Life Skills Program: Occupational Therapy for Young People Aging Out of Foster Care

Help support NAU Occupational Therapy's individualized life skill program for young people aging out of foster care. 

The NAU Department of Occupational Therapy offers a practical, hands-on program to help young people leaving foster care build the skills they need for independent living. Through one-on-one, individually tailored occupational therapy (OT) sessions, participants learn valuable life skills like money management, obtaining and maintaining employment, self-advocacy, meal preparation and grocery shopping, health management and maintenance, time management, coping methods, and more. Additionally, OT doctoral students helping with this research project learn how to employ OT interventions and evaluations with this population. 

Your support can make a lasting difference in the lives of young adults aging out of foster care by helping fund some aspects of the program.

NAU students are not the only beneficiaries of this program. While students gain practical clinical and research skills through their participation in this project, youth transitioning out of foster care further develop life skills with the help of their occupational therapists. Although youth transitioning out of foster care may experience many of the same challenges as their peers when emerging into adulthood, they have the added pressure of becoming fully independent without the same preparation or family assistance their peers often receive resulting in undue hardship. For example:

• Between 31-46% experience homelessness at least once before the age of 26, compared to 4% of their peers.
• They are twice as likely not to have earned a GED or high school diploma by age 21; by age 25, only about one-third have attended college, and at 29, only one-fourth have earned a degree or certificate.
• At age 24, as little as 60% will report obtaining gainful employment, and on average, earn less than half of their same-aged peers.
• Substance dependence is also more common among YTC compared to their norm matched peers, 8% versus 0.7% respectively.
• While behavioral health disorders are four times greater for YTC than their peers, 25% stop receiving outpatient mental health services and 11% stop psychotropic medications due to cost after discharging from foster care.
  

Implementing this life skills program offers NAU students the opportunity to help improve participants' independent living skills and possibly their future outcomes following their transition from care.

Thank you for taking your time to listen to our video and read about our project. We greatly appreciate your consideration to donate to our program! 

Learn more about NAU Occupational Therapy by visiting https://nau.edu/occupational-therapy