A safety net for foster kids

Instead of giving someone a fish, you can — indeed — teach him how to fish. But in today's struggling fish industry, that might not be the most valuable skill to have.

That's why Utah's Transition to Adult Living Team is such a good idea. It pulls together 60 private and public resources to help 18-year-olds who have graduated from the state's foster care program to find some direction, confidence and a path toward self-sufficiency.

And given the troubling statistics that accompany former foster kids, it's a much-needed program.

The suicide rate of former foster kids is double the national average. Nationally, 90 percent of them lack health insurance when, ironically, they are among the most likely groups to become ill. As young adults, they often end up pregnant, in jail, injured or on the road. So rather than focus on the causes of personal problems, the Utah Transition Team looks to teach coping skills for the future and supply some fiscal resources for job searches, transportation, housing and health. As young people leave their foster homes, they often find themselves in midair. The program gives them a temporary safety net.

It appears to be the right approach for the right group at the right time.

The enterprise is reminiscent of the approach taken by many successful youth counselors. As young people come into their offices and begin by blaming their parents, the system and their friends for their predicament, the counselors simply nod in agreement. Then they say: You're absolutely right. Now what do you plan to do about it? Many kids fall silent. But it's a silence that often opens up a glimpse of other possibilities.

That is what Utah's Transition to Adult Living program offers: possibility. And that can be more valuable than money for food, housing and health. The program holds out the hope that life may not be a dead end; that there are caring people on the other side of foster care; that society is not ready to throw them to the wolves.

In the end, of course, the benefits of the program will be repaid in less public money being spent, over the long term, for health and poverty problems.

But more than that, the program throws a lifeline to foundering kids.

It not only "teaches them to fish" but provides a resource for getting the poles, the bait and boat to undertake the task at hand.