information and don’t know about the follow-up surveys.

Undergraduate and graduate students and foster care workers were brought in to check on youth and see if their contact info had changed between surveys, but the most relatable callers proved to be foster youth themselves.

Survey participation is optional, and youth can opt out at any time, so making their peers the face of outreach reduced turnover. They’re also more likely to give out social media info to people their own age, though use of text messaging hasn’t been employed yet.

New York researched eight other states’ social media, privacy and survey strategies before implementing its own. Unlike some states, it lacked data-sharing agreements between agencies, so state workers had to learn how each individual county tracked foster youth.

In Texas, a team of foster youth help program administrators establish best practices, and while New York’s own youth leadership team failed for lack of consistent involvement, Dolinsky was inspired. The Peer Caller Program was born.

The initiative even won the University of Albany’s President’s Award for Exemplary Public Engagement, though that may not be enough to save it.

But OCFS’ contract with CTG expired on Nov. 30, after the center established a data collection network and conducted all surveys for the first full cohort of foster youth, as well as the baseline survey of 17-year-olds for the second cohort on Oct. 1.

“We did help bring on a third partner, the Center for Human Service Research at the University of Albany,” Dolinsky said. “We felt that once our contract concluded it was better for the next team that advanced the survey to have child welfare expertise, but we partnered with CHSR for nine months before then.”

For the first time, the surveys will be done entirely in house, which will add more consistency to the people making tracking calls.

CTG transferred its documentation on the Peer Caller Program over to CHSR, but Dolinsky doesn’t think the initiative “survived that transition.”

“While the contractual relationship with CTG ends this year, CTG and OCFS agreed that the work should continue with another contractor going forward,” OCFS spokeswoman Monica Mahaffey said in an email. “CHSR does cutting-edge work in reaching and following up with youth, which may include peer callers, but may also use other means.”

Dolinsky is at least confident OCFS will keep youth involved in outreach in some capacity.

“When a youth calls, other youth are more comfortable talking,” she said. “The youth-to-youth interaction is important and should be carried on.”