At any given time, there are about 400,000 people up to age 17 in foster care in the United States, according to The Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Many will never be adopted or permanently reunited with their families of origin. That means they’ll “age out” of the system into adulthood on their own, with all the challenges of getting a job, paying rent and pursuing an education.

There are state and federal programs to help with the transition: extended foster care up to age 21, financial assistance for college, Medicaid coverage up to age 26. There are also rights and benefits kids are entitled to while in foster care.

But a lot of foster youth don’t know about the help that’s available. By age 21, only about 70% have earned a high school diploma, and fewer than half have a job. Fewer than 5% have an associate’s degree or vocational training.

In Florida, child welfare advocates are trying to get crucial information to foster youth about these rights and benefits to help them while they’re in the system and when they’re out.

Every year, 700 to 800 foster youth in the state reach the age of 18 or 21 with no permanent legal family, said Robin Rosenberg, deputy director of Florida’s Children First, citing state data on foster care.

Aheim King is one of them. He’s 21 and active in the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity at Florida State University, and several college and community groups that advocate for foster youth.

“I’m on my own,” said King, who grew up in Tampa. “Once I graduated, I turned 18, I packed my bags.”

And against the odds, he earned an associate degree and is now two semesters away from a bachelor’s in nursing. His college education is supported by a federally backed tuition-and-fee waiver for foster youth, along with a $1,720-a-month stipend.

“When I first came here, I doubted myself, especially my intelligence,” King said. “‘Am I supposed to be here?’ And sometimes I definitely do struggle with it. But I just have to tell myself: ‘I’m confident. I got this.’”

King’s worked all along the way to support himself.

“As far as jobs,” he said, “I’ve worked at Taco Bell, a race-car place, Subway, I was a headhunter at a temp-to-perm agency, I was a CNA [certified nursing assistant] and I did DoorDash.”

King’s friend and fellow foster youth advocate, 20-year-old Quabiona Peeples, also from Tampa, has been bouncing between a series of foster family homes and group homes since she was 6. She’s just started working on a bachelor’s degree in criminology at Florida State.

As a teenager, she couldn’t work to earn her own money.

“I didn’t have the right papers to get a job — birth certificate, Social Security,” she said. “At my group homes, there were some times, if you was misbehaving, you didn’t even get the allowance,” typically around $30 a month.

Peeples has been lucky, getting advice from her foster mom and help from the Florida tuition waiver and stipend.

But, she said, “a lot of foster youth do not know about that. So they be like: ‘What’s the point of graduating if my college is not going to get paid for, who’s going to pay for this, who’s going to pay for this?’”

Fortunately for foster youth in Florida, there’s an app to help them find out about the rights and benefits they’re entitled to.

FosterPower is the brainchild of Taylor Sartor, an attorney at Bay Area Legal Services in Tampa. She got the idea while she was in law school and representing foster youth. Sartor said they had questions, and the answers weren’t in a guidebook.

“‘Am I supposed to get an allowance, I’m in a group home?’” Sartor said. “One teenager was aging out of foster care soon, wanted to know about extended foster care, what kind of benefits were going to be provided.”

FosterPower launched in 2023. The next year, Sartor’s team was awarded a $405,000 from the Legal Services Corp. to expand its reach in Florida and replicate it in other states.

King and Peeples helped test the app — foster youth who worked on the project have been paid advisers, Taylor said.

“If I’m having problems with dental, with medical insurance, with knowing my rights and that I don’t have to be kicked out with a garbage bag at age 18 — I have all that information in my phone,” said King.

The importance of mobile phone access was emphasized by the foster youth advisers.

“We had gotten a lot of feedback — kids lose things, kids in foster care lose things even more. So if kids could have this on their phones, it would be a total game changer,” Sartor said.

FosterPower addresses immigration, independent living, court, health, education, money.”

In addition to providing information and legal references, the app features videos seeded with questions from foster youth, covering topics like master trust accounts, reproductive health and allowance in foster care.

Other programs for foster youth in Florida offer more hands-on help for launching into financial adulthood.

Karen Bowen, 53, runs a foster home in a middle-class Tampa suburb and a house nearby where youth who have aged out of the system or who are in extended care can live more independently.

Bowen has launched Nekkts Step Hope Foundation, a nonprofit that assists foster youth and parents.

“We’re learning all the life skills, job preparation, financial aspects, and I’m walking this with you step by step.” Bowen said her work is guided by her foster kids, including Quabiona Peeples, who lived in Bowen’s foster home through her final years of high school.

Bowen said one day, Peeples called and said, “’Hey Miss Karen, can you come get me and go to with the bank with me? Because I’ve got this charge on here and I’m not understanding.’ And that’s what we do. We go with you, but we stand back and allow you to take charge.”

Building trust with foster youth is crucial, said Zach Laris, a child welfare expert and blogger who formerly served as a policy director at the American Academy of Pediatrics.

“Apps and other services like FosterPower play an important role in reaching young people,” Laris said. “Whether it’s education and training investments, or access to Medicaid up to age 26, young people are much more likely to pursue and follow up on those opportunities when they hear about them from a trusted resource.”

Laris pointed out that about 15% of federal tuition dollars earmarked for foster youth go unclaimed every year. Meanwhile, those who have aged out have lower education levels and earn about half what their peers do, on average, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Looking forward, Laris said child welfare advocates nationwide are worried about Republican plans to cut the federal budget, which could reduce spending on health care, education, housing and food assistance for foster youth.

“Anything and everything could be on the table,” Laris said. For instance, cuts to Medicaid would impact the vast majority of foster youth, who get their health care through the program.