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[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                  HEARING ON PATHWAYS TO INDEPENDENCE:
                     SUPPORTING YOUTH AGING OUT OF
                              FOSTER CARE

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                    SUBCOMMITTEE ON WORK AND WELFARE

                                 OF THE

                      COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                            JANUARY 17, 2024

                               __________

                          Serial No. 118-WW06

                               __________

         Printed for the use of the Committee on Ways and Means
         
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                              __________

                   U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
55-469                     WASHINGTON : 2024                    
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------     

                      COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS

                    JASON SMITH, Missouri, Chairman
VERN BUCHANAN, Florida               RICHARD E. NEAL, Massachusetts
ADRIAN SMITH, Nebraska               LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas
MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania             MIKE THOMPSON, California
DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona            JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut
DARIN LaHOOD, Illinois               EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon
BRAD WENSTRUP, Ohio                  BILL PASCRELL, Jr., New Jersey
JODEY ARRINGTON, Texas               DANNY DAVIS, Illinois
DREW FERGUSON, Georgia               LINDA SANCHEZ, California
RON ESTES, Kansas                    BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
LLOYD SMUCKER, Pennsylvania          TERRI SEWELL, Alabama
KEVIN HERN, Oklahoma                 SUZAN DelBENE, Washington
CAROL MILLER, West Virginia          JUDY CHU, California
GREG MURPHY, North Carolina          GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin
DAVID KUSTOFF, Tennessee             DAN KILDEE, Michigan
BRIAN FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania      DON BEYER, Virginia
GREG STEUBE, Florida                 DWIGHT EVANS, Pennsylvania
CLAUDIA TENNEY, New York             BRAD SCHNEIDER, Illinois
MICHELLE FISCHBACH, Minnesota        JIMMY PANETTA, California
BLAKE MOORE, Utah
MICHELLE STEEL, California
BETH VAN DUYNE, Texas
RANDY FEENSTRA, Iowa
NICOLE MALLIOTAKIS, New York
MIKE CAREY, Ohio
                       Mark Roman, Staff Director
                 Brandon Casey, Minority Chief Counsel
                                 ------                                

                    SUBCOMMITTEE ON WORK AND WELFARE

                    DARIN LaHOOD, Illinois, Chairman
BRAD WENSTRUP, Ohio                  DANNY DAVIS, Illinois
MIKE CAREY, Ohio                     JUDY CHU, California
BLAKE MOORE, Utah                    GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin
MICHELLE STEEL, California           DWIGHT EVANS, Pennsylvania
LLOYD SMUCKER, Pennsylvania          TERRI SEWELL, Alabama
ADRIAN SMITH, Nebraska
CLAUDIA TENNEY, New York
                         
                         
                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              ----------                              

                           OPENING STATEMENTS

                                                                   Page
Hon. Darin LaHood, Illinois, Chairman............................     1
Hon. Danny Davis, Illinois, Ranking Member.......................     3
Advisory of January 17, 2024 announcing the hearing..............     V

                               WITNESSES

Todd Lloyd, Senior Policy Associate for the Jim Casey Program at 
  the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Washington D.C..................    14
Rebekka Behr, Former Foster Youth, Tallahassee, Florida..........    26
Will Kiefer, Executive Director and Founder of Bench Mark, 
  Lancaster, Pennsylvania........................................    33
Jordan Otero, Former Foster Youth, Munice, Indiana...............    42

                    MEMBER QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD

Member Questions for the Record and Responses from Todd Lloyd, 
  Senior Policy Associate for the Jim Casey Program at the Annie 
  E. Casey Foundation, Washington D.C............................    88
Member Questions for the Record and Responses from Will Kiefer, 
  Executive Director and Founder of Bench Mark, Lancaster, 
  Pennsylvania...................................................    93
Member Questions for the Record and Responses from Jordan Otero, 
  Former Foster Youth, Munice, Indiana...........................    94

                   PUBLIC SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

Public Submissions...............................................    99

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                  HEARING ON PATHWAYS TO INDEPENDENCE:
                     SUPPORTING YOUTH AGING OUT OF
                              FOSTER CARE

                              ----------                              

                      WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 17, 2024

                  House of Representatives,
                  Subcommittee on Work and Welfare,
                               Committee on Ways and Means,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 12:13 p.m., in 
Room 2020, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Darin LaHood 
[chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
    Chairman LaHOOD. The committee will come to order.
    I want to welcome our witnesses here today.
    And this is our Work and Welfare Subcommittee hearing on 
Pathways to Independence: Supporting Youth Aging Out of Foster 
Care.
    So welcome our committee members here this morning, and a 
good afternoon to everyone.
    I especially want to thank our witnesses that have traveled 
during some--a little bit of treacherous weather. So, want to 
thank you for your commitment and dedication to getting here 
for this important hearing.
    My name is Darin LaHood. I am honored and proud to be the 
chair of the subcommittee. I represent the 16th District of 
Illinois, covering much of central and northwest parts of our 
State.
    This bipartisan child welfare hearing marks the second that 
we have had this Congress, reflecting the shared dedication of 
the subcommittee members to address pressing issues facing 
foster children.
    Our first hearing last year, titled ``Modernizing Child 
Welfare to Protect Vulnerable Children,'' was held in September 
of last year and laid the groundwork for the committee to 
examine reauthorization of Title IV-B, which expired in 2021.
    This second hearing is an opportunity to evaluate the 
current landscape of services available to youth in foster care 
and ways to redesign Federal child welfare programs to reduce 
fragmentation and duplication.
    While many of our discussions have focused on young 
children entering care, the goal of today's hearing is to 
uplift the voices of nearly 150,000 youth ages 14 to 21 in the 
Nation's foster care system and the 19,000 youth who are aged 
out of care each year.
    Foster youth often lacks strong connections to families or 
mentors and need support finding pathways to independence. 
Basic milestones such as graduating from high school, pursuing 
higher education, and maintaining stable employment pose 
distinct challenges.
    Many of us can recall the support of parents and teachers, 
neighbors, coaches, and mentors who played vital roles in our 
own lives. Unfortunately, many foster youth lack these critical 
support systems.
    Alarming statistics reveal the hardships faced by youth in 
foster care. Twenty percent become homeless, 70 percent are 
arrested by the age of 26. Only 55 percent are employed, and 24 
percent are enrolled--only 24 percent are enrolled in 
postsecondary education or training. These statistics should 
deeply concern all of us.
    We should note, however, that some progress has been made. 
Last year, the Annie E. Casey Foundation released a 
comprehensive data report titled ``Fostering Youth Transitions 
2023.'' The report highlights significant gains in improving 
outcomes for foster youth over the past two decades. These 
include, one, a decrease in group homes and residential care; 
number two, increased kinship placement for foster youth; and 
number three, a decrease in youth entering the foster care 
system.
    The data also highlight persistent challenges. More than 
half of older youth in foster care lack permanent families and 
age out of foster care because they were never reunified with 
their biological family or adopted from foster care.
    Many young individuals in foster care face obstacles such 
as severed connections with birth families, homelessness, 
criminal records, limited opportunities for postsecondary 
education and training, and challenges entering the workforce.
    Despite the availability of federally funded youth 
programs, less than half of eligible--benefit from these 
resources. That is an alarming statistic.
    One stat from the Casey Foundation report that stood out to 
me is the finding that only 25 percent of youth in foster care 
have access to foster care services under the John Chafee 
Foster Care Program.
    The Chafee program was authorized to address specific needs 
of youth in foster care. Yet some States underutilize allocated 
funds. In my home State of Illinois, only 5 percent of youth--
of foster youth receive services at any point in their time in 
care. This is perplexing and should not be acceptable.
    Youth in the foster care system navigate a maze of Federal 
programs, and, if anyone understands government bureaucracy, it 
is our foster youth. Reducing overlap in administrative 
complexity would ease the burden on youth struggling to 
navigate the assistance available to them.
    This committee has an opportunity to ensure better 
alignment of programs as we consider reauthorization of Title 
IV-B.
    The stories and research of our witnesses who will share 
today will illuminate the experiences of growing up in foster 
care for many youths in America. This presents an opportunity 
for continuing our bipartisan collaboration on this 
subcommittee on the meaningful solutions for America's most 
vulnerable children.
    I am honored to welcome our witnesses today. I eagerly 
anticipate your testimonies, your stories, and your life 
experiences, and I want to extend my sincere gratitude to each 
of you for your willingness to be here today and share your 
stories.
    With that, I am pleased to recognize the gentleman from 
Illinois, the ranking member, Mr. Davis, for his opening 
statement.
    Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank you 
for holding this hearing so that our subcommittee can hear from 
youth who have experienced foster care. Their voices must shape 
our work.
    To start with, though, I have to acknowledge the ongoing 
dysfunction in the Republican Conference that continues to 
prevent the House from governing.
    Last session's chaos, infighting, and extreme proposals 
prevented all but a handful of laws from enactment. Today, we 
are just 2 days from a government shutdown, our fourth near 
miss.
    This perpetual crisis promotion prevents us from addressing 
real problems like child poverty, the childcare crisis, and 
helping older foster youth.
    Older youth make up a very small share of the youth 
population, but their experiences make up a disproportionate 
share of the foster care system's shame. They are more likely 
to experience multiple placements, live in institutions, suffer 
abuse within the system, and run away.
    Each year about 20,000 youth age out of foster care without 
a family or loving adult to guide and support them. Youth who 
age out are less likely to finish school or go to college, and 
more likely to become teen parents, live in poverty, endure 
food insecurity, and experience homelessness. These outcomes 
are appalling, and we must do more to help them.
    All of this happens even though many of these youths have 
loving family members or friends who want to welcome them into 
their families or parents who just need a little extra help to 
get back on track.
    When we enacted the Family First Prevention Services Act in 
2018, older youth fought by our side to prevent--for prevention 
services to help families address challenges and avoid foster 
care. As we implement that landmark law, my north star for 
action remains listening to these youth's voices as they 
continue to challenge us to help connect them to their 
families, while making them and their families stronger.
    Foster youth have told me that they need connections with 
loving adults and to stay in touch with their families, 
especially their siblings. They need the basic building blocks 
of independence that all teens need: an education, a driver's 
license, a safe place to live, a plan for the future, and the 
array of supports that parents provide to their young adult 
children, supports that don't just stop because they turn 18 or 
21. These youth need us to never, ever give up on making sure 
they are part of a family--a family that loves them 
unconditionally.
    I am deeply proud to have helped shape some landmark laws 
to address key challenges in child welfare, including providing 
guardianship opportunities in 2008, helping families avoid 
foster care altogether in 2018, and helping older foster youth 
avoid homelessness during the pandemic.
    Today, I look forward to hearing from our expert panel and 
my colleagues about ways to address ongoing challenges.
    Despite the internal challenges facing this Congress, I 
believe we can make real progress to help older foster youth. I 
look forward to working with my colleagues to move forward.
    And I ask, Mr. Chairman, unanimous consent to enter into 
the record statements from my colleagues Congresswoman Moore 
and Congresswoman Sanchez.
    I thank you very much and yield back the balance of my 
time.
    Chairman LaHOOD. Without objection, those statements will 
be admitted for the record.
    [The information follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairman LaHOOD. Thank you, Mr. Davis, for your opening 
statement.
    We will now introduce our witnesses here today. Our first 
witness is Mr. Todd Lloyd, who is a senior policy associate 
from the Jim Casey Program at the Annie E. Casey Foundation in 
Washington, D.C. Our second witness is Ms. Rebekka Behr, and 
she is a former foster youth from Tallahassee, Florida.
    Mr. Kiefer, I am going to skip you for a second there and 
go next to Jordan Otero, who is a former foster youth from 
Muncie, Indiana.
    Want to welcome all of you here.
    And I will now turn to Mr. Lloyd Smucker of Pennsylvania to 
introduce Mr. Kiefer.
    Mr. SMUCKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    It is a true honor to welcome my constituent Will Kiefer, 
my friend, and his son Kenny here today to share their family's 
story and their work working with at-risk youth in my district 
in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
    Will is the executive director and founder of the Bench 
Mark Program, which is a fitness-based mentoring initiative 
which works with underserved youth, many of whom have had 
experience in foster care or the juvenile justice system. They 
serve over 100 young people every day through diverse programs, 
including weightlifting, as I mentioned.
    And I think we will all learn something from Will's 
testimony today. I am really looking forward to hearing what he 
has to say about how we can better prepare at-risk youth to 
transition to adulthood. I know I am always inspired by the 
work that he does.
    And, Will, I am inspired by your heart for these young 
people, and I appreciate you taking the time to speak with us 
today.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman LaHOOD. Thank you, Mr. Smucker.
    And welcome, Mr. Kiefer, and to all of you.
    I would also note, we were supposed to have a fifth witness 
today, one of my constituents, Gabe Foley, who unfortunately, 
due to the weather, he tried to get here, multiple 
cancellations, was unable to. But I want to recognize and ask 
unanimous consent to submit his testimony for the record.
    [The information follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairman LaHOOD. Gabe is a former youth and a valued 
constituent from Peoria, Illinois. He is now utilizing his 
journey to contribute towards improving outcomes for youth in 
care through both Federal and State policy, and I want to thank 
him for his commitment and dedication.
    With that, I will now turn to our witnesses. And, Mr. 
Lloyd, you are now recognized for 5 minutes to give your 
opening statement.

