Over the past decade, the idea that kids should leave foster care as soon as possible for permanent, stable homes, has become popular. Agencies call this “permanency.” It was the basis for the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) of 1997, which sought to move kids more quickly out of the limbo of foster care and into permanent homes. ASFA mostly focused on increasing adoptions. It included financial supports and a stricter deadline for terminating parental rights. But in recent years some systems, like New York City’s, have focused on the other side of the permanency equation—family reunification.

According to the statistics, most kids are indeed leaving the system to so-called permanent homes. In 2005, of the 287,000 children who were discharged from the foster care system, over 50% reunified with their parents or primary caregivers, and another 22% were adopted or discharged to legal guardians. But most of these were younger children, not teens.

For teens, permanency is a much more elusive goal. Leaving the system without a legal family is much more likely. For instance, in 2005 only 5,750 teens were adopted (11% of total adoptions), while almost 25,000 teens aged out of the system.

In this issue, we consider the options for leaving care. Some writers have been able to find adoptive families, or go back home to birth parents and successfully stay there. Others feel conflicted about adoption or unable to live with a birth parent, even when the system sends them home.

We also explore how teens can find other supports if they can’t find a stable family. For teens, permanency may be less about legal ties and more about finding lasting, informal connections with friends, mentors or relatives. No matter how we leave the system, we all need a network of supporters to carry us through the challenges of life after foster care.