| Abstract: | SUMMARY This exploratory, qualitative study of 28 (10 Hispanic and 18 African American) former foster care youth attempts to capture the essence of their quest for self-sufficiency. While research on former foster care youth continues to highlight the problems confronting them after they emancipate from care, the depth of their struggles is often lost in the aggregation of statistics. The numbers themselves often fail to capture the hardships, isolation, hope, and despair many of them may face as they attempt to adjust to life after foster care. Furthermore, existing research often regards emancipated youth as a homogeneous population. Interviews with these respondents of color were coded to determine the themes and stories they held. The themes emergent from these interviews were: the importance of people in the independent living programs; vagueness in recalling the content of the independent living programs; family conflict; housing instability; regrets, fears, and lessons learned; and future goals. Implications for culturally sensitive practice and research are drawn from these data. |