 STATEMENT OF TODD LLOYD, SENIOR POLICY ASSOCIATE FOR THE JIM 
            CASEY PROGRAM, ANNIE E. CASEY FOUNDATION

    Mr. LLOYD. Thank you.
    Good afternoon, Chairman LaHood, Ranking Member Davis, and 
members of the subcommittee. My name is Todd Lloyd. I am a 
senior policy associate at the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Casey 
is a private philanthropy that invests in research, data, and 
innovations to build brighter futures for children, youth, and 
young adults.
    Prior to joining the Foundation, I worked in the child 
welfare field in Pennsylvania, first as a county caseworker in 
York County and later in statewide roles, including positions 
where I oversaw monitoring and technical assistance across the 
Commonwealth's 67 county agencies that administer child welfare 
programs to youth. I also served as policy director of 
Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children.
    Thank you for inviting me here today to provide some 
context about youth in foster care and programs that serve 
them. I will highlight key data trends. I will also share 
policy recommendations that have been informed by our work with 
young people who have firsthand experience in foster care.
    Today, nearly 150,000 young people ages 14 to 21 are in 
foster care. They typically have been in foster care for 25 
months. Some entered foster care as very young children, others 
as teens. A third of the teens have experienced foster care 
more than once in their lifetime.
    The primary reason teens enter foster care is neglect. 
Often the circumstance is family instability, poverty, and 
other family hardship.
    The committee's reauthorization efforts today can build on 
prior legislative reforms to Titles IV-B and IV-E to achieve 
two equally important goals for youth: preventing foster care 
involvement for youth whenever possible and promoting positive 
outcomes for youth who do come into foster care.
    Briefly, here is an example illustrating how States utilize 
and coordinate Titles IV-B and IV-E to stabilize and strengthen 
families.
    Since the passage of the Family First Act, more than 40 
States have taken the option to offer Family First prevention 
programs. The Family First Act was a significant achievement by 
Congress to appropriately focus on helping families sooner and 
prior to foster care. However, under Family First, Title IV-E 
reimbursement for services is limited to programs that achieve 
a certain evidence base in the clearinghouse, and eligibility 
is limited to, quote, candidates for foster care.
    An example from Nebraska shows how Title IV-B complements 
Family First and can offer unique flexibility to States to 
provide a broader array of services that are not yet included 
in the clearinghouse and to families who are struggling but not 
yet eligible under Title IV-E.
    In Nebraska, nearly half of children from birth to age five 
who are in foster care have at least one parent who was 
formally in foster care themselves.
    With Title IV-B funding, States can provide supportive 
community-based services to young parents before there is a 
crisis that results in a child becoming a candidate for foster 
care. In other words, Title IV-B funding plays a critical role 
in preventing intergenerational involvement of families in the 
child welfare system.
    I will now share several findings from the Foundation's 
recent data. First, more children in foster care are benefiting 
from kinship connections. This is a positive trend. Today, 
nearly 60 percent of teens who are in foster care are placed in 
a family setting, a result of a 40 percent increase in kinship 
care over the last 15 years and Federal legislative reforms to 
support kin.
    A concerning trend, however, is that permanency rates for 
youth are ticking down. Less than half of youth in foster care 
who are ages 16 and older will leave foster care to legal 
permanency through reunification, adoption, or guardianship.
    Youth mental health needs are significant and often unmet.
    There is extensive underutilization of Chafee services that 
help foster youth transition successfully to adulthood. Each 
year, less than a quarter of all eligible foster youth receive 
a Chafee service, such as mentoring and life skills training.
    I will close with several recommendations. Others are 
included in my written testimony.
    We urge Congress to more closely align Federal 
reimbursement that incentivizes desired outcomes. One approach 
is to incentivize the best practice of family-based foster care 
by delinking or increasing eligibility for Federal 
reimbursement, which would encourage placement in family-based 
foster care.
    Additionally, increase reimbursement rates for kinship 
placements, address declining rates of permanency by specifying 
in the purposes of Title IV-B that funds should focus on 
permanency goals specifically for youth, including preventing 
foster care.
    Also, enhance overall performance and accountability of 
these serving programs by making the Title IV-B plans outcome-
focused. Address the underutilization of the Chafee Program and 
improve the quality, delivery, and impact of its services.
    I commend the committee for its legacy of legislative 
accomplishments to improve child welfare and welcome the chance 
to discuss further.
    Thank you.
    [The statement of Mr. Lloyd follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairman LaHOOD. Thank you, Mr. Lloyd.
    I now recognize Ms. Behr for 5 minutes. Thank you.

 STATEMENT OF REBEKKA BEHR, FORMER FOSTER YOUTH, TALLAHASSEE, 
                            FLORIDA

    Ms. BEHR. Good afternoon, Chairman and Ranking Member, 
subcommittee, and guests, on this hearing on Pathways to 
Independence: Supporting Youth Aging Out of Foster Care.
    My name is Rebekka Behr, and I am here to share the 
challenges of my journey through foster care and advocate for 
improvements.
    At 25, I stand before you as a graduate of the Florida 
State University, holding degrees in family and child sciences 
as well as sociology. I am fortunate enough to have the 
opportunity to participate in many local, statewide, and 
national advocacy organizations, such as the National Youth 
Engagement Advisory Council, Florida Youth SHINE. And today, I 
stand before you as a former delegate of the Congressional 
Leadership Academy of 2023 on behalf of the National Foster 
Youth Institute.
    My journey in foster care began abruptly at the age of 16, 
where I was called out of class and was taken away from the 
only life that I had known without a single explanation. As my 
family faced challenges, the only foster--the foster care 
system only further divided us. While my brother and I entered 
foster care, my sister stayed with my mom. The separation 
deprived of us sibling connections, and I lost out on a 
supportive family during crucial years. It took 6 years post-
foster care to rebuild my relationship with my little sister, 
and I am still cautious with my mom due to the scars left by 
the system.
    Entering care, I was taken into a shelter where there was a 
constant police presence, a lack of basic necessities such as 
clothes, transportation to school, and the ability to see my 
siblings. I had gone from living with my family, who only 
needed minimal services, to a shelter where I never felt safe 
and felt that I had no one. I was not given the opportunity to 
live with a relative, although multiple relatives lived nearby, 
and I remained in a shelter for 3 months.
    Transitioning to my second placement brought me to a more 
secure environment, allowing me to attend school daily and 
engage in life skills. Despite these improvements, the absence 
of a loving family's crucial support remained. While learning 
essential life skills, the limitations of comprehensive 
services in group home became evident.
    My brother's placement was in a foster home. Though not 
with family, it provided a more personalized and supportive 
environment.
    The lack of control over our living arrangements, coupled 
with infrequent and often disrupted sibling visits, underscore 
the challenges within the foster care system.
    Since this is National Mentoring Month, I want to highlight 
the impactful role of my mentor Daniele in my foster care 
journey. For almost a decade, she has been pivotal in my 
personal development, supporting me through various challenges, 
including driving lessons, even though she is terrified of 
other people driving. And no, I haven't been able to drive 
around since I got my license.
    Having a mentor when aging out of the foster care system is 
essential for providing emotional support, guidance, role 
modeling, life skill development, consistency, and trust. It 
significantly contributes to the successful transition to 
independent adulthood for individuals.
    Three months before I turned 18, I visited the Florida 
Supreme Court and met a justice who informed the group I was 
with, the Florida Youth Leadership Academy, that most young 
people in Palm Beach County had attorneys. However, I did not 
have one, even though my mom did, my dad, and my brother.
    After the meeting, I approached the justice and told her my 
situation, and she told me I would have an attorney the very 
next day. True to her word, I received a call from my attorney, 
which made a game changer--was a big game changer in gaining 
legal representation. My attorney made sure that I could obtain 
a driver's license, reconnect with my family, and navigate 
aging out of care.
    A few weeks after I turned 18, my brother returned home to 
my dad and is now a successful student at the University of 
Florida, while playing the timpani around the country.
    I am a determined adult who navigated extended foster care 
until college, graduating in 2020 with two bachelor's degrees, 
thanks to programs like Best Foot Forward, Vita Nova, and the 
Unconquered Scholars Program that assisted me with FAFSA 
scholarships and budgeting to the point that I became a 
homeowner at 21 and was able to study while enjoying the 
student life on Florida State's campus.
    Exiting the system, many youth are not encouraged to pursue 
secondary education. Assistance with FAFSA or applications 
became a daunting barrier. Despite campus coach legislation, 
robust campus support is inconsistent. I advocate for funded 
legislation, in turn, well-trained individuals, additional 
support, and lower no-cost housing with meal plans for foster 
youth at every institution.
    As part of the 5 percent of foster youth with a 4-year 
degree, I stand as a testament to resilience. While 
acknowledging my success, I urge the committee to consider 
systemic changes for others in foster care.
    My powerful ask is for comprehensive, empathetic policies 
that empower foster youth, creating a pathway for success 
beyond the challenges of foster care that utilize diverse youth 
with lived experienced voices. Suggestions include placing with 
relatives or in-home support services before being taken out of 
the home.
    My experience traveling 40 minutes to school emphasizes the 
need for programs like Keys to Independence, as I was often 
left waiting for a bus that never came.
    I want to express my gratitude for your time today as I 
advocate for informative reform, and I hope that my story 
leaves you inspired to create meaningful change.
    Thank you.
    [The statement of Ms. Behr follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairman LaHOOD. Ms. Behr, thank you for sharing your 
powerful and successful journey.
    We will now turn to Mr. Kiefer. You are recognized for 5 
minutes.

