CHARLESTON, W.Va. – The bad news is that West Virginia has a high rate of unemployed youth not in school. The good news is there are things that can be done about it.

A new report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation found close to a quarter of West Virginians between 16 and 24 are neither employed nor in school.

But there are groups that say they've had some success slowing the rise in that number. Emily Schoen is director of strategic relationships and corporate communications for The Education Alliance, which mentors at risk-youth to keep them in school. She says the alliance sees improvements, including small, but steady increases in attendance.

"We found that, yes it can really help them in their academics and their behavior and of course performance. But the biggest thing is that it helps them in their individual lives and understanding why they're in school."

The Casey Foundation report found disconnected youth face serious problems in their lives. But The Education Alliance says it plans to mentor upwards of 500 young people at a time.

The West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy says the situation of disconnected youth gets at a problem with the state's economy. Sean O'Leary, a policy analyst with the center, says the decline in the number of good-paying blue-collar jobs makes it more important to have an educated workforce, because that improves the business climate. But he says the recession has tended to squeeze young people out of work and made some of them feel hopeless about education.

"When there's four unemployed people for every job opening, employers are going to take the worker who's educated, who has some skills, who has some experience. That just leaves no opportunity for young people who are just starting out in the workforce."

Mentoring can help with that, according to Schoen, who's a mentor herself. She says that it helps young people develop resilience and stick with education, even when it's tough.

"They realize you have to study; you have to take that time. Sometimes the classes you dislike the most are what you really need to spend the most time on."





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SEATTLE - The holidays can be a tough time for young people who have aged out of the foster-care system. For young Washingtonians, housing is an especially big concern.

An Annie E. Casey Foundation survey found, among young people in Washington who'd been in foster care after their 17th birthday, one-third had experienced homelessness by age 21.

Blandy Imzumza is a student at Seattle University who recalled living in a van with her three-year-old after aging out of the system. She said the holidays are challenging.

"Especially when you're a teenager," said Imzumza, "you don't know who you're going to hang out with or what you're going to do since that's what everybody else is talking about and looking forward to. It can be depressing and sad and lonely."

The Casey Foundation says nearly 1,100 children were in foster care in Washington as of 2019.

Imzumza said some of the barriers for teenage mothers who have been part of the foster-care system often are overlooked. She said young moms can struggle even when they have a job.

"You can't afford to do as much as you wish you wish you did for your kids," said Imzumza. "So, that's something that I think is left out a lot."

Surveys from the Annie E. Casey Foundation find about one in twenty foster care youth who were in the system for their 17th birthday had had a child.

Imzumza said one crucial organization for her has been Treehouse in Seattle, where the staff has guided her through hard times - helping her get housing and clothing for herself and her children, and to sign up for school.

She added it isn't easy to ask, but there's no shame in connecting with support systems like Treehouse.

"It just takes courage from you to reach out for that help and ask," said Imzumza. "Because nine times out of ten, they want to help you with everything that they possibly can."

INDIANAPOLIS -- As the holiday season draws near, groups are spotlighting ways to support young people transitioning to adulthood after spending time in foster care.

During the pandemic, increased federal funding was allocated for teens and young adults who had experienced the foster system to address the challenges they disproportionately face.

Maggie Stevens, president and CEO of Foster Success in Indiana, noted most of the funding has expired, or will soon. She said what brings a young person into the system, and sometimes the foster care experience itself, can be traumatic.

"On top of just trying to make sense of all the things that every teenager and 20-year-old in our communities are dealing with, they are also working with these added layers of trauma," Stevens observed. "And they don't always have a consistent adult in their lives to support them through these processes."

She pointed out her organization works to support these young people in achieving their goals, whether it be getting a first job or apartment; applying for college and financial aid programs; or connecting them with job training, certifications, financial literacy and other skills.

The U.S. House last month passed a bill to extend financial to support to older youth aged or aging out of foster care.

Stevens added many of the issues they deal with existed long before the pandemic, from eviction risks to job losses, compounded by the lack of a support system. She hopes to see more permanent supports.

"Teens and young adults leaving foster care, they don't always have somebody to cosign on that first loan," Stevens explained. "They don't have somebody to take them in when their residence halls closed due to COVID, or they lose a job for some reason."

She emphasized at least 24,000 Hoosiers between ages 14 and 26 have spent some time in foster care as a teen. And according to the National Foster Youth Institute, 26,000 young people age out of the system every year.

BEMIDJI, Minn. -- November is National Homeless Children and Youth Awareness Month.

Compared with other Midwestern states, Minnesota has some of the highest numbers for those 25 and younger. In the northwestern region, efforts are taking shape to prevent teens and young adults from a lifetime of housing instability.

One statewide study showed children and unaccompanied youths age 24 and younger make up nearly half of those experiencing homelessness.

Cory Boushee, community impact program officer for the Northwest Minnesota Foundation, which works with stakeholders in a 12-county region to address the issue, said roughly a quarter of those served by response programs are in the youth demographic, underscoring the need for more prevention work.

"All of that trauma leads to increases of adult homelessness," Boushee observed. "So, if we can cut down this number of 25% of the people we're serving having to be in that age group, we're really gonna be better off in the long run."

He pointed out one of their latest efforts to reduce the numbers is a new web app called My Path. It connects at-risk youth with a variety of resources, including housing, to help them gain more stability in their life. Project leaders hope it allows more teens and young adults to feel a sense of anonymity in reaching out, as opposed to walking into help centers and asking in person.

Research at the national level shows a variety of factors driving youth homelessness, including aging out of foster care and encounters with the juvenile-justice system.

Boushee noted when you combine that with a lack of a financial history, it is hard to get approved for housing.

"Landlords just won't look at 'em," Boushee explained. "So now they can't get into anywhere and that just keeps that cycle repeating of having to find a friend's house to sleep on and then another friend's house to sleep on."

He said without a permanent address, teens and young adults then encounter problems in landing a steady job, adding to their barriers in finding stability. Researchers have said more data collection is important to guide programs, and Boushee said this fall, the coalition in his region launched a separate effort to measure the effectiveness of all their responses.