STATEMENT OF WILL KIEFER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND FOUNDER, BENCH 
                              MARK

    Mr. KIEFER. Good afternoon, congressional committee 
members.
    I will not be the most experienced or credentialed witness 
you will hear from today, but I will be the sole witness who 
has spent the last 10 years of my professional career building 
a system of programs that allow me to stick with at-risk youth 
through the toughest parts of their lives.
    My name is Will Kiefer, and I am the executive director and 
founder of Bench Mark Program, a space where juvenile 
offenders, foster youth, and youth who have dual involvement in 
both delinquency and dependency systems can call home.
    Bench Mark Program is a gym facility, a lounge, a tutoring 
center, a kitchen, and a career development provider. On any 
given day, we operate seven separate yet interconnected 
initiatives. We provide youth with a consistent mentor who 
remains connected to them for years at a time, program after 
program, helping them navigate life's complex challenges well 
beyond their 18th birthday.
    I will tell you first about Julius, who is 18 years old and 
has been in foster care since he was 11. When I first met him, 
he was confined to our local detention center and shelter.
    Julius had been removed from a foster home and put into a 
group home where he fell in with the wrong crowd and ultimately 
committed a gun crime. He had no prospect of being accepted 
into another foster home and no idea how to navigate both the 
delinquency and dependency systems. He had a lot of people 
telling him what to do but very few people helping him to do 
any of it.
    Over the next year, Julius walked step by step through five 
different initiatives at Bench Mark Program without a break in 
services. We ultimately offered him a part-time job at Bench 
Mark, and now he is a high school graduate living in a group 
home and looking for his first full-time job.
    We continue to work with him daily. He gets the undivided 
attention of his mentors, Anna and Cathy. They are his 
navigators, and they will stay involved with Julius until he 
tells them that he no longer needs their support.
    And then we have Shylah, who is about to turn 18 years old 
while out on the run. She couldn't last in any of the 10-plus 
foster or group homes where she landed. Some of the fights she 
started there earned her criminal charges.
    Every time that she returned to our local detention center, 
though, we engaged her in our programs. We became the only 
consistent home base in her life. Her release to our facility 
and our programs was one of few opportunities that she had to 
combat institutionalization.
    After serving as a keynote speaker in front of 600 juvenile 
justice practitioners at a statewide conference last November, 
Shylah ran away from our facility one evening with nothing more 
than the clothes on her back. The upcoming move to another 
group home and some of the good things happening to her were 
too much. She chose the comfort of old toxic peers over the 
challenge of life as a young adult in a group home.
    Then out of the blue, she called me last Wednesday night as 
I was writing this testimony and asked if she could come back 
to Bench Mark. She apologized and asked when I would be in the 
gym next so that we can meet and make new plans for her future. 
We picked a date, and I promptly edited this section of my 
testimony to reflect this new twist in her story.
    Finally, sitting behind me today is Kenneth Jackson-Kiefer, 
my son. I am taking him back to Washington College for the 
second semester of his freshman year right after this hearing.
    He was introduced to Bench Mark at 14 years old after 
losing his biological father and brother and later his mother. 
For a time, he too was on juvenile probation.
    My wife Karla and I fostered Kenny at 16 and ultimately 
adopted him, helping to prevent him from aging out of foster 
care himself. He has taken advantage of every opportunity 
available to him at Bench Mark Program and beyond, and I will 
let him answer any questions that you may have for him once I 
conclude.
    Here is what I would ask this committee to remember: Number 
one, no one is ready to be an adult at 18 when they are told 
they are an adult and told to prepare to live on their own. 
Complete freedom is not what any of us need at that age, no 
matter what resources are promised to us.
    Number two, unless you are an individual with incredible 
persistence and system know-how, youth cannot access resources 
made available to them as they age out of care. They need a 
navigator who knows the ropes, has learned the system, and can 
lead them through the tangle of paperwork and processes to get 
them what they need.
    And third and finally, any program or system that we build 
or fund to serve youth aging out of foster care needs to be 
intentionally designed to pair youth with a singular long-term 
mentor across the span of years. This is the gold standard.
    In this room today, we are gathered to discuss a complex, 
multifaceted problem involving some of the most traumatized, 
unpredictable, and challenging youth. We are well-educated, 
well-funded, and well-connected. We will solve this problem. We 
will solve it as soon as we realize that what has allowed each 
of us to successfully transition from adolescence to adulthood 
is the same thing that youth aging out of foster care need. 
Namely, it is the presence of a consistent, reliable, available 
long-term mentor who can be trusted to pick up when a kid calls 
year after year after year until that kid finally gets across 
their chosen finish line.
    What is keeping us from building that type of support into 
our programs, our system, and our society? Answer that 
question, and we will have solved this problem.
    [The statement of Mr. Kiefer follows:]
   [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairman LaHOOD. Thank you, Mr. Kiefer, for sharing your 
inspiring story of you and your son both. Welcome.
    We will next recognize Mr. Otero for 5 minutes.

STATEMENT OF JORDAN OTERO, FORMER FOSTER YOUTH, MUNCIE, INDIANA

    Mr. OTERO. Good afternoon, Chairman LaHood, Ranking Member 
Davis, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for inviting 
me to be here today to give my testimony.
    I am here today to share my experience of how family 
connections, financial resources, and peer support programs 
have helped me navigate the world in and beyond foster care.
    My name is Jordan Otero, and I am 24 years old. I graduated 
from Ball State University with my bachelor's degree in general 
studies with a concentration in social work. I am now a case 
manager at George Junior Republic, an agency in Indiana, where 
I support children and youth who are experiencing foster care. 
I am also a father to my 2-year-old son.
    What I am going to be sharing today is by no means the 
average experience of foster care. I am blessed and very 
fortunate and very lucky to be where I am today.
    With that being said, I know oftentimes it is sad stories 
that are told when we talk about the foster care system, but 
today I would like to highlight the positive impact of 
relationships that I have built, the financial support that I 
have received, and the programs that I have been a part of that 
all helped me succeed in my early adulthood.
    My foster parents are some of the greatest foster parents 
ever. They have been very supportive in my life after foster 
care. To this day, I have maintained a great relationship with 
them, and my foster dad and I talk on the phone every Friday. 
My foster parents are people I can lean on for advice and 
support when I need it.
    I stayed with my foster parents until I started college at 
Ball State University. I relied on their support and a program 
called Summer Bridge that is run by Foster Success in Indiana 
to prepare for my freshman year.
    Summer Bridge provided me with the opportunity to stay on 
campus of a college in Indiana and earn college credits the 
summer before my freshman year of college. This allowed me to 
get adjusted to the college lifestyle and have a head start in 
my education.
    During this time, I turned 18 and decided to enter the 
Collaborative Care program in Indiana, which is Indiana's 
extended foster care system.
    While living with my foster parents, I also joined the 
Indiana Youth Advisory Board. I found out about this meeting 
from my family case manager who sent an email, and it was 
titled, Free $40, go. Little did I know that this youth board 
would be the start of my advocacy journey.
    The Indiana Youth Advisory Board allows a space for teens 
and young adults with lived experience in foster care to 
connect, share, and grow with each other. It also empowers 
foster youth to advocate for themselves and communicate their 
needs and concerns effectively.
    I am still involved with Foster Success, who runs the 
Indiana Youth Advisory Board, and I now serve as a lead 
ambassador where I help younger youth prepare to engage in the 
board and advocacy.
    One thing I would like to highlight is that my foster 
parents helped me in getting my driver's license and covered my 
insurance while I was living with them. Once I went to college, 
however, I couldn't stay on their insurance, and I wasn't sure 
how to get on my own. I was embarrassed to ask, and then I 
ended up driving without insurance. I lost my license for 2 
years for two counts of not having insurance, and, during one 
of those times, I was involved in an accident.
    I was then faced with the same reality that my fellow peers 
in the foster care system had, forced to rely on public 
transportation, if there is any where you live, asking people 
for rides and owing them favors, the feelings of being a burden 
to others, the feeling of being inferior because I couldn't do 
what most normal college kids could, or the worst is that some 
of my peers decided to drive without a license and dig a 
further hole that they couldn't get out of.
    I was blessed with the fact that I knew I could get my 
license back, and I just had to pay my insurance. I knew it 
would end, but the sad reality is that some of my peers to this 
day can't get their license. Now, in Indiana, though, that has 
thankfully changed.
    This past year in Indiana, I advocated alongside Foster 
Success for the development of the recently implemented 
Insuring Foster Youth Trust Fund and a $2 million State 
appropriation to support behind-the-wheel driving hours and 
offset auto insurance costs for older foster youth to allow 
them to more easily get to school and to work. I believe that 
all States could benefit from this model that Indiana has and 
that every older foster youth would benefit from something like 
this.
    I started by sharing that there are three things which 
contributed to my successful transition to adulthood. It is the 
relationships that I have built, the financial resources that I 
have gained from, and the programs that I have engaged in my 
lived experience.
    I believe that all foster youth need these three things in 
order to be successful, and there are three ways to accomplish 
this: Prioritize relationships and the family placement for 
transitioned youth in foster care. We need relationships with 
supportive adults who will last far beyond our time in care.
    Invest in the financial resources that meet the various 
needs of young people while we pursue higher education or the 
workforce or just finding our footing as young adults.
    Ensure all young people in foster care have access to the 
network of peers and supportive adults. This can be through the 
youth advisory boards, the peer navigation programs who can 
help us find those right resources, or campus supports. This is 
critical to reduce the isolation of being in foster care and 
empowering us to improve the foster care system and those who 
are still experiencing it.
    Thank you for having me today. It is truly an honor and a 
blessing to be here. Five minutes is not enough time to give 
you the full scope of the foster care system and what children 
and youth experience. So I urge you to meet with your lived 
experience youth in your home State and hear their stories and 
see who they are.
    I want you to have the understanding that our stories are 
more than just testimonies and sad news articles you see, but 
we are people with dreams and ambitions. We are people who 
break the cycles of poverty and dysfunction. We are people who 
have achieved many successes and received accolades.
    And, with the barriers we have faced, it doesn't always 
make sense for us to be here. Yet I sit here today, alongside 
my peers and others, that--we are able to be here, and we will 
continue to make success the expectation and not the anomaly.
    Thank you again.
    [The statement of Mr. Otero follows:]
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    Chairman LaHOOD. Mr. Otero, thank you for sharing your 
personal story and for your passionate leadership and advocacy. 
So we are grateful.
    And to all our witnesses, thanks for your testimony.
    We will now proceed to the question and answer session with 
the members that are here today, and I will begin by 
recognizing myself.
    Mr. Lloyd, I will begin with my first question for you. You 
provided a policy recommendation that Congress should look to 
reimagine child welfare financing to incentivize delivery of 
effective services. And I appreciate your, I guess, big picture 
view that you outlined.
    As has been mentioned, this subcommittee is working on 
reauthorizing Title IV-B, which we found is an important 
flexible funding stream for States, but it is also outdated and 
duplicative in some places.
    I am curious your opinion on what we can do to make sure 
Title IV-B is modernized so it works better for our youth and 
particularly foster youth.
    Mr. LLOYD. Thank you, Chairman. Yes, and I think there are 
things that we will echo probably from September when you heard 
about the opportunities to streamline and make Title IV-B more 
outcome-based and efficient.
    We would also suggest the reinvestment and a redirecting of 
Federal and State Title IV-E savings from reductions and use of 
foster care and group home placements into Title IV-B 
placements. So there is this relationship between Title IV-E 
and Title IV-B as incentivizing greater performance from both 
titles by making appropriate investments in IV-B.
    Federal increasing to Title IV-B programs that are tied to 
the performance, ensuring that a rate of expenditure under 
Title IV-E preventions. So, as States have this new opportunity 
under the Family First Act to spend under Title IV-E 
preventions, so far, 6 years in, we have about a 1 percent of 
total Federal spending in that IV-E prevention program. So 
could we incentivize more IV-E prevention through increasing 
Title IV-B investment and kind of coupling those things 
together.
    There is opportunity to modernize and align both IV-B and 
IV-E to also allow a broader continuum of prevention 
investments, and it sort of relates to the illustration from 
Nebraska that there are times when Title IV-E prevention 
services can't be used for certain families. They are not 
eligible because their children are not quite on the verge of 
entering foster care.
    Chairman LaHOOD. Thank you. I appreciate that, Mr. Lloyd.
    Mr. Kiefer, I am now going to turn to you.
    In your testimony, you underscore a lack of communication 
and knowledge about the rights and opportunities and the need 
to create creative--and be creative about engaging with youth 
so they are receptive and see the value in these programs.
    With your extensive experience guiding teens to be 
successful in adulthood, I can imagine the underutilization of 
certain programs is not unexpected. In your opinion, what steps 
should be taken to ensure that children in foster care are 
informed about the tools and resources available to them?
    Mr. KIEFER. Thank you, Chairman LaHood. This system is more 
complex than even I can wrap my mind around, but if I were to 
boil it down to one thing, based on the experiences that Bench 
Mark has and the individuals that we serve, it is the 
connection to a singular mentor for a long, long period of 
time. And we have managed that by creating programs that kids 
step through so they don't have to be transitioned to another 
organization.
    But I think that that underlying message holds true here. 
We can work on the system itself, which to me seems to be a 
largely static thing, or we can invest in very dynamic 
individuals who serve as navigators, who they themselves 
understand exactly how to work through things so that kids get 
what they need. And to me that sounds like certainly an area of 
focus for us on individuals.
    Chairman LaHOOD. And just to follow up on that, in terms of 
the practicality of how we implement that, what do you think 
are some of the attributes of Bench Mark's that make you stay 
engaged?
    Mr. KIEFER. We generally hire a younger demographic. We 
hire young people who are a little bit older than the teens 
that we serve so that they feel a quick connection to them. And 
we have extensive training so that they understand the systems 
that they are involved in. And then we pay them, you know, a 
very reasonable salary to do this work so that they are not 
looking for a job elsewhere, that they feel they can make a 
career out of committing long-term to serving the individuals 
that we pair them up with.
    These are also known as credible messengers. So oftentimes 
the people we hire have grown up in the community where those 
individuals grew up. So they have an immediate connection and 
understand things that maybe I wouldn't understand as someone 
who comes from another community.
    Chairman LaHOOD. Thank you for that.
    Mr. Otero, in your testimony, you shared that the youth 
advisory board showed you the difference that sharing your 
experiences could make. Can you provide an example of a policy 
the advisory board asked you to provide feedback on and how it 
impacted the State child welfare system in Indiana?
    Mr. OTERO. Oh, that is taking me back a few years. Well, I 
don't know other than the Driving Act is probably the most 
recent one I can really speak of, was being able to just talk 
to everybody and share an experience about how--the difference 
between cost of insurance for just a regular 19-year-old on 
their own plan compared to a 19-year-old on an adult's plan and 
just the cost variation.
    I mean, it is three times as much for just any 19-year-old 
to be on their own plan, and depending on other factors, it 
could be even higher. So I was able to just really share that 
impact that that can have on someone's financial status.
    So other than that, I really worked with the board to just 
talk to other foster--like foster parents. I did foster parents 
training when I was on IYAB, and I got to really talk to those 
foster parents and tell them what my great foster parents did 
for me and how you can communicate with us in different ways 
and things like that. So----
    Chairman LaHOOD. And what we found is not every State, 
obviously, has youth advisory boards similar to what you talked 
about in terms of your own experience.
    Would you be an advocate for States implementing a youth 
advisory board?
    Mr. OTERO. Absolutely. I think not only does it provide you 
with the peer support. I have met all of my--a lot of my 
friends are from that board, and we have continued to do other 
coordinating programs all throughout the country together to 
this day.
    And so not only did it grow great peer relationships, but 
it keeps those relationships in State, in your own county. You 
are able to then start programs or start--get things running 
off the floor.
    And then, I mean, the people who run Foster Success, they 
provide you with opportunities now from the age of 14 all the 
way to--I am 24 now, so I have been--I could, theoretically, if 
I started now, would be--you know, 14 to 24, that is a 10-year 
span of having one individual entity involved in your life that 
is so consistent. And I think it is pivotal for these kids to 
succeed. So I really love what our agency does in Indiana.
    Chairman LaHOOD. Thank you for that.
    I will now recognize Mr. Davis for 5 minutes.
    Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And let me thank each one of you for your moving 
testimonies. And if I don't get to all of my questions, just 
know I will be calling you.
    Ms. Behr, you mentioned how critical help is with getting 
one's driver's license and how much independence it gives to a 
person. Can you talk a little bit more about how that really 
zeros in on what a young person needs?
    Ms. BEHR. Yes, thank you. So, in the State of Florida, we 
have a program called Keys to Independence that was helped to 
be created by Florida Youth SHINE, which is a youth-led, peer-
driven organization, that they ended up creating this amazing 
program that works with young people aging out of the foster 
care system gain their driver's license, car insurances, and 
more.
    When I turned 16, this program wasn't put into place yet. 
And when I was aging out, there was a small pilot program in 
Orlando, so I still didn't qualify for it. And then, by the 
time that I was turning 21, I no longer met the requirements.
    So regardless of this going statewide, I was ready to drive 
the moment I entered into foster care. I had had my driver's 
permit from the second that I could take that test, but I was 
hit with multiple barriers: unable to get my birth certificate 
or Social Security card and was met with barriers because I 
didn't have an attorney fighting for me.
    And by the time--the way that these licenses would have 
helped me is because I had to meet ratio in order to go to swim 
practice, to go to school, to ensure that I had a staff member 
that could take me anywhere. I missed out on activities. I 
missed out on debate tournaments. I missed out on being able to 
be--just have normalcy. And I often missed school because I was 
waiting on a bus that often didn't show up.
    Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Otero, you mentioned some experiences with driving. Do 
you have anything you would like to add to that?
    Mr. OTERO. Yes. So many of my peers struggle to find adults 
willing to help with the driving hours or the insurance, which 
has been mentioned.
    DCS, the Department of Child Services in Indiana, only pays 
for six of those hours needed, but now with this Insuring 
Foster Youth Trust Fund, it has been able to help pay for those 
remaining hours.
    But the reality of it is that a lot of the foster parents, 
A, when this whole thing happened, when my foster parents 
decided to help me with driving, they didn't even know if they 
actually could. So that was a barrier itself is, what can our 
foster parents do? And, if they can do it, I think a lot of 
them would. And if they were able to talk about how impactful 
this could be, that they may be able to take that on 
themselves.
    So I just think the communication barrier is why it is 
there.
    Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Kiefer, you and I seem to share a common passion in 
terms of work with individuals who have had some difficulty 
with our justice system. How do you reconcile and work with 
those individuals to be most helpful?
    Mr. KIEFER. Thank you, Mr. Davis. It is a belief that we at 
our organization share, that our efforts should be focused on 
the disproportionately small part of our population that does a 
disproportionately large amount of damage to our communities. 
If we focus our resources there, we can have great outcomes 
that spread across the community.
    And the last thing that those young people need is another 
program that they need to jump hoops through. They need someone 
to say, all right, I am in your life now. I will take it from 
here. You keep doing what you are doing. Do the right things. I 
will navigate the system. We will get you to your desired 
outcome. That is what keeps us so motivated to work with that 
population.
    Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much.
    And, Mr. Lloyd, I know that I am about out of time, but I 
am very familiar with Casey and the work that you have done for 
years and years and years.
    What would you say to us that we can do to really help 
young people aging out?
    Mr. LLOYD. That is a great question. I think really 
leveraging this fantastic opportunity under Title IV-B and the 
reauthorization to make young people a priority. Currently, 
Title IV-B, you are not able to actually provide services to 
youth over the age of 18. And so there are opportunities to 
both, like I mentioned in my testimony, to prevent things and 
promote things. And so it is kind of a combination of IV-E and 
IV-B investment together.
    Mr. DAVIS. Thank you all.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Chairman LaHOOD. Thank you.
    Pursuant to committee practice, we will now move two to 
one. I will recognize Dr. Wenstrup of Ohio.
    Mr. WENSTRUP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all 
for being here today.
    I think it is important that we learn from the past, 
modernize our welfare system as best we can. And so I thank all 
the witnesses here today for discussing your angles of this 
experience along the way.
    You know, you think about drop-in centers and, you know, we 
have one in Cincinnati, and a lot of places have it. And what 
you always come away with from the adults that are in there is 
where were you when I was young. And I think that that is the 
key, and I know that you are all all over that.
    To think that there are nearly 19,000 youth that age out of 
foster care each year without a strong connection to a family, 
a mentor, or other adults, that really is something we have got 
to address. I can tell you, at 18 years old, I was not ready to 
be without my parents and to be completely independent, and 
that is just a huge component of a successful life beyond. So 
the permanency of these types of thing I think is really 
important.
    You know, one example of modernizing services over time is 
an example of Boys Town. Maybe you are familiar with Boys Town 
in Omaha, Nebraska. It started about 100 years ago, mostly 
comprised of orphans and runaways, runaways from reformatories. 
And Boys Town is still out there in Omaha today. It is their 
own city. They have their own fire department, police 
department.
    But one of the things that they have done besides being so 
helpful to that population for many, many years, in 2008, they 
directed some of their focus, additional focus serving children 
while they remained at home with their families. So reaching 
out beyond just come here because you have no one else, right. 
So some people have families and they reached out, and they 
found it to be cost-effective.
    You talked about success, outcomes-based. They can say that 
by 2013, 92 percent of children who received services from Boys 
Town were children living in their own homes. That is a 
component we address too.
    At home, I have been involved for 30-some years with boys 
help, girls help. Where parents say we don't have the best 
environment for our child, they go live in this home. They are 
not taken from their families, but they live there. They are 
mentored. They are safe. They are secure. They get tuition to 
go to, generally, private schools. It is basically a 
scholarship. The outcomes have been tremendous.
    You know, so those are things--we realize what is necessary 
for success, and I think that that is what we need to keep 
focusing on, and that is good support while you are in it and 
good support when you reach age 18, or allow provisions. Like, 
I think you were on insurance when you were with them, and 
those are great examples.
    So, Mr. Kiefer, based on your extensive experience with the 
foster youth, do you think there is a necessity for 
redesigning, modernizing our Federal programs catering to 
youth? I mean, I hear good things like the youth advisory 
board. Basically, what it sounds like you are doing is see one, 
do one, teach one. You know, come back and help the next person 
along the way to provide a consistent, reliable, trusted family 
atmosphere.
    And so what do you recommend we might be able to do here to 
make that more feasible?
    Mr. KIEFER. Thank you, Dr. Wenstrup. I would encourage this 
committee to truthfully think simplistically about this. We 
understand what the gold standard is. You just described it in 
action at Boys Town. It is the connection to a singular or 
small group of long-term mentors who will be there for years.
    I am not sure why we can't build that into our systems. It 
may be much more cost effective than working on tweaking a 
system as a whole. Again, I believe the system can generally be 
a static thing, but an individual who navigates the system on 
someone's behalf is dynamic and can change with the times. And 
we can teach them new things, and they can adapt to new 
systems.
    Boy, I wish that kind of job would have been available to 
me when I got out of college, to be a navigator for kids.
    Mr. WENSTRUP. Well, and you mentioned too, understanding 
the tools available.
    Mr. KIEFER. Yes.
    Mr. WENSTRUP. Because it is not one size fits all 
necessarily, but that singular mentor I think is huge. So thank 
you.
    I yield back.
    Chairman LaHOOD. Thank you, Dr. Wenstrup.
    I recognize Mr. Carey of Ohio now.
    Mr. CAREY. I want to thank the chairman. I also want to 
thank the ranking member for having this hearing.
    And I also want to thank all of you, the witnesses, for 
testifying here today. Your willingness to share your stories 
of how foster care system has impacted you is truly inspiring.
    And I will tell you, Ms. Behr, you may have missed a lot of 
debates, but I will tell you what, nobody could be prouder of 
themselves in the job you did today. I really appreciate your 
testimony.
    Now, I have a 22-year-old son. I have a 4-year-old son and 
a 22-year-old son, big discrepancy in age. But, you know, my 
son is about ready to graduate from college. And, you know, he 
has a full-time job, works at our State house in Columbus.
    But I will tell you it is not always easy to navigate that 
transition from being a youth in school and then going into 
your career no matter--regardless of your circumstances. And I 
understand that foster youth face unique challenges when 
transitioning out of the foster care.
    And, Mr. Kiefer, I really appreciated you giving us the 
four bullet points that you wanted us to take away. And I think 
the one that really resonated with me was the long-term mentor 
because--Mr. Otero, I am glad you speak to your foster father 
every Friday. If I could get that from my 22-year-old, I would 
be very, very happy.
    Mr. Lloyd, listen, the challenges of youth, you know, 
accessing available services appears two-fold, involving foster 
youth not always being aware of those services, and the States 
underutilizing programs, like the Chafee Program in Title IV-B.
    What do you believe contributes to States not fully taking 
advantage of these programs to serve our youth that are in 
foster care?
    Mr. LLOYD. Thank you, Representative, for the question.
    Yeah, I think, like you in your question had mentioned, the 
lack of awareness. And I think that is something we hear time 
and again from young people. So I think a good starting point 
there would be just expecting States and encouraging courts to 
make sure young people are informed of what is available in 
their States.
    There are funding constraints as well with these services. 
The Chafee Program that was mentioned earlier is 25 years old, 
and the funding initially came to States in the mid-eighties. 
It was doubled in 1999, but it hasn't had an increase since 
then.
    But the eligibility for Chafee has grown significantly. 
Under the Family First Act there was a rule recognition that 
all young people ages 14 and older in foster care should be 
receiving these services to promote their well-being as well as 
to promote connections to caring adults to that individual to a 
permanent relationship. So there is that kind of diluting 
effect of the program right now because we have had that big 
increase of eligibility but no real increase in funding.
    I would say also the lack of alignment between the services 
and what young people recognize as the highest needs that they 
have. And so it is just another good example of why we need 
youth advisory boards in the design of these services.
    Mr. CAREY. Thank you for that.
    Mr. Kiefer, does your program Bench Mark utilize any 
metrics or outcome measurements to gauge the success in 
supporting foster youth on their journey to independence?
    Mr. KIEFER. Yes. And the metric that I think matters most 
to this discussion is the amount of time that we track that a 
student and their mentor have at least one face-to-face 
interaction per month, and that is 38 months on average. So 
over 3 years on average that our individuals are connecting 
with their mentor.
    We have done that organically. We built a program to make 
that possible, but there is no reason that other communities 
couldn't do that exact same thing or that we as a committee 
can't build our systems to drive that kind of long-term 
interaction.
    Now, we certainly have other metrics, that, you know, 92 
percent of the kids who have offended when they are in the 
program don't re-offend. You know, 77 percent of the kids who 
come into the program with truancy issues start going back to 
school once they are in the program.
    And we have a whole list of these that is in my written 
testimony, but the point is those things are not because the 
kids sat through a 6-month mentoring program where we talked 
about life skills. It is that they had a mentor to say, all 
right, now the lesson is done. Are you going to go to school 
tomorrow? Do you need me to pick you up from your house? 
Because if that is what it takes, that is what I will do. And 
that is the key.
    Mr. CAREY. Listen, again, I want to thank all of you for 
making the trek here. I mean, it was difficult for me to come 
in from Columbus this morning, and I know how hard it is. But 
your testimony, your written testimony, our staffs read it, we 
read it. And we appreciate you taking the time.
    So, with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Chairman LaHOOD. Thank you, Mr. Carey.
    I recognize Ms. Chu of California now.
    Ms. CHU. Well, I want to thank all of the witnesses for 
your very important testimony, and especially the foster youth 
for sharing your stories of how you came to be the successful 
young adults that you are today.
    Your testimony supports something that I am very proud to 
announce, which is the introduction of a bill that 
Representative Erin Houchin and I are introducing, which is the 
Increasing Access to Foster Care to 21 Act.
    This bill would provide a financial incentive for States to 
extend foster care beyond age 18, building on years of research 
that shows that extending support into the first few years of 
adulthood can make a clear, positive difference in the lives of 
young people.
    In fact, 28 States, the District of Columbia, and nine 
Tribes have already extended Title IV-E foster care for youth 
beyond age 18. But not all States have opted to extend this 
support, which means that too many fostered youths lose 
supportive services as soon as they turn 18.
    The Increasing Access to Foster Care to 21 Act would ensure 
that States receive Federal reimbursement for all youth in 
their care up to age 21.
    Mr. Chair, last Congress, nearly 100 child welfare 
organizations on both the State and Federal level endorsed my 
legislation to extend foster care nationally, and I would like 
to submit this letter of support from them for the record.
    Chairman LaHOOD. Without objection.
    [The information follows:]
   [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Ms. CHU. Mr. Lloyd, we know that extending vital services 
to older foster youth can have a long-lasting positive impact 
on their lives. However, in your testimony, you reference the 
barriers that face youth who want to continue those services.
    I know that there was one study that showed that extended 
foster care benefits are such that youth have to qualify first, 
and they have to qualify with such things as enrollment in 
college or vocational program, employed at least 80 hours a 
month, or have a medically noted exemption, which can be, 
indeed, a barrier.
    So, can you explain more about these barriers and what 
positive impact would reducing these barriers have on youth 
transitioning into adulthood?
    Mr. LLOYD. Thank you, Representative Chu, for the question.
    Yeah. Of all the young people who are eligible to extending 
care past age 18, less than a quarter will be still remaining 
in care by age 19. So, even though more than around 30 States 
have taken up Title IV-E reimbursement, there is still not 
enough utilization of this program. Yet the outcomes are very 
clear that it is helpful to them.
    And so, yes, I think there are definite barriers. I think 
sometimes there might be barriers related to awareness of some 
of the opportunity to extend, the design of the services 
themselves.
    But there is also some financial kind of challenges as 
well. The eligibility to be reimbursed in the State if the 
young person actually works to meet that criteria, their income 
might be such that they are no longer Title IV-E eligible, 
which then helps--inhibits the State from actually affording 
that cost of extended care. So there are definitely some 
challenges with the eligibility that could be improved.
    Ms. CHU. Mr. Otero and Ms. Behr, thank you for being with 
us and testifying about your experiences. And, well, Mr. Otero, 
you have experience with Indiana's extended foster care 
program. Can both of you expand on how choosing to be in a 
program that can extend services beyond 18 helps advance foster 
youth's success in life?
    Mr. OTERO. Without it, I would not be here today. I would 
never have been able to pass college. I made a lot of mistakes 
my freshman year, as a lot of college kids do. I partied way 
too hard. And I was failing a lot of classes, but I was able to 
receive tutoring and mentoring services.
    I was then able to then have access to the education and 
training voucher. There is a process that handles that, but 
without that, I wouldn't have been able to pay for the summer 
classes to help me get caught up due to those intense mistakes.
    I had to, every summer until I graduated, take those summer 
classes, but without that money, I wouldn't have been able to 
pay for that.
    So just that extended service kept me--not only did it keep 
them involved in my life, and I had someone to help keep me 
accountable, but it just helped me with getting to that point 
where I needed to.
    Ms. CHU. Ms. Behr?
    Ms. BEHR. Really quickly. Although I didn't know that it 
was an option to leave foster care when I turned 18 so I didn't 
turn to extended area, it helped keep me in one place and not 
have to move until I went off to college that summer, and so it 
made sure I had a roof over my head and food for me as well and 
had a couple of supports and kept me with my mentor.
    Ms. CHU. Thank you.
    And I yield back.
    Chairman LaHOOD. Thank you, Ms. Chu.
    I now recognize Mr. Moore of Utah.
    Mr. MOORE of Utah. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you for 
hosting us.
    Thanks for being here. Mr. Otero, don't beat yourself up 
too much over that freshman year. It catches a lot of folks.
    I recently--you know, there is--I feel very fortunate to be 
on this committee and this subcommittee. Very seldom in life 
does something kind of stick with you for more than a few years 
on a particular issue or something you were working on. Since I 
was, like, 17 years old--completely different situation from 
what you two have dealt with--I have been able to be close to 
this issue by engaging with organizations that support this in 
various ways and in various levels of intensity, sometimes very 
close in doing a lot of work in particular or being a little 
bit more distant, but it has been something that has been 
constant to me. It is an emotional issue.
    I had a group of teens in my office the other day, and I 
remember telling them, ``Don't let this define you.'' As they 
were introducing themselves, they oftentimes define themselves 
as this. You are just a freshman in college when it all comes 
down to it. You have got your own path. And you are an 
inspiration to so much of us that are trying to build the right 
policy so we can do this.
    The data on this is staggeringly dangerous. If we don't 
help--if we don't figure out how to help foster children find 
more permanency, find that forever home, that forever family, 
the outcomes are so scary. They are not just small percentages 
of people that get involved in drugs and homelessness and legal 
issues and death. This is a huge number. And so thank you for 
staying close to this. Thanks for helping this issue and in 
helping us figure out how to go about doing it.
    To put a little context on this, Mr. Otero, just share with 
us briefly--from your testimony, you were separated from your 
seven siblings. Is that correct?
    Mr. OTERO. Yes.
    Mr. MOORE of Utah. And just kind of tell me how those 
separations impacted your transition into adulthood.
    Mr. OTERO. So, with the separation of me and my siblings, I 
didn't--I took it as--I didn't want to mention it today during 
the speech because it did mean--it meant a lot to me to have 
the relationship with them, but I--we all took different paths 
in life.
    I am one of eight children from between my mother and my 
father who have been able to not only graduate high school, I 
was the first one to graduate on time between me and my 
siblings and my immediate family, but I am the only one to go 
to college and graduate with a bachelor's degree.
    And so I am blessed to be where I am today, but seeing what 
my siblings went through, I was able to navigate the system 
when I went into the system at an older age. They had all 
experienced terrible things between--they were much older than 
me when they went in the system.
    So they all experienced terrible things. I saw what it was 
when they ran away from the system, and they didn't--they 
stayed on the run until they turned 18. Three out of four of 
them did. Only one of them aged out, but immediately that 
sibling did not want to do anything to--or have having to do 
with DCS after they turned 18, even though they knew that they 
were--had services accessible to them, they just couldn't deal 
with the stigma of how DCS was attached to them.
    So I have witnessed firsthand the negative things that come 
from that, and I am just blessed to be here today.
    Mr. MOORE of Utah. And many of the things that you 
highlighted follow the trends and outcomes that we see with 
transition age foster youth.
    Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit for the record the 
Annie E. Casey Foundation on Fostering Youth Transitions 2023 
report.
    Chairman LaHOOD. Without objection.
    [The information follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Mr. MOORE of Utah. This report highlights a trend of child 
welfare systems failing to find permanent families, forever 
families for young people. Yet we know that children who have 
these forever families to support them have better young adult 
outcomes, including housing stability, educational attainments, 
and other things, and employment that I discussed.
    And I just appreciate you for your testimony.
    Mr. Lloyd, similar to previous questions, but could you 
just add a little bit more context on evidence of generational 
cycles where children who were once in foster care, 
particularly those in child welfare setup, end up involved in 
the system again when they have their own children and how can 
we address this cycle proactively from a prevention forward 
perspective?
    Mr. LLOYD. Right. Thank you for the question.
    Yes, young parents need more options to receive support and 
from trusted sources for sure. And 26 percent of young people, 
older youth who exit foster care will be parents by age 21. And 
so I think, again, it relates back to the Nebraska example of 
how we need to be supporting young parents and the young 
parents or expecting parents in foster care.
    I would also just like to say in relationship to your 
mention of permanency that the testimony that I had shared 
really talks about kinship foster care, and we really need to 
stay the course in prioritizing family for young people and 
particularly connecting them to their relatives and other 
members of their kin as placement settings.
    There has been a number of things that Congress has 
championed over the last 15 years with supporting kinship 
guardianship assistance, navigation programs, family finding 
and search requirements to identify relatives, and the data is 
paying off. It was a 40 percent increase. There has been no 
increase in foster--in nonrelative foster care for youth over 
the last 15 years. That total increase in permanency and 
placement setting has been because of kinship.
    Mr. MOORE of Utah. Thank you. Thank you all.
    Thank you, Chairman.
    Chairman LaHOOD. Thank you, Mr. Moore.
    I recognize Mrs. Steel of California.
    Mrs. STEEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    This is a very important issue that I served at Family and 
Children Services at the county and L.A. County and Orange 
County levels. So I know how these foster kids when they get 
out of the foster care system, and L.A. mostly, a lot of kids 
become joining gangs or, you know, a lot of actually kids 
become homeless people there.
    So we really have to work together in a bipartisan way to 
supporting young adults who transition out of the system at 
critical times in their development because that is a very, 
very sensitive age, and they think they know everything, but at 
the same time they don't know anything. So that is the way it 
is.
    And all of the witnesses, thank you for coming. And this is 
a very important issue, and this is the one actually that, you 
know, we can make our youth grow and we are going to make a 
bright future for this country or not. So I am very much 
concerned about that.
    But it is really interesting to hear from Mr. Otero that, 
you know, coming up today, I really appreciate it, sharing your 
perspective and journey with all of us. And, you know, I really 
praise you that you graduated from college, and out of all of 
those siblings you really got out of it and you did really 
well.
    I just want to say what specific challenges do youth in 
foster care encounter when seeking to obtain a driver's 
license? And were there notable roadblocks that deferred from 
those faced by your peers on the top of your State has the 
foster Youth Trust Fund that helps. In southern California, we 
don't walk more than one block.
    We all need cars. And these kids get out of the foster 
care, they really need a car to drive anywhere in southern 
California. So love to hear a little bit more about that 
system, how they really help and how, you know, they can work 
with those kids.
    Mr. OTERO. So, in Indiana, the people who are going to be 
navigating the program for the Insuring Foster Youth Trust 
Fund, they do a really good job of connecting with the youth at 
a young age and to help eliminate some of the barriers.
    My job as a home-based case worker, I work with foster 
youth. I try to inform all the foster parents and the 
biological parents when they get the kids because it is going 
to be--eventually if kids get unified, they have to then handle 
that. Right?
    But it is learning what can you do as a foster parent, can 
you sign a right to say, Hey, I take legal responsibility for 
this kid? Sometimes they say it is the FCM, family case 
manager's responsibility because you are a ward of the State, 
they are supposed to have responsibility of you. So sometimes 
it gets in a little gray area there.
    But in Indiana, we have also waived the driver's license 
fee for youth searching for their driver's license. So that--it 
is a small cost, but it is a cost that is nonetheless paid for. 
And there are still problems with that. I mean, the BMV, 
depending where you go, doesn't even know that that is a thing. 
So they have to ask another higher up, and it goes through 
chain of command that loses communication the whole way 
through.
    So the number one thing that I think that can help is 
getting people like myself, people who have experienced the 
system, people who have helped testify on these things, to 
advocate throughout the State and just inform them. I mean, we 
know that DCS meets and that we can go to those conferences, 
and we can then tell them that these are the things that are 
going on that everyone should know and that the family case 
managers, the collaborative care case managers should know.
    Mrs. STEEL. Thank you for that.
    And there seems to be a great deal of misinformation when 
it comes to foster youth accessing the services, even 
questioning if they were real. What were some of the 
misconceptions around accessing services? And what do you think 
is contributing to the misinformation and how can we solve 
that?
    Mr. OTERO. Yeah. So a lot of times people are, like, I 
didn't know about this. I didn't know that foster youth can get 
almost free college by the Indiana 21st Century Scholar. I 
didn't know that the education and training voucher was a 
thing. What attributes to a lot of it is that there is a high 
turnover rate in our case managers in Indiana--well, everywhere 
actually, high turnover rates.
    And whether that be attributed to the stress of the case 
and that you are dealing with real people with real problems, 
that is a real thing, but if we can just get people in 
positions to communicate these things effectively. And when you 
go through foster care--and there are many different people in 
a foster youth's life. There is the LCPA, the licensed foster 
care agencies.
    At times, there is my job, the home-based caseworkers, the 
FCMs. Then you have the judges. Having someone to get them all 
together to inform them of what is going on is the best way to 
get that communication right.
    Mrs. STEEL. Thank you.
    I yield back.
    Chairman LaHOOD. Thank you, Mrs. Steel.
    I now recognize Mr. Evans of Pennsylvania.
    Mr. EVANS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Lloyd, you highlight the importance of mentoring as one 
of your policy recommendations in your testimony, which we know 
is important. How can we better incorporate peer mentoring 
partners when implementing the policy that we are discussing 
today?
    Mr. LLOYD. Thank you, Representative Evans, for the 
question.
    Yes, I think it is in some ways about encouraging States to 
prioritize things, like peer mentoring and other mentoring 
services. Title IV-B would be an opportunity to designate young 
people as a priority population for services like that. And it 
is also an opportunity I think to revisit the Chafee program, 
because funds currently exist for mentoring, but in the report 
you see that few youth are actually receiving those types of 
services.
    Mr. EVANS. If I piggyback a little bit on Mr.----
    Mr. KIEFER. Kiefer.
    Mr. EVANS [continuing]. Kiefer. When Mr. Kiefer said what 
he said about long-term commitment, the question really is how 
do you get people to understand that this is important if they 
don't seem to understand. Now, you would agree they sometimes 
don't seem to understand.
    Mr. LLOYD. Right.
    Mr. EVANS. Mr. Kiefer said very emphatically. I am just 
trying--not that you have a magic wand. I am just trying to 
understand, right?
    Mr. LLOYD. Absolutely. And I think that what we see is 
stability in placements, changing placements too many times, or 
stability of the caseworker, too many social workers involved, 
the likelihood that they will achieve lifelong permanent 
connection goes down.
    So we really need stability of relationships, and I think 
it is to your point about the mentoring. So I think it is 
helping mentors and mentor programs understand that there needs 
to be that long-term connection. It also relates to the real 
core objective of child welfare when you come into foster care 
to promote permanency for them.
    The best way to do that is connecting them back to 
relatives. Extended relatives and kinship members of their 
family are the most likely individuals to be in it with them 
for the long haul.
    Mr. EVANS. I yield back, Mr. Chair.
    Chairman LaHOOD. Thank you, Mr. Evans.
    Now turn to Mr. Smucker of Pennsylvania.
    Mr. SMUCKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to each of 
the witnesses for being here today. Particularly Mr. Otero and 
Ms. Behr, thanks for sharing your story. Appreciate that.
    Mr. Kiefer, great job today, and you have been asked a lot 
of questions about what has made your program successful. You 
have talked about the long-term care mentoring. One of the 
other things I have noticed is that you are nimble in terms of 
creating new programs to meet the needs of the kids who come 
through the program, and I was going to ask you just a little 
bit about that.
    You also mentioned you have Kenny, your son, here with us 
today, and you said he is available to ask any questions. So 
with your permission, I was going to ask you about the program, 
but I know that Kenny has been through Bench Mark and many 
different programs. I would love to hear from him.
    What was that experience like for you? Tell us about----
    Mr. JACKSON-KIEFER. Come up here?
    Mr. SMUCKER. Sure, do that. We will kick Will out for a 
minute, and you can tell us about, you know, how you 
experienced Bench Mark in your life.
    Mr. JACKSON-KIEFER. As mentioned earlier, I was first at 
Bench Mark when I was 14, so I was glad I went there when I was 
14 because Will became my mentor. I left for a little while in 
2016. I came back on probation. And during that time, as 
mentioned, I lost my father, my mother, and my brother, and 
then Will offered to take me in because I had nowhere else to 
go.
    And, ever since then--you know, he, of course, adopted me 
and became my father, and I have just appreciated it so much 
because, you know, the common theme here has been support and 
guidance, and that is what all foster children need is support 
and guidance as parents are supposed to offer.
    And Bench Mark has offered that for me countless times. And 
I have given everything back to Bench Mark. Every time I step 
in there, I--I mean, every break I come back from school, my 
first thing I do is work at Bench Mark, help the kids. I stay 
in contact with the kids.
    I help--you know, they are in a similar situation that I 
am, and we just keep, you know, that Ping-Pong conversation 
back and forth all the time. And I just love Bench Mark, and I 
support it. And I will, you know, always support Bench Mark, 
donate my money to Bench Mark, and also start something just 
like Bench Mark to help children just like me.
    But there was something that I was thinking about. Earlier 
we were talking a lot about, like, parents and stuff and how--
you know, like, I think that is the main--a part of the 
problem. We should, you know, try to encounter--like, deal with 
it because, you know, it comes from your parents, and our 
parents' burdens come onto us, just like making it a policy. 
You know, moving forward something we could do is, you know, 
get parents' help with knowing how to take care of children 
and, you know, support them and move forward because, you know, 
that is really where it all starts is our parents.
    But Bench Mark has helped with many kids, and I see it 
every day. I am so grateful to be able to go back and have--I 
mean, of course, Will is my father now. But it makes me a bit 
emotional knowing that, you know, this is how far we have come. 
And I am very proud of him and everything he has done there.
    And thank you.
    Mr. SMUCKER. Well, thanks for sharing, Kenny. I very much 
appreciate it.
    Mr. JACKSON-KIEFER. Sure.
    Mr. SMUCKER. Thank you so much. Wonderful story.
    Mr. Kiefer, any additional things you would like to say 
about Bench Mark and the programs? I know you have a number of 
different programs as I have mentioned. Any other particular 
things you would like to highlight?
    Mr. KIEFER. Thanks, Congressman Smucker.
    The only other thing I will add is that we generally throw 
programs to kids knowing that they are wonderful resources for 
them. But if those programs don't connect to each other, I 
think we are doing a disservice to the kids who are in them 
because we are setting them up for these short-term engagements 
that are very positive but then systematically don't offer a 
long-term.
    So, again, from the minute that a kid is housed in our 
local Lancaster County Intervention Center for a delinquency 
issue or a dependency issue, they can get a Bench Mark mentor. 
And we will just begin by showing up at court, seeing them 
weekly in the detention center, and walking them the whole way 
through--if it is delinquency, the whole way through their time 
on probation, if it is dependency----
    Mr. SMUCKER. I know you are also focused on jobs now, and 
maybe that is a new focus for you or you are increasing your 
focus on that. Tell us a little bit about what you are finding, 
support from the community, what is working, what is not with 
that.
    Mr. KIEFER. We found interestingly, as Mr. Evans brought 
up, that pure mentorship, offering a job to a young person who 
succeeded in our program to serve as a peer mentor is wonderful 
to give back, but also builds their resume in a huge way. And 
then, if we bring community members in who work in businesses 
in the community, they see these individuals. They get to know 
them.
    They look at their resume and say, Geez, you have worked at 
Bench Mark for 2 years. I would love to talk to you about 
working here at my business.
    I mean, we have seen that to be a very effective step by 
step through our program, through working our program, to 
getting a job elsewhere.
    Mr. SMUCKER. Well, thanks again for being here. Our 
community is very fortunate to have you there. Appreciate your 
work. Thank you.
    Mr. KIEFER. Thank you.
    Chairman LaHOOD. Thank you, Mr. Smucker.
    I now recognize Mr. Smith of Nebraska, who is a former 
chair of this subcommittee and passionate about this issue 
area.
    Mr. SMITH of Nebraska. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you 
to my colleagues as well and certainly thank you to our panel. 
Your professional perspective--more importantly I would say 
your personal perspective being vested in this issue, all of 
you, it is very compelling.
    And there is one thing that I have noticed. It doesn't take 
a lot to observe this, but the repeated reference to human 
interaction and the value that that has that, you know, I fear 
that over time we have tried to help people, I think well 
intended. We have tried to help people by qualifying them for 
various services, sitting them in front of a computer, hit a 
few buttons. Okay.
    You qualify for X. And yet the more important dynamic is 
that interaction with a human being, whether it is a 
caseworker, whether it is a mentor, whether it is an employer, 
certainly a family member when possible. And I also know that 
it is hard to get folks to step forward.
    I was just wondering if you could perhaps elaborate on what 
we should be mindful of or just what you want to remind us of 
that is important in terms of engaging these folks who can 
bring so much in terms of mentorship and that human interaction 
that is so effective ultimately.
    How can we generate more available caseworkers and other 
mentors as well? Maybe if we can, maybe a little bit from all 
four of you.
    Mr. Lloyd.
    Mr. LLOYD. Okay. Thank you for the question.
    Yes, I think there is a real opportunity in this current 
package with Title IV-B to reauthorize this, to stabilize the 
workforce. They are--it is a system that is balancing so many 
competing priorities, and we really want to see that 
consistency of the caseworker being connected.
    I would also just say too that the permanency efforts for 
young people, identifying kinship families and other foster 
families, recruiting them and supporting them well and even 
financially incentivizing States, of positioning States well 
through cost sharing to support families is critical.
    We did some national polling at one point, and it was 
nearly 30 percent of adults in the U.S. that consider becoming 
a foster parent. If even 1 percent of adults in this country 
moved forward with that, we wouldn't have a problem with foster 
care and adoption.
    Mr. SMITH of Nebraska. Thank you.
    Ms. Behr.
    Ms. BEHR. Thank you.
    So when it comes to these issues and especially with 
mentoring, creating programs or finding ideas for it, I feel 
like it is always very important to gain authenticity's voice 
from all areas, including working with Tribes or even with 
other youth--diverse youth, recognizing that mentorship is a 
two-way street, so working with the young people as well to 
recognize it is a--it is a working relationship.
    A lot of young people when we get a mentor, we feel that 
that is somebody we can call when we are upset. But we don't 
recognize, like, that we could also help contribute to them as 
well. And something that my mentor told me was that she 
expected that out of me, and that helped me recognize how to 
build a relationship because a lot of us didn't know how to 
build those relationships.
    And then also having connections, something in common, we 
had to figure out--I had to fill out a sheet of paper, and my 
mentor did too, to get connected. So matching kids with random 
mentors doesn't always help, so recognizing that as well.
    And then, lastly, I always like to say more male mentors 
because we find that a lot of females do volunteer to be 
mentors, and there is a lack of young men or men in general 
that volunteer. Because I had a mentor my entire time, and I 
have had her for 10 years, and my brother, he had a mentor who 
just disappeared, and they just didn't show back up.
    Mr. SMITH of Nebraska. Thank you.
    Mr. KIEFER. Thank you, Mr. Smith.
    Speaking from my own experience, my wife, Karla, and I 
never planned to foster and then adopt Kenny, but we had a 
window into his life through our program so that when these 
things happened in his life that made this opportunity 
available to us, it was a no-brainer, but it was not a foreign 
thing to us.
    The concept of doing it was not in our plans, but knowing 
him was the key. We knew right away that we would be happy to 
do it and be with him for as long as it took. But it was 
because we knew him ahead of time and we had gotten to know him 
through a community-based program.
    Mr. SMITH of Nebraska. So a familiarity?
    Mr. KIEFER. Correct.
    Mr. SMITH of Nebraska. Very good. Thank you.
    Mr. Otero.
    Mr. OTERO. One thing that I can tell you that would benefit 
mentoring is if we got the youth who have been through this to 
use their college degrees or go into college to then give back 
to the system, like myself personally I am a home-based 
caseworker, and I see that I can relate to these kids on a 
level where they are understanding that I have been through 
that.
    I can tell you the programs because I have done them, and 
here's the real-life benefit of it. This is the exact money, 
and it could increase here, so incentivizing--there is a 
program that is being piloted by a couple of agencies in 
Indiana, Peer Mentoring, of former foster youth who are now 
working with current older foster youth that are aging out of 
care.
    And I think that is an amazing thing because getting 
someone who has been through the system to help someone else 
navigate that system is an amazing thing. And so I would 
incentivize more States to do that.
    Mr. SMITH of Nebraska. Thank you.
    Thank you to our all-star panel here today. I really 
appreciate it.
    I yield back.
    Chairman LaHOOD. Thank you, Mr. Smith.
    I recognize Ms. Sewell of Alabama now.
    Ms. SEWELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Ranking 
Member, and all of our guests who are here today.
    You know, one of the things that Kenny said that really 
resonated with me is that the common thing when you are talking 
about helping youth--foster youth is support and guidance, 
support and guidance.
    I wanted to make sure that all of my colleagues knew that 
there is a foster caucus, a congressional foster caucus, and 
they put on every year a Foster Youth Shadow Day.
    And one of the things that I think that we can do, aside 
from making better policy and passing a reauthorization of 
Title IV, is to be involved, to actually accept one of the 
foster youth that day to shadow you.
    I did it, and I have to tell you I was completely ignorant 
as to what was going on in my State about foster youth until my 
classmate, Karen Bass, Congresswoman from California, now the 
mayor of L.A., started this shadow day.
    And I can't tell you how rewarding it is to meet someone 
from my State who is experiencing something that I don't know 
anything about. And I have been educated by those wonderful 
youth.
    And I just want to say to all of you, it is hearings like 
this, firsthand accounts like you, Ms. Behr, and you, Mr. 
Otero, that really give us an eye into what is going on, but we 
can't do it alone. It is not just about money. It is also about 
making sure that we have good public/private partnerships that 
are there as a safety net.
    And so my first question is to you, Mr. Lloyd. I know that 
you represent a foundation that has taken one of its missions 
working on this, but can you speak to other public/private 
partnerships that exist?
    Mr. LLOYD. Yeah. One example of that is currently called 
the Opportunity Passport. It is a matched savings account. We 
have helped 20 States develop this, and they have leveraged $85 
million in support of the initiative's programming. Thirty-five 
of that is from private investment of probably about 80 
foundations, including ours.
    We invest about a million dollars in that. We match young 
people dollar for dollar for certain asset purchases as they 
transition from care. The number one asset purchase is a car, 
right, which is no surprise.
    Ms. SEWELL. Exactly. I actually wanted to ask Ms. Behr if 
she could--because I notice that you have a connection with the 
National Foster Youth Institute. And I know that Congresswoman 
Bass, now Mayor Bass, was really influential in starting that 
initiative.
    Can you talk a little bit about why that was so important? 
And can you tell me what do you see as the difference between 
yourself and other foster youth that don't go to college, that 
don't get out of high school? If you could sort of say what the 
difference was, that would be really helpful, or at least talk 
about your own experience.
    Ms. BEHR. Yes. Thank you.
    So the first thing is about the shadow day being so 
important. Although I didn't get to shadow the person that was 
from my State, I got to learn a little bit about South 
Carolina, and I got to meet with Senate--or Representative 
Nancy Mace.
    Ms. SEWELL. Yep.
    Ms. BEHR. And got to learn a little bit about what is going 
on over there, got to educate them, and then honestly got to 
learn a little bit about what goes on everyday here----
    Ms. SEWELL. In Congress, yes.
    Ms. BEHR [continuing]. As well as get a little trip. I got 
to go and see the top of the roof.
    Ms. SEWELL. Oh, you got to do that.
    Ms. BEHR. I did. It was really cool.
    Ms. SEWELL. Good for Nancy for doing that.
    Ms. BEHR. Yeah, it was awesome. But it really gave me the 
recognition that it is really important what is happening up 
here, and I would love to be up here every day advocating for 
change. So I am working on making my way up here.
    Ms. SEWELL. Yes.
    Ms. BEHR. But that was really thanks to NFYI or National 
Foster Youth Institute in helping us get into that.
    And then when it comes to the difference of foster youth, I 
feel that one of the biggest things--reasons that I am sitting 
here today was because when I entered the foster care system, I 
knew that I wasn't supposed to be in the foster care system and 
my family needed minimal services. I was 16, and I could speak 
for myself, but my voice was stripped in the courtroom.
    I wasn't allowed to talk in there. And so I essentially 
made it my--once--my judge at one point told me that I would be 
a failure in life if I didn't go home to my mom, which I didn't 
know was an option at all. I made it my mission to show my 
judge that I am going to be a successful young adult, to the 
point that I was a homeowner at 21. I had bought my own car. I 
have my own--started a side business. I bake a lot. But not 
everyone has that opportunity to recognize what they can do 
when they are older.
    Ms. SEWELL. Yep.
    Ms. BEHR. And they don't have those supports there. I 
mentioned my mentor earlier. I had my dad that stuck it out by 
my side. He was fighting to get us home and constantly just 
fighting for us tooth and nail, and not every child has that. 
And I try to be that support for those young people in the 
State of Florida and try to help them get to where they believe 
would bring them the most success.
    Ms. SEWELL. Well, thank you all.
    And, Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to acknowledge what a 
great hearing this has been and, once again, to encourage all 
of the members on our subcommittee to participate in the Foster 
Youth Shadow Day. It really is--I think I got more out of it 
than my mentee, but it was really, really rewarding, but also 
very, very informative.
    Chairman LaHOOD. Thank you, Congresswoman Sewell, and 
appreciate you reminding us of the caucus.
    We will now turn to Ms. Tenney of New York.
    Ms. TENNEY. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman and Ranking 
Member, and thank you Representative Sewell. I did not know 
about that. Sounds like a tremendous day, and I would certainly 
join the caucus and would love to be part of the day.
    Ms. SEWELL. And the chair is Gwen Moore.
    Ms. TENNEY. Oh, great. Well, that is terrific, even better.
    Ms. SEWELL. And they are cochairs, Gwen Moore and Don 
Bacon.
    Ms. TENNEY. Wonderful.
    Well, thank you so much to all of you. What a wonderful 
experience. Not every day in Congress is bad, especially when 
you get to meet people like you where you are so inspiring and 
have really faced struggles and challenges, and this is an 
important program.
    And I just thought I would share a few facts just about my 
home State. I am from New York, and enabling people to transfer 
out of foster care is really important, and we have over 25,000 
children in foster care, and only 3,000 are moving out of care 
at this point. So, as you cited, Mr. Lloyd, we need to find 
foster parents. We need to find mentors. We need people who 
will do this.
    I was lucky enough to be the daughter of a Supreme Court 
Justice. My dad was 35 years serving, but his little known 
story is he was a very poor kid from New Jersey that kind of 
works his way through life. And he was always very concerned 
about fostering people who didn't have a mentor and someone who 
didn't have a person to look up to, and he always instilled 
that in us. In our family business, we do provide opportunities 
for people who have been in foster care. We provide 
opportunities for people who have, you know, a lot of other 
obstacles to getting gainful employment. So almost universally 
anyone that comes out of foster care becomes a tremendous asset 
to our company. And so I appreciate all that you are doing and 
getting these kids to this point.
    But I wanted to just ask a question first to you, Mr. 
Lloyd. And what can we do in the system--how do we make this 
system--is there something we can do to overhaul the Child 
Welfare Services Program by reducing the fragmentation and by 
redesigning it--when you talk about reimagine, redesign, can we 
bring and streamline this system to include this so that we do 
have--you know, meet the goals of the consistency, the 
consistency of care, the long-term goal of having one mentor or 
one system where someone can turn to. Could you just, like, 
maybe briefly touch on that for a minute?
    Mr. LLOYD. Absolutely. First, I would just like to 
congratulate Congress for really setting a vision time and time 
again for the child welfare system to be recalibrated. And I do 
think that there is a need to do some major redesign of child 
welfare. Child welfare, unfortunately, has become a catch-all, 
a social service catch-all, right, when there is a lack of 
housing in the community or substance abuse disorders or many 
other things, they look to child welfare as sort of the lowest 
common denominator in the community. And so we really need to 
help the child welfare system focus on families who are really 
truly in crisis and who need that kind of intervention, a much 
narrower set, and find other ways to kind of work 
collaboratively and across funding streams to strengthen 
families and communities and provide that stabilization.
    Ms. TENNEY. Well, thank you. I appreciate that.
    Now I wanted to just also ask because I have a dear friend 
who is actually a businessman in my community who grew up in 
foster care. He was raised at the House of Good Shepherd and 
then went into foster care in Upstate New York. And he is now a 
very successful businessperson. And he tells this story--and I 
have had him testify for me in Albany and other places--on his 
journey out of foster care and into success. And I asked him 
just now--I texted him a little while ago--who were your 
mentors and who was the most influential to you?
    You know what he said? There were so many people that 
impacted my life. But he did say that one of the things that we 
could do is allow more flexibility in the program so that we 
could have access to more mentors. And I thought that was--that 
was his idea. He also provides foster care students or young 
people to come to his business.
    So how do you incorporate that? And I love the idea with 
the business community, bringing them into play. How do we do 
that? Is that something we can do under the child welfare 
system? Is that possible?
    Mr. LLOYD. Yeah. Thank you for the question.
    Yeah, there are definitely situations where mentors, and I 
would even say kinship care parents, grandparents, relatives 
are actually not eligible to take in children because of 
certain licensing requirements. They are unable to be licensed 
as a foster parent.
    The administration recently set out a new regulation giving 
States the option to have kin-specific licensing centers so 
more grandparents and relatives can become foster parents. When 
they are not foster parents, they get less than half of a 
foster care per diem rate, and that is only if they are 
eligible to get a TANF child only payment.
    Ms. TENNEY. Okay.
    Mr. LLOYD. If they have two to three children, it can be 
three times being a licensed foster parent versus what they 
would get through TANF.
    Ms. TENNEY. I know my time is expired. Just one quick thing 
on what Representative Sewell has mentioned about Foster Care 
Shadowing Day. Maybe we should each bring some business that 
would be willing to offer opportunities for a foster care 
person and meet them, and that would help get them connected. 
Because that is what it is all about, isn't it?
    Mr. LLOYD. Yes.
    Ms. TENNEY. About having connections and taking advantage 
of those things as you move through life.
    But I just want to say thank you to all of you. You are 
very inspiring, and it was really great to hear from you. And 
hopefully we will make some great changes and good services to 
the taxpayers as we move forward.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Chairman LaHOOD. Thank you, Ms. Tenney.
    Our last member who will question today is Mr. Feenstra of 
Iowa. He doesn't serve on the subcommittee, but he wanted to be 
here today because of his interest and passion for this area.
    I recognize Mr. Randy Feenstra of Iowa.
    Mr. FEENSTRA. Thank you so much, Chairman.
    This is very important to me. I just came off the floor. 
Member Kildee and I had a bill that we are moving forward and 
that will be voted on by the Members of Congress concerning 
foster care data. We feel that there is so much going on in so 
many different States, but we really don't have the data to 
create solutions to the problems that exist.
    And I just want to give all of you a shout out for your 
testimonies. I read them. Unfortunately, I was on the floor so 
I couldn't hear them verbally. I apologize for that. But I read 
them, and they are moving. They touched me.
    In Iowa, the great concern and why I am so passionate about 
this is that we have lost almost half of our foster care 
parents in the last 4 years. There is a problem. We see that in 
D.C. We see that in many other States. And so we have got to 
come to a solution on what is happening.
    You know, I also see that 19,000 youths age out of the 
foster care program. And are they ready for success? You know, 
that is a concern. All the sudden you age out, and you are on 
the street, or you could be. That is scary. What are we doing 
to make sure that we are preparing them for success?
    I know there is an enormous amount of good people in the 
world and in our Nation, and they strive to improve our foster 
care system and support those within. Obviously, we have many 
of those here. But I would like to talk about two key aspects, 
the kinship foster placement and nonprofit organizations.
    Mr. Lloyd, you discussed the Casey Foundation report and 
the positive trend and the shifts toward kinship placements. 
But what struck me is what you just said is that when you start 
going down extended relatives, that they all of a sudden have a 
disadvantage financially, and this could have dramatic effects 
when there is this financial vulnerability.
    So I would like you to just talk a little bit more about 
that, what you are seeing and the vulnerability that we are 
putting when we have a child that goes into these placements 
that the money is not there to help financially.
    Mr. LLOYD. Thank you for the question.
    Yes, earlier today there was a mention of just the stigma 
associated with child welfare. And some relatives are, frankly, 
fearful to working with the child welfare agency, and so they 
will sometimes take in children, you know, into their home and 
don't want to necessarily have any relationship with the child 
welfare agency, don't want to become a licensed foster parent 
because they fear they could lose their grandchild, right. So 
there is a lot of concern around needing to prioritize kinship 
caregivers, support them better, encouraging States to do that 
and so just better positioning them, because we think that that 
is really the key. Some States are searching for relatives to 
the fifth degree of consanguinity and affinity. I don't know 
how many of us even know our relatives that far out. That is 
great-great-great-grandparents.
    Mr. FEENSTRA. Yep, yep. Wow.
    Mr. LLOYD. Okay.
    Mr. FEENSTRA. Wow.
    Mr. LLOYD. And so that is what it is going to take if we 
want to have families to step up for children, and we need to 
support those families when they come. And if it makes sense 
for them to be a licensed foster parent, we need to do that.
    Mr. FEENSTRA. Yep.
    Mr. LLOYD. And we need to support them well. There are 
States that are not financially supporting kin who are licensed 
at the same rate that they are supporting foster parents who 
are not relatives.
    Mr. FEENSTRA. It is ridiculous.
    Mr. LLOYD. It makes no sense.
    Mr. FEENSTRA. It doesn't. It doesn't. And we have got to 
solve this. There is a solution to be had right there.
    Thank you for those comments.
    Mr. Otero, thank you for your testimony. I applaud what you 
wrote. You were placed, obviously, with your grandmother that 
we were just talking about. What are the most significant 
challenges that you saw with your grandmother through the 
foster parent? And I am, again, looking for solutions. How can 
we improve? What would you tell me? You know, Member Feenstra, 
this is what needs to be happening. What do you think?
    Mr. OTERO. So what I think is that I do love the idea of 
kinship, and I love that I was placed with my grandmother. My 
grandmother was the best thing that ever happened to me in my 
life. However, I want to keep in mind that we cannot lower the 
standards of these homes because they are kin.
    I have seen it firsthand not being--my grandma loved me, 
and she loved me more than anything, and she would sacrifice 
her sleeping on the floor so we could sleep on the couch 
because we didn't have a bed, you know. And the reality of it 
is if you can make it look good for one DCS day when they come 
to see that house, then you look good one day. And then they 
say, ``Okay, we are done with you. You can have these two 
kids.''
    And my mom and dad ended up having two more kids that lived 
with my grandmother. So we had four older ones in foster care, 
four of us living at my grandmother's sleeping on the floor, 
sleeping on couches. And the fact of the matter is that, if we 
just gained any little bit of financial support, we would have 
been able to move out of--we lived in Gary, Indiana, which I am 
sure you know all about Gary, Indiana. You have heard of it at 
least once.
    And so, you know, in that circumstance, we can't lower the 
standard. But if we can provide the financial support, then 
these homes--I mean, they can support them better. If you 
wouldn't let your own child stay in these homes, why would you 
keep these kids here, you know? And I see that every day.
    I see DCS allow kids to stay in these homes that are 
infested with bugs or have no paneling because it is kinship, 
and they pass an inspection for one day. But then when I enter 
the home and I see that, I say they wouldn't let their own 
kid--they wouldn't sleep there themselves. Why shouldn't those 
kids.
    Mr. FEENSTRA. Great, great comments. Thank you. And it is 
our responsibility to do something about it. And thank you for 
coming.
    I yield back.
    Chairman LaHOOD. Thank you, Mr. Feenstra.
    That concludes the questions and our answers today at this 
subcommittee hearing.
    Let me just say to our witnesses how grateful we are for 
you being here today and how much you have contributed to this 
dialogue and discussion. And in particular, Rebekka and Jordan 
and also Kenny, you give us hope. You inspire us by being here 
today and sharing your stories. And, Mr. Lloyd and Mr. Kiefer, 
thanks for your expertise, your experiences, what you brought 
to us here today and for sharing everything you have today.
    We can't do this work without you and without people in the 
field sharing with us how we can do things better from a public 
policy standpoint.
    And, as we look at our work ahead in a bipartisan way, we 
look forward to continuing to stay engaged with you, getting 
your thoughts, and making sure we are doing everything possible 
to change the trajectory on those statistics I gave earlier and 
what we need to do better because we have plenty of work to do 
moving forward.
    So I will just remind members that you have 2 weeks to 
submit written questions to be answered later in writing. Those 
questions and your answers will be made part of the formal 
hearing record.
    With that, our hearing is concluded. Thank you. Safe 
travels.
    [Whereupon, at 3:56 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
      

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